The Return on Investment for SharePoint Consulting
In our SharePoint consulting engagements, we often come across interesting problems that can be solved by some amount of customization. This was exactly the case when a change manager from one Upstream client came to Entrance with concerns over educating employees on a new system transition.
Pipeline controllers at this company needed to understand the changes and how they affected their jobs. After some consideration of the business problem, Entrance recommended that our client try SharePoint gamification.
We shared some of the steps we went through for this SharePoint consulting engagement when we first started the project a few months ago. Now that the gamification customizations are live on the customer’s SharePoint site, it has been exciting to see how they are using it and what employees think.
Incentivizing SharePoint Participation
A common problem in the SharePoint consulting world is when sites are developed and implemented, but afterwards stakeholders have no idea who is using it or if it is serving the purpose for which it was developed. As a result, calculating ROI or any sort of value for the project is not possible.
In the case of this implementation, the site was launched with incentives (like gift cards and t-shirts) for people to participate and build up points. The addition of fun and competition immediately encouraged employees to use the site and become engaged.
Similar to a computer game, each user starts out at a basic level and moves up as they score points. Each level is named after something relevant to the oil and gas industry.
There is also a leaderboard where employees can see monthly and lifetime high scores. This helps the change management team to check in on who has been staying up-to-date on system migration changes, and who has not.
Another major benefit of our SharePoint consulting work is that the gaming system has been set up so it can be managed internally. After the customization was complete, Entrance trained the team on how to administer it, thus empowering the team to use the system as necessary.
Since the launch of gaming system, reports back from the client are all positive. Employees report that they love playing, and the client is thrilled that so many people are engaging with the content they need.
For more on how the oil and gas industry can use SharePoint to improve collaboration and engagement, check out this post…