That O365 Guru from Cape Town (#NadirKamdar)

I have received confirmation that I am now a certified SharePoint Aiim Master, the first one (I can say only one, but I guess that depends on when you read this article) in Africa. This is the highest certified SharePoint title available from Aiim, and this is a title I had to EARN, this isn’t a simple certificate of attendance.  After attending the four day course, I had to study and then write an online exam, pass with over 70%, and after that, I had to study a detailed case study and submit a 10 page report on it. So yes, I worked hard for this title, made a few sacrifices, and, at the risk of sounding arrogant, deserve the right to blow my own trumpet for short while – thus this post. So what’s so great about this title?  Well, it’s from Aiim ( http://www.aiim.org ), a non-profit organisation that specialise in providing education, research and best practices to organisations to help them find control and optimise their information.  Aiim has been working on E...

Let me start of by explaining how things were before I became a Manager. I worked my way to a Senior ASP.NET developer with a decent amount of SharePoint exposure; it only took me 7 years. And in those 7 years I was usually poorly managed; • scope was poorly defined and not managed • no clear plan was in place or plan omitted crucial steps • timeframes were unrealistic • no quality checks were in place (faults were discovered during client demo's) • clients expectations were not managed • communications were poor • processes were not followed • resource allocation was poor (I once requested a .NET developer and my Manager believed he solved the problem when he got me a junior network administrator who knew a little HTML) • poor risk management In many cases I had reached a point where I had very little faith (or respect) for my manager that I insist that they present me with the requirements and leave me alone so I can “do my magic”, this involv...

I really don’t like the term “Best Practice”, because that implies that it can’t get any better, that’s not true as it’s the constant changing, modifying and improving of standards, methods, techniques and processes that makes best practice.  This is especially true in the IT world. I would like to enter this topic with a non-IT related example.  A few months ago, I was sick; this illness caused some internal imbalance that eventually lead to a high build-up of wax in my one ear.  It was so bad, my ear was completely blocked, and it remained blocked for days.  I had to go to the doctor. I was expecting the doctor to use some special ear-scope to find the wax build-up and then pluck it out with a tweezer or any other thin long medical device, it seems like the obvious solution, it would be quick and effective.   Instead, the doctor poured warm, soapy water into my ear, she poured and poured into the ear for about 1 and a half hours until the wax started t...

The Protection of Personal information bill (the bill) has been getting a lot of attention lately, currently it’s a bill that is not yet enforced, but that is set to happen this year. Organisations are expected to take reasonable steps NOW to ensure that they are compliant when this bill becomes law. So lots of seminars and training sessions are now becoming available to educate you on what the bill is all about and what “reasonable” steps can be taken in order for you to be compliant. So what is this bill all about? The bill regulates the collection, storage and distribution of personal information by both private and public bodies. It is based on world standards and is regarded as leading practice baseline for effective data privacy regulation around the world. The bill aims to provide an acceptable balance between the right to privacy and the legitimate need to use personal information. Personal information is regarded as any information related to a person from first na...

We have already established that there is a shortage of SharePoint skills; my post on that topic has been my most popular post to date. This problem becomes the root cause of other problems, and the problem I want to focus on today is the fact that the shortage of SharePoint skills places your existing SharePoint team in high demand and if proper steps are not taken to retain this staff, consider them lost. It’s unfortunate but true, due to lack of training available, the number of new SharePoint players entering the market is low (and still needs a lot of work before they can add real value to projects), so in order for a company to deliver on a SharePoint need, they need to use existing SharePoint players, and in order to do that, they need to figure out who’s the competitors key players, and make them an offer they cannot refuse. Sometimes these “offers they cannot refuse” are ridiculously high, meaning that a counter offer is out of the question, so the big question I’m placi...

Proper project planning and process management is essential for successful projects, but after working on SharePoint projects for over 4 years now, I have discovered some common pitfalls, some unique to SharePoint projects while others are general issues that seem to pop up more frequently in SharePoint projects. The following are some common pitfalls and some tips to help make the project more successful (please note that some of these pitfalls has been mentioned in previous posts, and this posts aims to summarize my findings). Pitfall #1: You are NOT using SharePoint correctly One of the first things people must understand about SharePoint is that Microsoft did not create SharePoint as a replacement of their existing offering. Microsoft created SharePoint for fulfill an organizational need, and they were clever enough to create in is such a manner that it complements (NOT replaces) there other offerings. Lets look at an example and focus on Intranets, before ShareP...

I have been studying project management in the last few months; the course is very interesting but works on the assumption that you are a project manager working on projects for your organisation. In my case, that is not true. I work for a consultant (outsourcing) company, meaning that the “projects” I work on is really for the benefit of my client’s organisation and this small distinction makes a big difference in how the project manager handles the project. Firstly, let’s look at the purpose of a project. For an organisation to finally decide to invest into a project the organisation must see that the success in the project will lead to the success of the organisation; the project also needs to fit strategically within the organisation, the following considerations needs to take place: Does the project fit with the organisation’s technology architecture? Does the project follow corporate standards, policies and methods? Can the project last with the organisation’s business...

My current role involves more than just department and project management. it also involves pre-sales demonstrations. Prepping for a demonstration is very time consuming and very difficuly, especially since its not my primary job function. Over time, I managed to define an approach that produces great demonstrations with minimal prep time. I am going to share this approach with you. This approach is constantly improving and I value any feedback and recommendations you may have that can help me improve this approach. 1. Do not re-invent the wheel. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, focused on SharePoint and ASP.NET solutions.  My demonstrations are focused on showing off Microsoft products. If my pre-sale demonstration leads to a sale, my Company and Microsoft wins. Microsoft is aware of this and they want my demonstrations to Rock! If fact, it’s in there best interest to build detailed demonstrations for me, and that’s exactly what they did. Go to the following si...

This article is a continuation of Part 2 - Please read that article first. Phase 3: Development   In the development phase, the solution is built according to the specifications defined by the architect (As defined in Part 2 ).   The development phase requires 2 key players, the SharePoint Administrator and the SharePoint Developer.  Yes - this is two different roles with two different skill sets.  You may want to add SharePoint data-capturer to the list so basic tasks like deploying a taxonomy and site population can be completed by a cheaper resource, allowing the higher skilled resources to spend time on more complex requirements. The SharePoint Administrator The SharePoint Administrator focus is on the setting up, configuration and management of services running on SharePoint.  Anything available "out of the box" from SharePoint can be deployed by the SharePoint Administrator, which should be at least 80% of the entire solution.  (If anyth...

This article is a continuation of Part 1 - Please read that article first.   Phase 2: Planning After the Envision Phase is completed, the Planning Phase starts, that requires a different set of skills. If the Envision Phase is all about "What the Organisation wants", then the Planning Phase is about  "How are we going to give them what they want". Successful projects (SharePoint or otherwise) places a lot of time into planning, on average, 20% of your entire project should be placed in the planning phase, if you get that right, the future phases is just about applying the plan. The experts needed for this phase are as follows: Project Manager Business Analyst SharePoint Architect Infrastructure/network administrator Database administrator SharePoint Designer Steering Committee From the last phase, the Business Analyst would have defined the scope and document what the organisation wants.   In this phase, the SharePoint Architect...

I published my “ Shortage of SharePoint skills ” blog post on numerous sites, many readers were in agreement with the points made in the article but the comments surrounding the blog post indicate that the shortage exists because companies are looking for ONE person to handle the entire SharePoint delivery. I have a few theories why this is happening. Bottom line, the business does not know what SharePoint is; they see it as a product similar to Word and Excel, so they get there IT administrator to install this product, and expect everyone to use it. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Unlike Word and Excel, SharePoint is a platform, not really a product, and this platform is very flexible. It’s designed that way so it can be adjusted to fit within your organisation, be it a small business or a multinational company. SharePoint also offers a lot. It’s described as a collaboration platform, but this platform offers Content Management, Intranet Portals, Business Intelligence, W...