Best Practices in Portal Development, Deployment and Management

Ray Valdes

Notes accompany this presentation. Please select Notes Page view. These materials can be reproduced only with Gartner's official approval. Such approvals may be requested via e-mail vendor.relations@gartner.com.

How Do Portal Deployments Succeed: Many Modes of Success and Failure?

Modes of Success
Huge Success (<3%)

Modes of Failure
Catastrophic Failure (<1%)

Unqualified Success
(5%10%)

"Shelfware"
(20%25%)

Moderate Success
(35%40%)

"Teflon" Portal (Modest Failure)

(30%35%)

Real Success Comes from Changes to Established Business Processes. SOA and Web Services can Greatly Facilitate Process Change.

Key Issues
1. How are enterprises deploying portals?

2. How should enterprises define portal strategy?

3. What are best practices in implementing and deploying portals?

Key Issues
1. How are enterprises deploying portals?

2. How should enterprises define portal strategy?

3. What are best practices in implementing and deploying portals?

Portal Deployments Evolve in Parallel With Technology

Level of Business Transformation

Web Services

Adaptive apps. Composite apps. Platform for new apps.

Access to apps (via app. integration) Access to apps. (via single sign-on) Access to content (via search & personalization)
1996 2000 2004 2008 2010

The Portal Deployment Mix is Changing from Content-Centric to Integration-Centric

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

New App Platform

(Gen. 4/5+)

Principal Focus of Deployment

Syndicated Apps Composite Apps (BPF) Platform for New Apps Advanced App.Int. Basic App.lnt. Simple SSO Content-centric
Gen. 1/2/3/4 deployments can be implemented on Gen. 5 platforms

IntegrationCentric
(Gen. 3)

Content-Centric Deployments
(Gen. 1 and 2)
1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

0% 1997

Pendulum Swings
B2C to B2B to B2E, and Back Again Outward-Facing

B2C E-Commerce

B2B Marketplace

Stagnation and Consolidation

Self-Service and Partner Portals

Cross Domain Orchestration and Choreography

1998
Intranet

2000
Departmental Portal

2002
Multiple Enterprise Portals

2005
Portal Consolidation

2007
Composite Apps

Inward-Facing

Key Issues
1. How are enterprises deploying portals?

2. How should enterprises define portal strategy?

3. What are best practices in implementing and deploying portals?

Building the Business Case for the Portal: Show Me the ROI

Examples of other media for communication and collaboration.

Telephone, fax, voicemail, e-mail. So what is the ROI of your phone system? Most organizations have only an intuitive understanding of ROI for legacy media. Portal is different because it is new, expensive and possibly risky.

Portal
"Soft" intangible value: productivity, satisfaction. Concrete, tangible benefits: tied to specific business processes.

Bottom line: Portal cannot be truly successful unless it changes how people work.
Low hanging fruit: self-service to HR applications across entire user population. Higher up: essential business apps tied to a specific business process. Moral: Win the war for ROI one process at a time, one department at a time.

Where Do Portals Come From?

They may fall into your lap

From an acquisition or merger. From a "stealth" implementation outside of IT (often outsourced).

The portal "Witness Relocation Program"

A less-than-successful KM or BI initiative gets relocated to a different project, with a new name and identity. Actually, management realizes that the scope truly is beyond the initial KM focus.

A flash of insight strikes the CEO or CIO

Scenario: CEO needs an important document and searches for it.
"It's on the intranet, didn't you read the memo." Five versions of the document on five servers, none are correct.

"This cannot stand."

A commitment to implement anything that resembles a solution. Explains much of portal investment over the past five years.

Eight Keys to an Effective Portal Strategy

1. Build one enterprise-wide portal strategy 2. Build shared vision of portal 3. Link portal to business goals and objectives

4. Define tangible ROI, but don't go crazy

5. Implement appropriate governance 6. Identify audiences/demographics 7. Rationalize multiple portals 8. Link to/create content strategy 9. Create funding strategy

The Enterprise Portal Project

Generate requirements Determine deployment method

Homegrown Outsourced/Hosted Open Source Portal Product

Source solution

Architect, design, layout Build proof of concept (POC)

Leverage off-the-shelf portlets Flex personalization, integration

Iterate POC
Integrate directory, security, Build new portlets Use portlet intercommunication

Focus on change management

Decision: One Portal or Multiple Portals?

Answer: "Do the Math"

Connect the dots Estimate the cost of each connection Integration is a widely variable cost, depends on which dot connects to which other dot Cheap dot-to-dot: Portal to business application from the same vendor Expensive dot-to-dot: Portal to custom application, or to a business application from the same vendor Optimal choice may be multiple portals, or it may be a single portal Each dot needs associated business value

What About Legacy Intranet Content?

You can migrate, but

How much of it do you need?
Look and feel challenges. What about bookmarks and shortcuts?

The path of least resistance

Keep content resources in place. Important content: freeze legacy replica, convert to active repository. New content gets added to new platform. Old content fades away over time.

What is it Going to Cost You?

It depends
Implementation costs vary, not just due to differences in product or price. Same product, same vendor, same industry, same number of users, yet cost can be 500% more. Implementations can range from content-centric to full integration. High end scenario: 300-500 portlets, half of them custom-coded.

Typical costs for 3k to 5k users

Low end: $50 /user/year Lightweight implementations Lower cost products High end: $500 /user/year Comprehensive scope Higher-priced products, partners

Cost drivers
Type of deployment Custom integration Product complexity Integration partner

Deployment Dilemma: Microsoft Sharepoint Portal vs. SAP Enterprise Portal

Context and Considerations

Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server (SPS) appears inexpensive
Low cost for small numbers of users, but not so for large numbers Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) is even cheaper (part of Server 2003)

SPS and WSS are easy to implement, easy to use SPS and WSS provide lightweight collaboration environment for sharing Microsoft Office documents SAP Enterprise Portal (EP) has tighter integration with SAP R/3 SAP has a full roadmap for complete end-to-end portal

Alternative Deployment Scenarios and Configurations

SPS is primary portal, SAP EP is contained to ERP access SAP EP is primary portal, SPS is contained to Office documents A third, uber-portal on top of both SAP EP and SPS

Other Dilemmas: IBM Websphere vs. SAP, BEA Weblogic vs. BEA Aqualogic, Oracle vs. IBM, etc

Key Issues
1. How are enterprises deploying portals?

2. How should enterprises define portal strategy?

3. What are best practices in implementing and deploying portals?

Portal is the 'Project that Never Ends'

Classic Waterfall Approach
Project Effort

Timeline

Pilot in 3 to 6 weeks

First release in 3 -4 months

Subsequent releases every 3 -4 months Breadth first
Horizontal first Then one dept at a time

Implementation

Maintenance

Release 2

Project Timeline

Two Ways to Rollout

Continuous Development
Project Effort

Depth-First
Start with one BU Rollout one unit at a time

Pilot

Release 1

Rel. 2

Rel. 3

Rel. 4

Project Timeline

Portal Deployment Best Practices

Understand it, tie it to business goals, then sell it Focus on all aspects: information, applications, process, people Start with a technical architecture; add an information architecture Separate vendor hype from reality Seek professional assistance Don't underestimate costs (X + 4X) Plan for the 90/10-10/90 effect Make the portal "sticky"
Low-hanging fruit Frequently accessed content and applications Help employees balance work with personal/home life

Portlet Development: Multiple Approaches Used, but More Still Needed

The Power vs. Productivity Trade-Off
Wizard Generated
2001

Productivity

Advanced Parameter-Driven Portlet

2003

Next Gen Remote Portlets

2006

Basic Parametric Portlet

1999

Customizable Standards-based Portlet

2004

Custom-Coded Portlet Using Proprietary API

1998

Power
Size = Number of different usage scenarios supported

Can One Size Fit All?

Technology Now Spans Diverse Requirements
Requirements Profile Infrastructure Network Servers Security Platform Operating System Database Directory Application Server Tools Rapid Development Debugging Monitoring & Mgmt. Application Personalization Search Content Mgmt. B2E High Medium Medium Low Low High Medium B2B Medium Medium High Low Medium High Medium Basic B2C Low High Medium Low Medium Medium Medium High-End B2C High High High Varies High Medium High

High Low Medium

Low High High

Medium Low High

High Low Medium

Low Low Medium

Low Low Low

Medium Medium High

High Medium Medium

It's Not About Technology

Governance Is the Gating Factor

Real success requires changing business processes Double-digit ROI requires fine-grain segmentation of user requirements Ownership often means responsibility, but not authority Who owns the user experience?
External: Marketing
Internal: Human Resources, Operations, Corporate Communications, IS Organization Partners: Sales, Operations, Others
B2C B2B B2E

Recommendations
Articulate a vision for your portal and for what it will connect and unify Define a value framework to support that vision Get senior management support if only to resolve turf wars Engage LOB management identify major headaches, build governance Understand your users in great detail
Segment your audience, understand their needs and their IT headaches

Decide what you want your users to do in relation to business processes

Improvements will deliver satisfaction to them, and business value to you

Define metrics that tell you whether users are "behaving properly" Instrument your system to gather necessary metrics Calculate the effectiveness of your system based on empirical data Enable your systems for two-way information flow
So you can engage in a "conversation" with your users Mechanisms: polls on front page, rate-this-piece on articles, forums, etc

Don't get distracted by shiny new client-side technology Stay focused on interaction patterns and business processes, not technology Bottom Line: the degree of success in portal deployments depends
on the extent that the portal changes how people work for the better

Best Practices in Portal Development, Deployment and Management

Ray Valdes

Notes accompany this presentation. Please select Notes Page view. These materials can be reproduced only with Gartner's official approval. Such approvals may be requested via e-mail vendor.relations@gartner.com.

Best Practices in Portal Development, Deployment and Management

Ray Valdes

Notes accompany this presentation. Please select Notes Page view. These materials can be reproduced only with Gartner's official approval. Such approvals may be requested via e-mail vendor.relations@gartner.com.