That O365 Guru from Cape Town (#NadirKamdar)

Thank you all who attended my session, as promised, please find my presentation slides below. For those who missed it, my talk was on SharePoint and Maturity, I talked about the importance of the maturity assessment, and what maturity assessments models are available. This presentation is focused around SharePoint, but I am sure the information here can assist you with other types of maturity assessments.   (You can download it here :  http://www.slideshare.net/nadirkamdar/oh-grow-up-a-look-at-share-point-and-maturity-2012-final )

I remember the excitement when SharePoint 2010 came out, us developers and architects saw this as the solution that will resolve ALL the flaws found in SharePoint 2007.  The SharePoint 2010 demos were, well, to narrow it down to one word, seductive!  We were convinced that this would be the best product to sell, deploy, use and support.  But SharePoint 2010 is not perfect.  Sure, it kicks 2007’s butt!  But some of the issues identified from SharePoint 2007’s time was carried over to SharePoint 2010 and some new issues were “invented” when added functionality and complexity was added. SharePoint 2010’s approach in providing us with a web solution is already dated by about 5 years.  Remember that SharePoint may have been available to the public in 2010, but the magicians in Microsoft started designing, planning and building the solution from 2008 at the latest.  That’s when Silverlight still had a future, Social Networking has no place in the b...

A paperless office is a work environment in which the use of paper is eliminated or (more realistically) greatly reduced.   You achieve this by converting your documents and other papers into digital form.  By “going paperless” you can …           Save money (paper, printers, inks and toners)           Boost productivity           Save space           Make documentation and information sharing and searching easier           Keep personal information more secure           And, of course, help the environment. We are now more environmentally aware, we see the production of paper as a significant contributor to deforestation and climate change.  We have added measures like recycling and tree-free paper to help reduce the environmental impact, but online document management systems like S...

Up until the start of this year, I have been working for small consultancy companies.  While I have always enjoyed the flexibility of this environment, I have never really had strong exposure to large organisations until now. The company I work for has been acquired by a much larger organisation, meaning that I am now part of a big company.  It’s been three months since the acquisition, and while the transition is still taking place, I am already noticing a shift in my thinking.  I would like to share this with you, and maybe add on to this post as more differences are identified. Before I continue, I just need to add that the points below are not necessary points from the company I work in.  I have been in this industry for a long time, and have built relationships with all kinds of people in different positions and companies (including my competitors) and have managed to pick up some consistencies and facts worth mentioning.  Some of these points are...

Developers love to code and hate to write documents, but documents are important in IT.   We need documents to define how the solution will be built so that coders who enter the scene later in the project can easily catch up.  We need operational and training manuals so the people who are looking after the solution are aided in doing it right, we also need numerous project management related documents but today, I want to focus on those documents that are more technical in nature, and somehow ends up on the coders lap, who usually has no idea how to handle this responsibility. Firstly, let’s start off by saying that document writing is a skill; it’s a valuable skill that coders should embrace rather than avoid.  It may take you away from your comfort zone, but building this skill alone will helps you advance your career to the next level.  So give this responsibility proper attention and you will see the rewards. But how does one write good technical documents?...

When we look at the minimum resources needed for a SharePoint environment, we think SharePoint administrator and maybe the “can-do-it-all” SharePoint Developer.    Don’t get me wrong, these resources are great and are vital for the stability and growth of the SharePoint environment, but they are essentially the workers, or the term I like using, the brick layers (don’t take it as an offensive term, that’s not my intention), they have a strong focus on the technical component of the SharePoint environment, and although they can achieve greatness on their own, they can achieve so much more if they had guidance from someone with a broad understanding of SharePoint (not necessary focused on the technical side) with the ability to map a business problem to the SharePoint technology, that can engage with the business user and plan an approach that will achieve the greatness that SharePoint can provide.  They are the SharePoint Architect. The reason why I am focusing on this r...

While a new version of SharePoint did not come out in the year 2011, it does not mean that nothing happened in that year.  This post will highlight the key achievements of SharePoint in the year 2011 and also my predictions in the year 2012. The phase out of SharePoint 2007 :  SharePoint 2010 was introduced in the 2nd half of 2010.  The year 2011, started the phase out of SharePoint 2007 and the phase in of SharePoint 2010 – this is evident when you look for SharePoint training currently available.  At the start of 2011, Good (or any) SharePoint 2010 training was few and expensive, and now, at the end of 2011, SharePoint 2007 training has been completely phased out. Using SharePoint better :  People loved SharePoint 2007, but they were not using it correctly, which introduced many pitfalls, as mentioned in my blog post written exactly one year ago  ( http://nadirkamdar.blogspot.com/2010/12/common-pitfalls-in-sharepoint-projects.html ) .  The year...