Axceler, a SharePoint product and consulting organization, released results of a recent survey they conducted on SharePoint Governance (Results of the survey are located at this link, Registration required). The results were not that surprising based on what we are seeing in the marketplace with our clients.

We define governance as the set of policies, roles and responsibilities and processes put in place to guide the development and use of an Enterprise Content and Records Management (ECRM) solution.

It wasn't surprising to see that 65% of the 265 respondents to the survey said that SharePoint is a strategic, enterprise-wide platform (Question 3). But when asked how well is SharePoint governance defined within your organization, 47% of the respondents said not very well or not at all. If you add in those that were neutral (27%), you have almost 3/4 of the respondents indicating their governance of SharePoint is not defined. If you combine these results with those from Question 5, which is how important is SharePoint governance to your organization today, the story looks worse. 67% of the respondents said SharePoint governance is extremely or very important to their organization.

The good news is that 71% indicate that SharePoint governance is important or extremely important for their 2012 planning (Question 8). But over half of the respondents have either not started planning or are just starting to plan their governance (Question 7).

The experts at Access Sciences have created governance structures for SharePoint and other ECRM systems at many organizations, both large and small. We have also spoken on the topic of our own governance methods at several conferences and webinars. If you are just starting to plan or need someone to assess your current governance structures, give us a call. We would like the opportunity to earn your business.