As you are recruiting individuals as members of the SharePoint Governance Committee, make certain that they understand and are comfortable with the committee’s charter and mission statement and that they will be willing to share it with individuals throughout the organization.

A high level committee charter includes the purpose of the committee, the time frame that you are asking them to serve and the anticipated amount of time that they should expect the committee to consume during their business week.  The charter will also outline the general focus of the group and the type of decisions that will be made.  If the group will be called upon to make decisions of a technical nature, make certain that the business people on your committee understand that they will be asked to understand the technology and make a determination of it’s validity within their frame of experience.

Your mission statement for the committee should state that the governance committee will be the champions of the use of SharePoint within the organization.  It should also state that the committee will be the highest level of authority regarding SharePoint decisions and that what they decide will inform the policies written around SharePoint and will guide the way that SharePoint is positioned and used within the organization.

The membership of your Governance committee should consist of individuals that are ‘action oriented’ and that are focused on making decisions and then executing against those decisions.  The members chosen to serve on the committee should  have both an appropriate level of business savvy, industry experience and are champions of technology (whether they understand it or not) and be enthusiastic regarding the capabilities that SharePoint will provide to the organization.

Rather than simply discuss SharePoint, the committee will be expected to learn the platform and act as its champion within the organization.  If some on your committee feel as though the governance committee meetings are ‘just another meeting’, then you will need to replace them.  Also, business people who speak entirely about ‘strategy’ and ‘theory’ and don’t bring actionable ideas to the meeting are not doing you any good.

I.S. Departments also usually avoid adding people to the committee that they see as not being ‘technologically aware’.  Why do we avoid adding these people?  Because it takes more time to explain technology and SharePoint to them.  But when you think about it, aren’t those EXACTLY the type of people that you want represented on your committee?  If you are like most companies, you will be spending the majority of your time explaining to the user community exactly what SharePoint does.  So, why not have your ‘technology luddite’ help prep you with content that will explain to the end-user what SharePoint can do for them?

Communication is crucial to keeping the governance committee engaged with their duties.  Most communications should be facilitated via a Governance Committee SharePoint site (duh?!) so that the information is available to the group around the clock.  Communications to the governance committee should include, at a minimum:

• Governance meeting dates and times and the agenda for the next Governance meeting.
• Minutes from each previously held meeting so that those unable to attend will be able to catch up on what decisions were made and what topics were discussed.
• Decisions made in each meeting.
• Any interesting use of SharePoint that’s been encountered within the user community that can be used as a success story.
• Effects of decisions made by the Governance Committee.
• An area for feedback from the SharePoint user community that the Governance committee can interact with directly.
• Upcoming meeting agendas and any work that should be done prior to a meeting.