1. Designing Your SharePoint Team Site
A Step by Step Guide

2. Who Am I?
I am a business analyst and information architect at DevFacto Technologies.
I am a member of the international institute of business analysis (IIBA) and the information architecture institute (IAI).
I am also a Neilson Norman group UX certified professional.
That means that I like to know what the process is and obsess over the terms and descriptions associated with it.
It also means I have some very good insight into designing a solution in a way the end users can understand it.
I am a father to 3 wonderful young boys all aged 6 and under.
I have been married to the love of my life for just over 8 years now and don’t see any end in sight 
I am an avid gamer and super amateur board game designer.

3. Overview Identify Users and User Stories Map out use cases
Information Architecture
Security
Content Strategy
Records Management
Additional points for consideration
Navigation
Examples

4. Step 1: Identify Users and User Stories
Determine the needs and uses of the team site
Internal (Security Trimmed)
External (Company wide)
Areas of focus: Communication, Collaboration, Services, Processes
Use Case
User
Area
I want to share a book with a coworker
Team Member
Collaboration
I want to review a book before it is published
Team Manager
Process
I want to look at available books
External Member
Services
Before you can begin to create a team site, you will need to think about who is on that team and what is their purpose for needing a team site.
Typical areas to focus on are Users within the team and users external to the team. Addtionally you may want to identify supervisors and managers to the team.

5. Step 2: Map out use cases Process Mapping Identify all users involved
Look for areas for automation
Approvals
Messages ( , text)
Task assignment and tracking
Identify the “things” …
It is important to create the visualizations/ diagrams for the use cases identified.
The visualization helps to ensure that all participants are identified (via swim lanes) and that there is a clear start and end to the workflow.
Visualizations can also help to unify vision and expectation from all parties involved.

6. Step 3: Identify the Things (Information Architecture)
What are the things the team uses
What are the characteristics of those things (Meta Data)
One of the primary uses of a SharePoint team site is as a content management system. In order to leverage search and many other features of SharePoint, we recommend that teams work together to identify all the ‘things’ they are going to put on their team site.
Once you have identified the things, you can identify the characteristics of the things. These characteristics will translate into meta data that can be leveraged once your site is up and running.

7. Step 4: Identify Associations (Information Architecture)
Determine how the things are related
Build containers and groupings
Categorization and Classification
Now that you have identified the things, and the characteristics of the things, it’s time to create the associations between those things.
This will help to guide the design of your SharePoint site.
For example if you find that your team uses Books, Magizines and Newsletters, you can create a grouping called “Publications”. This is how we will determine what content can be grouped together in a new library and what characteristics can be created as a list to use in association with lookup columns.

8. Step 5: Design Security Access levels Consumer (Read) Creator (Write)
Publisher (Approve)
Group vs Individual
Maintenance
Container
User
Access level
Publications
Jane Smith
Read
Rolando Chavez
Write
Container
Group
Access level
Publications
Readers
Read
Authors
Write
A very important step of the team site design is the security model. The team will need to work together to determine the groupings and security settings for the things and content that they want to have on their site.
Remember that in SharePoint security can be set at many levels : Site Collection, Site, Library, Folder, Item. As a general rule, we try to avoid item level security as it becomes a

9. Step 6: Consider common components
Most Team sites use some of the following:
Calendar
Announcements
Communication Board
Task Tracking
Project Tracking
Documents Libraries
Shared Links
Contacts List
OneNote
Every team has different needs

10. Additional points of consideration
Sharing outside the team
Publishing Site & Pages
Content roll up
SharePoint has limitations
Content Type Hub
User Experience (UX)
Use common vernacular
Avoid Acronyms
Web Part vs SharePoint App

11. Step 7: Put it all together
Group things and outline security
Consider Links and Navigation

12. Step 8: Design Navigation
Global Navigation
Typically, not changed on team sites
Local Navigation
Alphabetical vs Most commonly used
Persists across entire team site
Call to Action ->Promoted Links (SharePoint 2013+)

13. Step 9: Design the Interface
Organize the layout of the relevant pages/sites/libraries
! Users typically scan the page top left (Most Important)
to bottom right (Least Important)

14. Step 10: Design Content Strategy
Substance
What is the message
Workflow
Process and tools for Create,
Edit, Maintain, Archive
Structure
Meta Data and Tagging
Governance
Hierarchy of decision makers
Ensure that your team has at least considered their content strategy.
What is the structure of the content? (think back to the things and their relationships in Steps 3 and 4)
What are the workflows associated with the content? (think back to the use cases from Step 2)
What is the substance of the content? (what is the message we are trying to send to someone)
What are the rules around governance of the content? (Who are the approvers? Who are authorized authors of content)
Image Source:

15. Step 11: Outline Records Management Rules
Outline the life cycle of an item (creation, access, distribution, storage, and disposition)
Consider short term and long term policies
Outline the roles and responsibilities around the records (RACI)
E.g. who has the authority to approve major versions?
RACI = Responsible, Accountible, Consulted, Informed
From Wikipedia
Responsible (also Recommender)Those who do the work to achieve the task.[7] There is at least one role with a participation type of responsible, although others can be delegated to assist in the work required (see also RASCI below for separately identifying those who participate in a supporting role).
Accountable (also Approver or final approving authority)The one ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of the deliverable or task, and the one who delegates the work to those responsible.[7] In other words, an accountable must sign off (approve) work that responsible provides. There must be only one accountable specified for each task or deliverable.[4]
Consulted (sometimes Consultant or counsel)Those whose opinions are sought, typically subject matter experts; and with whom there is two-way communication.[7]
Informed (also Informee)Those who are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task or deliverable; and with whom there is just one-way communication.[7]
Image Source:

16. Team Site Examples

17. Default SharePoint 2013 Team Site
Call to Action
Announcements/ Message Board
Document Library
Image Source:

18. PWC – User Experience Team
Announcements
Call to action
Project Tracking
Document Library
Useful Links
Image Source: Five Purposes of Modern Intranets - Step Two Design

19. SharePoint Community Site
Announcements
Call to action
Message Board
Calendar
Image Source:

20. NAV Canada – Department Page
Team Name
Team Details
Local Navigation
Announcements / Promoted Links (Carousel)
Call to Action
Document Libraries
Team Member Profile
Image Source: Intranet_ Design_Annual_2016.pdf- Step Two Design

21. In Summary Every Team is different Identify and Classify the “Things”
Consider the user and their use case
Use security groups
Upgrade and Improve

22. The End
Any Questions?