Going Plaid

I just posted an article on the Axceler blog re: understanding the current-state of your SharePoint migration. Here’s an excerpt”

In one of my favorite scenes from the Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs, the heroes — played by John Candy and Bill Pullman — narrowly escape the bad guys in hyperspace when the villains miscalculate their hyper-jump and effectively “go plaid” (they leave behind a tartan warp signature) as they fly past in a blur of light.

As utterly ridiculous this scene is, the writers stumbled upon a metaphor that is borderline existential: by overestimating their measurements by even a fraction of a degree, the villains not only missed their intended target – they wound up in a completely different galaxy. When presenting on SharePoint migration planning, I often connect this story to the common pitfalls of failing to properly understand current-state and future-state designs. Not properly understanding the current system (functional and operational gaps, business processes and workflows) may only appear to be small fractions in your measurements, but when applied against the life of your project or product, those miscalculations could have major impact to your bottom line.

(This topic and other are discussed in greater detail in my recent ECM Connection article “11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migration”)

(Read the full article here)