Another Failed Collaboration Request

In the middle of sending out an email to a colleague informing them of our newly evolving SharePoint policy, she happened to pass by my office, so I asked her to pause for a moment.

I smiled and explained that I was about to send her an email when she walked by.  I told her I would go ahead and send it along anyway so that the rest of her department was aware but wanted to talk with her instead.

I asked her, "Hey can you do us a favor and coordinate with IT on creating new SharePoint/Teams sites?  Last week, you created a Team that seems to overlap with other Teams ..."

She immediately interrupted saying, "You need to just leave her alone and let her ... "

Having had enough of her rude and interrupting behavior or previous occasions, this time I interrupted her, talking over the top her to finish what I had started to say.

Starting again, "You created a Team and Channels that already exist, and we are only asking that you coordinate with us prior to creating any new Teams.  We just finished cleaning things up in that space, removing a lot of abandoned sites and merging some that were redundant, and are wanting to guide things a bit more."

She rudely interrupted again saying, "I am not sure why this matters to you."

"Well, I am the SharePoint Administrator and we have left things open to make collaboration and continuity a little easier.  Again, we just finished cleaning things up in that space, removing a lot of abandoned sites and merging some that were redundant."

She asked, "Why isn't it just locked then and bar everyone from doing it?"

"We have a small IT staff, and we keep costs of support and management down by enabling folks to do what they need to do without excessive interference from us.  We could just as easily lock it down and force everyone to go through us, but we are choosing a more collaborative path."

She kind of huffed a "fine, whatever" and walked off.

I followed with the email as promised, so her group would know.

Hi QS!

As a follow-up to our conversation, we need your help in reducing redundancy and information scatter.

Please come and discuss any plans for creating new SharePoint/Teams spaces so that we can help guide the process.

The new SharePoint/Teams space you recently assisted VPCP in creating duplicated space already allocated to those programs.

We only recently completed an effort to clean up the SharePoint / Teams environment, removing numerous abandoned and redundant spaces.  Some of that effort continues with those that are more integrated with other services.

Her boss immediately shot back a response.

It’s my understanding that QS was helping VPCP with Channels within her existing team.  Educating her on how to create and ideas on how to utilize.

Are you saying we need your approval to create any new channels within our teams?  And need approval for any new Team creations in MS Teams?

I waited a little while before responding, feeling that perhaps she might realize her own misunderstanding of the situation.  An hour later, I responded.

Channels within SharePoint/Teams are always at the discretion of the Team owner.

We are asking that users assist in reducing information scatter and redundancy across SharePoint/Teams.

The best path forward for that is through collaboration with the SharePoint Administrator, which happens to be me.  

Doing so will help to ensure that SharePoint/Teams already supporting a given effort are utilized to their fullest potential, as well as eliminate the site redundancy, abandonment, and information scatter of the past.

As explained to QS, SharePoint/Teams has been left wide open not just to facilitate greater collaboration, but more importantly, to lower support and management costs for those IT-managed cloud services.

We appreciate your patience as development of policy and guidelines surrounding governance of this space and associated data continues to evolve.

As always, let me know how I can help.

She replied again.

Sorry, I’m still not following you.  QS helped VPCP create a channel.  This was for her other groups outside of My Day.  If she needs a team for those groups, then she should be able to create one.

This is first we’ve heard that consultation with the admin/you was needed prior to creating new teams and/or channels.  So noted and we will advise others to reach out to you moving forward. 

While we are talking about Teams – please remove yourself as owner the General/Files folder in our Teams

I look forward to the policy so we can clear up these communication issues.

Clearly, she is not getting it, so I went to look for her to "clear up these communication issues."  Email is always difficult with this person.  They never seem to comprehend, even when it is presented in bullet points.  Actually, I don't think they want to comprehend.  They are too busy trying to rule over things that they have no authority over.  

She could not be found, and it appeared that she had left for the day to work from home, so I replied again.

There does seem to be a little confusion.

QS created a new SharePoint/Team and Channels beneath that for Teams that already existed.

We are only asking folks to collaborate with us prior to creating a new SharePoint/Team.

Channels remain at your discretion. Create as many as suits your purpose.

Otherwise, I am not now, nor have I ever been, owner of anything within your Teams, or even a member of those.  Consequently, I am unable to make that adjustment, but will stop in and clarify this with you.

She replied almost immediately, validating my thought that she was working elsewhere.

The other teams you are mentioning are the Director’s Teams, not VPCP.  She wants an area where she can manage the information across her teams.  An area where she will only invite the directors and she doesn’t want to traverse a bunch of teams to store her own information.  But – this is a good conversation for you to have with her.

Then she fired off another note.

Here’s the screen shots of where I see you as “owner”.  You were on other folders, but that has been removed from what I can tell.

I responded.

Thanks for sending that along!  It is a huge help!

I never noticed, but it appears that since I am Site Admin, I show up as "Owner" of document libraries in SharePoint.

Let me see what I can do to change that.

She replied.

Only on the two I listed. Not on any others. 

However, her statement is inaccurate.  I am very much "Owner" of all Document Libraries in SharePoint.  It seems that because we do not have a group and I am Site Admin for all the sites, I show up as "Owner."

I didn't respond any longer.  There is no need.  Talking with my C-Boss about the situation, he seemed in perfect agreement with me and added that she probably needs to get used to the idea that IT has insight into everything. Indeed, she should probably already be fully aware of that, having come from the Cerner Sweatshop.