I heard a very interesting term last night at the WNC SharePoint User Group. "SharePlosion" (a SharePoint explosion) and that is a great description of what can happen with SharePoint if you don't have a governance plan in place. Microsoft has made it so easy for users to create new sites and workspaces that in a very short period of time a small group of users can create hundreds of sites. The ability to put the "power" into the end users hands is a double edge sword. Yes, this eliminates the bottleneck that occurs when users have to ask IT to create sites for them but at the same time it can mushroom into an unorganized mess.

Governance 101 – Who is allowed to create sites and what justifies their ability to do so. Here's a simple example: First you will have at least two roles. One will be an Admin person or "Approver". The second would be a user that has the ability to create sites but must receive approval first. In this example Mary, the user, needs a new project site. She navigates to a form (custom list) on here SharePoint Intranet and requests permission to create the site. The form may have questions like;

• Purpose of site
• Members of site
• Company project or initiative associated with this site
• Associated department
• Type of site needed
• And any other comments

Once the form is complete, the "approver" Bob, gets notified of the new site request, reviews the criteria and approves or denies which in turn notifies Mary. In this way there is a process in place to manage the number of sites created and the opportunity for the approver to suggest other alternatives when appropriate. For instance there may only be a need for a new document library on an existing site rather than an entirely new site.

Governance for your SharePoint site must be one of the first steps when planning for your SharePoint Implementation. SharePlosion clean up is very messy!