Becoming A Share Point Professional

Understanding SharePoint Journal
P R E S E N T S
Become a SharePoint
Professional
Bjrn Christoffer Aulie Thorsmhlum Furuknap
VOLUME 3: SPECIAL ISSUE 2
I dedicate this issue to my beautiful wife, Lena.
Bjrn Furuknap
This journal issue is copyrighted material
and should not be distributed without
the prior written consent from the author.
Please inquire before distributing.
Bjrn Furuknap
Uranienborg Terrasse 3
N-0351 Oslo
Norway
Phone +47 913 98 586
http://www.uspjournal.com/
journal@understandingsharepoint.com
Credits
About the Author
Bjrn Christoffer Thorsmhlum Furuknap is a senior solutions
architect, published author, speaker, and passionate
SharePointaholic. He has been doing software development
professionally since 1993 for small companies as well as
multinational corporations.
About Understanding SharePoint Journal

Understanding SharePoint Journal is a periodical published by USPJA Publishing LLC. The
journal covers few topics in each issue, focusing to teach a deeper understanding of each topic
while showing how to use SharePoint in real-life scenarios.
You can read more about USP Journal, as well as get other issues and sign up for regular
updates, discounts, and previews of upcoming issues, at http://www.uspjournal.com/ .
Other Credits
A great big thanks to Kim Wimpsett for doing the copyedit. The quality of work in this issue is
greatly attributed to her skill.
License
This book is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-ND 3.0.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/deed.en_US
In short, you can share, distribute, or transmit this work, even commercially, provided you
attribute the work to me and do not modify the work.
Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................. 1
Key Questions: Discipline ........................................................................ 3
Before We Begin .............................................................................................. 3
First Question: Discipline ................................................................................ 4
Whats Next? ................................................................................................... 6
Community Involvement ........................................................................ 11

What Is the SharePoint Community? ............................................................ 11
Where Is It? ................................................................................................... 13
How Do I Get Started? .................................................................................. 14
Whats Next? ................................................................................................. 15
Key Questions: Your Attitude ................................................................ 17

Its All About Expectations ........................................................................... 17
Think About Your Family! .............................................................................. 19
Whats Next? ................................................................................................. 20
Understanding the Architect Role ......................................................... 23

The Role of an Architect ............................................................................... 23
The Path of Becoming an Architect ............................................................. 26
Advancing Your Architecture Skills ............................................................. 27
I Have No Projects! ....................................................................................... 28
Whats Next? ................................................................................................. 29
Key Questions: How to Become an Expert ........................................... 31

Become a Word-Class SharePoint Expert in Three Simple Steps ............... 31
Steps 1, 2, and 3: Practice .................................................................................................... 32

How Do I Practice SharePoint? .................................................................... 33
I Dont Have Time! ......................................................................................... 35
What Are SharePoint Developers? ......................................................... 37

SharePoint Developer Tiers .......................................................................... 39
How to Become a SharePoint Developer ..................................................... 40
SharePoint Developer Myths Debunked ....................................................... 42
Final Thoughts and a Warning ...................................................................... 43
Administrators Are Good People! .......................................................... 47

What a SharePoint Administrator Isnt ......................................................... 47
So, What Is a SharePoint Administrator? ..................................................... 48
Tools of the Trade ......................................................................................... 49
Wait, I Do Far More Than That! ..................................................................... 50
Thats a Lot of Responsibility ....................................................................... 51
Landing a SharePoint Job ...................................................................... 55

Marketing Yourself as a SharePoint Professional........................................ 55
Keep Your Customers Needs in Mind ............................................................................... 56

Do Not Sell SharePoint, Sell Problem Solutions................................................................. 57
Be Confident in Your Own Knowledge .............................................................................. 57
Be Visible ............................................................................................................................ 58
Gnothi Seauton .................................................................................................................... 59
Advancing Your Career ................................................................................. 60
Introduction
Welcome, aspiring SharePoint professional, to this free eBook from USP Journal and myself.
Im thrilled you have chosen to spend some time with these pages, which contain useful advice
on how to make it as a SharePoint professional.
This book is based on a series of blog articles I wrote in 2012 and 2013. If you prefer to read the
articles online, you can find them in my blog at http://blog.furuknap.net/ where you might also
find other useful SharePoint stuff, opinions, technical articles, and somewhat provocative
opinions.
You, however, are here to learn what it takes to become a SharePoint professional, and I
congratulate you on your choice. I have been working with SharePoint for close to a decade
(full-time since early 2007), and I can tell you that it is a wonderful place filled with great
people, challenging projects, a helpful and sharing community, and overall a thrilling career
choice.
Each of the chapters in this issue represents one of the articles from the original series, but I have
also added some additional content thats available only here.
Youll find guidance on the paths to take, questions you should ask yourself before beginning,
information on the various disciplines, and advice on how to become a world-class SharePoint
expert.
Before we begin, though, I encourage you to explore the other USP Journal issues that I have
written. The idea behind USP Journal is to have highly focused content with no fluff. Youll find
content for beginners through highly advanced users spanning a wide range of topics. Each issue
focuses on a single or few topics, and youll find little if any repetitive content.
You can explore all the issues at http://uspjournal.com/issues.
Finally, this issue is available free for you thanks to the sponsors that have generously agreed to
fund the publishing of this book. That is why you will find several ads for sponsors in this issue.
I encourage you to take a few minutes to explore their message as a Thank You and perhaps to
encourage them to help make further issues of USP Journal available to you.
Right then, lets get down to business, shall we?
.b
Sponsors
I would like to thank the sponsors for making
this issue freely available to readers.
Become a SharePoint Professional
Chapter 1
Key Questions:
Discipline
So, you want to start a career as a SharePoint professional,
do you?
Well, I have some thoughts for you that you might want to read.
First of all, welcome. If you stick with the program (and really, there isnt
any), youll have a great time. Youll probably become part of one of the
warmest, most sharing, and highly skilled technical communities there is.
And, if you are or become good at what you do, youll have a very well-paid
career for a long time.
How? Ill tell you how.
Before We Begin
In this issue I will focus on those who have some knowledge of SharePoint
already, so Im not going to define what SharePoint does more than to the
extent necessary to understand the various roles and disciplines.
However, I am not assuming you have practical experience within any of
these disciplines; if you have, thats fine, but if not, youll learn what you
need here.
Second, please understand that I am not going to give you any deep technical
information here. This is not a Hello World! for getting started; this issue
Chapter 1
First Question: Discipline
will tell you what you need to understand in order to determine whether and
how you can make a career in SharePoint.
Finally, I should mention that I am affiliated, strongly so, with a provider of
SharePoint training, USPJ Academy. In fact, I started it after having written
USP Journal and seeing the need for more in-depth training than traditional
books. As such, I have a vested interest in you wanting to learn SharePoint,
but I also want to make sure you do it based on the right premise.

SharePoint is a massive platform, spanning so many areas and disciplines that
even the most seasoned community members rarely know how to give
themselves a describing title. As such, the first thing you should decide is
what discipline of SharePoint you want to explore.
Broadly speaking, SharePoint professionals fit into one or more of three
categories.
Business users, focused on nontechnical concepts such as user

adoption and business value
Developers, who build solutions through tools or programming
Administrators, who design, maintain, and operate the infrastructure,
physical or logical
Within these broad groups are subdisciplines, simply because saying you do
development in SharePoint isnt accurate enough. For example, within
development, there are three tiers of development (as defined in Marc
Andersons Middle-Tier Manifesto), which broadly says which tools you
use to accomplish your goals, and even within each of those development
tiers there are major areas in which you can have a full and rewarding career.
The right answer to this question depends on where you are today and what
you want to accomplish. If you are already a developer, then it may be
natural to explore one of the many development options, and if you are
already working with infrastructure, security, or server operations, then you
may want to explore the various administrator roles in SharePoint.
Chapter 1
However, it is not only about your current skill set. In fact, with the exception
of a certain aptitude, you should expect to do a lot of newbie-type learning
regardless of your existing skills and experience. SharePoint is its very own
beast that does things in very specific ways. Even the most seasoned
professionals will need to come to SharePoint as beginners. With previous
experience in your chosen or desired area, your learning will be quicker, but
you should not expect to do things in SharePoint the same way you do things
in other frameworks.
A typical example that is close to my heart is that of a seasoned .NET
developer who comes to SharePoints third tier of development expecting to
apply their previous methods and patterns, for example by strongly focusing
on test-driven development and object model development for most work.
They quickly realize, however, that although these aspects certainly exist and
are important, they are only a fraction of what a SharePoint third-tier
developer needs to know. In fact, often these developers tend to overuse their
known methods for development and end up creating bulky and complex
solutions that are far worse than what a complete beginner would do, simply
because they are used to doing things in a certain way on other platforms and
they try to force SharePoint to accept their way of work.
Note
The same can be said about administrators who may be used to operating a
server in a certain way, not realizing that doing so may adversely affect the
stability of their SharePoint installations, or about user interface designers
who believe that how people work with web pages is how they will work in
SharePoint.
In other words, preexisting knowledge may be a hindrance rather than a
benefit if you make the wrong assumptions.
Regardless of which role you choose, you will likely want to understand bits
and pieces of the other roles too. For example, developers who do not
understand how their solutions impact the infrastructure might design
solutions that can potentially bring down a SharePoint farm, and if they do
Chapter 1
Whats Next?
not understand how user adoption works, they might build solutions that are
too complex for their target audience.
This applies to other roles too, so although Im a proponent of focus and
targeting of skills, you should expect to learn about the other disciplines.
The wrong answer is to try to be everything. Personally, I have focused my
career on third-tier development and solution architecture (which is also a
development branch). That means I cannot answer even medium-complexity
administrative questions or fully understand how user adoption works. These
are areas that by themselves require extensive learning and focus, and its
simply impossible to try to master all of these areas to an extent where you
can be productive.
Note
SharePoint architects come in many flavors too, and the term on its own
isnt descriptive. However, it is a completely distinct subdiscipline, so you
dont evolve from a developer or an administrator to an architect any more
than you evolve from a car mechanic or car designer to a chauffeur or a
manager of an automobile fleet.
Instead, focus on your chosen discipline and evolve into a better practitioner
within that discipline. The absolute and undisputed gurus of the SharePoint
world are strongly focused on specific areas; they are the most sought after,
respected, and best paid, and they also understand very well the limits of their
knowledge.
The question to ask is, Do I want to focus primarily on development,
administration, or business usage?
Whats Next?
Youre eager to get started learning, I understand and appreciate that.
However, were not there quite yet.
Chapter 1
Whats Next?
In the next chapter, I will talk to you about a very important part of being a
SharePoint professional, that of the global SharePoint community. Knowing
and participating in that community will greatly help your learning efforts, so
rather than give you a list of links to read, most of which will probably be
outdated, Ill instead introduce you to the people and the community so that
you know where to find the resources you need, now or in the future.
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Chapter 2
Community
Involvement
Getting involved
In this chapter, I will address learning through the SharePoint community. I

want to address this early in the issue because it is vital to your learning
efforts and will help you far more than a simple list of links to get you
started.
What Is the SharePoint

Community?
Online communities exist for many different topics, whether they focus on
technical IT topics, tending your garden, fishing for bass, or managing a
sports team. These communities focus on social aspects as well as promoting
knowledge and exchanging ideas.
SharePoint is no different, but it is different in its value to its participants.
The community is large, consisting of thousands of SharePoint practitioners,
both professionals and users.
What makes the SharePoint community great is its flat structure and its
ability to welcome and embrace anyone from everywhere in the world. As
part of the community, you can interact as easily with the world-famous
gurus as you would with your next-door neighbor.
11
Chapter 2
What Is the SharePoint Community?
The SharePoint community extends beyond online activities, however. The

community has real-world events in which you get to spend time with your
fellow SharePointeers and meet, in real life, the heroes who in many other
communities would be unapproachable. Every week there are free SharePoint
Saturday events all over the world; in addition, there are conferences from
small to huge, free to expensive, and youll meet people you know almost
everywhere you attend.
The final thing I find so great about the SharePoint community is its attitude.
Ive mentioned the embracing of everyone, but it goes far beyond that. The
SharePoint community is extremely helpful and will gladly share what they
learn among each other. Bloggers write articles, tweeps ask and answer
questions, and SPYammers discuss approaches to problems faced in real life.
Theres very little protectionism in the SharePoint community.
Note
Ill talk more about how to get involved in the community later in this
article.
There are downsides, however. SharePoint is a massively successful

platform, and with any success comes commercial pressure. Often, it can be
difficult to determine whether someone has a commercial motive for saying
something or whether it is knowledge shared simply for the sake of sharing. I
have previously discussed this aspect in my article Whats Wrong with the
SharePoint Community.
http://blog.furuknap.net/whats-wrong-with-the-sharepoint-community
A second problem is information overload. There are hundreds of bloggers
who want to drive readers to their blogs and often do so by posting as much
information as possible without considering what they are truly adding to the
community. For someone relatively new to SharePoint, it can be difficult to
determine what good advice is and what is, well, just junk for the sake of
filling up their blogs and seeming knowledgeable. I have also discussed this
in an article called Attention Aspiring SharePoint Bloggers: Shut Up!
http://blog.furuknap.net/attention-aspiring-sharepoint-bloggers-shut-up
12
Chapter 2
Where Is It?
Where Is It?
The SharePoint community isnt a single group of people. Although many
participants frequent multiple scenes and locations, youll find that there are
smaller groups that perhaps are local to a physical area or to a particular
niche in SharePoint.
Currently, it seems like the largest group of people are on Twitter. Twitter
has been a huge part of the SharePoint community for many years, partially
perhaps because of one persons effort to recruit others and promote
SharePoint. As such, if youre looking to join up in the conversation on
Twitter, I would suggest looking toward Joel Oleson (@joeloleson) and
following him. If hes not connected to someone, you probably dont need to
follow that person initially (although youll quickly connect with other
people too).
If you are looking for more in-person interaction, however, then youll
definitely
want
to
check
out
SharePoint
Saturdays
at
http://sharepointsaturday.org/ as well as search for any local SharePoint user
groups. A good place to find them is at NothingButSharePoint (go to
https://www.nothingbutsharepoint.com/calendar/default.aspx; then click the
User Groups tab).
Next, theres an emerging group on Yammer called SPYam, which is a
platform that closely matches Facebook in behavior, in that interaction
follows conversations over time rather than the instant connection from
Twitter. Ive written about SPYam before as well, including how you get an
invite to join SPYam.
These groups are not by far the complete picture but do give you a place to
start. And, speaking of starting.
13
Chapter 2
How Do I Get Started?
How Do I Get Started?

The SharePoint community isnt just a one-way street, where you consume
information from others, or even just a conversational arena where you talk
with others. It is a place where you can and should actively participate.
Your experiences with SharePoint, or lack thereof, help the community grow
tremendously. Your problems allow those who are in a position to help learn
what you and by extension the community needs. A major reason why public
SharePoint speakers are so eager to interact with their audiences is that we
learn from questions. We have one perception of a problem, but your take on
it will add to our own understanding.
The worst thing you can do, however, is to not say anything. If you are
unclear on something you read, ask the article posted for clarification. If you
run into technical problems with specific advice, do the same. If you learned
something useful, say thanks, whether its on a blog post, on Twitter, or
during a user group presentation. Dont just sit there, say something!
So, the first rule should be, Dont be afraid to ask anything. The worst that
can happen is that you dont get any answers, which may definitely well be
your outcome, but at best, you uncover new understanding both for yourself
and for those who help you.
Know that contributing is not necessarily about writing blog posts or being an
expert or knowing anything at all, actually. This issue came to be because
someone completely new to SharePoint asked how they could make it into a
career. Thats it! A single question uncovered an area for which I have not
found sufficient advice, so here it is, potentially helping others as well.
14
Chapter 2
Whats Next?
Note
If or when you do decide to start writing, I strongly suggest you heed the
advice in the aforementioned article Attention Aspiring SharePoint
Bloggers: Shut Up! The article is not about you not having a voice; it is
practical advice to help you protect yourself from problems and to help
protect the community from yet another Hello World post.
So, for now, Ill summarize the advice in this article in a single sentence: start
interacting with the SharePoint community and start sooner rather than later.
Whats Next?
Now that youve learned how to understand both the various roles and the
disciplines in SharePoint and youve been introduced to the SharePoint
community, Ill talk a bit about your attitude and expectations.
Thats in the next blog chapter, though, so stick around to learn more.
15
Chapter 3
Key Questions:
Your Attitude
You should have it, and lots of it.
Lets explore a bit more about what your attitude should be if you plan on
exploring a career as a SharePoint professional.
Its All About

Expectations
You may know that being a SharePoint professional, or even doing any kind
of work in the SharePoint business, can be quite lucrative. By lucrative, I
mean that it is quite common to see hourly rates at or exceeding $200 per
hour, in some cases far higher, and there seems to be a steady stream of work
to be done.
If you make it, you can have a high salary, work on an exciting platform, and
deliver great value to your clients. There really arent that many downsides
at all. If you make it.
The thing is, making it takes a lot of work, so it is important you have the
right expectations and dont come into SharePoint expecting to flip a switch
and be a millionaire.
17
Chapter 3
Its All About Expectations
In reality, working in SharePoint is a job, just like any other field. Despite the
boom SharePoint has seen in later years, theres no magic that leads everyone
to become rich. Some people will be hugely successful, others will make a
living, and some will fail and not get past even the first hurdles of the track.
How can you know what to do to avoid failure? Well, as the heading says,
its all about expectations.
The first question you need to ask yourself is where you want to go. In other
words, what do you want?
Note
Shadows are still cool.
Many will answer this along one of three lines, combining various levels of
interest (meaning your willingness to work) and your desired outcome
(meaning what you want in return).
I want to know a bit more so I can dabble a bit (low interest, low
expectations).
I want to make SharePoint my job (medium interest, medium
expectations).
I want a piece of the SharePoint money-cake (high interest, high
expectations).
Of these three, the biggest chance of success comes from the second path, in
which you have a balance of interest and expectations. As for any field, the
more risk you are willing to take (higher interest), the more you may expect
to get in return (high expectations), but also, the higher the fall if you should
not manage to succeed.
If you come to SharePoint with wide eyes and plans to turn a quick buck (low
interest, high expectations), then turn around instead. There are far better (or
worse) get-rich-quick schemes out there. You should probably burn your
fingers on a few of them before you even attempt to investigate any career.
18
Chapter 3
Think About Your Family!
You can make big money in SharePoint just like you can make big money on
being a professional football player, but it takes a lot of hard work, and only a
few actually manage to do it.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, the geek attitude (high interest, low
expectations) wont work either. SharePoint is more about business than
about technology, and consumers (as in your clients) expect you to
understand and embrace the business mentality to a much greater extent than
is the case for, for example, plain .NET developers or server operators.
Im actually an example of this myself; I truly have no interest in money or
being rich, so I work only to the extent required to pay my bills, and then I
geek around the rest of the time. Had I been more aggressive in my
approaches to clients, I would likely have had more financial success and
more high-paying clients.
If, however, you come to SharePoint and are willing to put in the hours, days,
weeks, months, and years it takes to succeed, then you may very well be on
the path toward a great career.
Keep in mind that the community celebrities of SharePoint have years of
passionate work behind them, often at the expense of mostly everything else.
You wont become a SharePoint superstar between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.; youll
need to put in the evenings and sometimes even the nights. Weekends sound
like a nice idea, but youll be working instead. If you have no spouse,
consider yourself lucky. If you have no kids, you may just be in a position to
make it.
Think About Your Family!

Speaking of spouses and kids, remember that the investment you make may
seem like its free. After all, youre just spending a few hours every evening
reading up on documentation, writing proposals, or testing a new backup
strategy or tool. After all, you cant spend all your weekends at the cottage or
with the in-laws, can you?
19
Chapter 3
Whats Next?
Well, most people who work do their jobs in order not to work. In other
words, you work for eight hours per day to finance the remainder of the day,
of which eight hours is sleep. So, although simplified, for every hour you
work, you get one hour of waking time off.
That hour is actually your payment; your salary pays for the expenses you
have away from work. If you work as many hours as you have waking time
off, then your salary is actually 1:1 in work/time off, give or take a slight
profit or loss, depending on whether you are able to save up a few bucks over
time.
My point here is that the time off belongs to you and your family and friends.
If you put in extra hours of work, then you shift the reward toward the worse.
If you work just a couple of hours more per day and have six hours off to
spend with your spouse, kids, and friends, then your pay per hour is much
lower, and the cost of your time with your family and friends is much higher.
For every hour of a working day with them, you now have to work 1 hour
and 40 minutes. Those additional 40 minutes come directly from your life
and are almost twice what you have to pay if you just work a regular eighthour per day job.
Are you sure you are willing to pay that price? Are you sure your family
realizes the cost?
This isnt really isolated to SharePoint, but I think you should keep it in mind
before you decide or embark on a new path that may dig deeply into the time
you have to live your life.
So, your question to ask is this: how much am I and my family willing to put
into becoming a SharePoint professional, and to what extent do I need or
want returns on that investment?
Whats Next?
From a reader suggestion, Im going to make the next chapter be about
architects. As I mentioned in the first chapter, architects are a somewhat
ambiguous and not very well understood title (as is the case of many titles).
20
Chapter 3
Whats Next?
Ill try to clear up some of the misconceptions and bring at least my

interpretation to the mix.
21
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Chapter 4
Understanding the
Architect Role
Not all its cracked up to be
One of the most misunderstood career paths in SharePoint is that of the

architect. These roles retain some of their mystery because people do not
understand them well but perhaps also because the title Architect in other
fields is often considered a higher-status profession.
The confusion seems to stem from many developers or administrators
looking to advance into becoming an architect. This idea seems silly to me;
in fact, Ive previously argued that going from being a technical performer to
an architect is a disadvantage.
In truth, however, an IT architect is just like any other profession, and you
advance in your career as you do in any other job. You start from scratch, you
learn, and you become a better architect.
In this chapter, Ill focus on the SharePoint architect and what becoming an
architect entails.
The Role of an Architect

In SharePoint an architect is not necessarily a technical role at all. Many of
the greatest architects Ive known have little or no hands-on technical
experience at all. Rather than knowing how to do something, what they know
is what is possible and what makes sense.
23
Chapter 4
For this reason, an architect is a horizontal role in that their greatest strength
comes from breadth of knowledge rather than depth of expertise. An architect
needs to weigh countless options against each other and pick the ones that
best solve the requirements.
Architects work on finding out what to do rather than how to do it. They
work from a set of requirements or goals and then pick the components
required to reach that goal. They work in close company with soft-skill
professionals such as business analysts, project managers, and so on, but also
with technical performers such as pure developers and administrators. Once
architects have completed their work, they hand over a design or architecture
to technical performers who them implement that design.
An architect needs to be able to construct massively complex grids of
capabilities. Every selected feature has both opportunities and challenges, and
these need to match not just the requirements but all other selected features as
well. Knowing all the capabilities of all available features and components is
in itself a huge challenge, but being able to put them all together to solve the
requirements without causing too many side effects is the task of a master.
Note
My argument against going from a technical role to an architect role is in
short that a technical role is a role that focuses on few areas or one area in
depth, which is exactly the opposite of what an architect should do. A
previously technical-role architect will likely tend to prefer the methods and
options with which they are familiar, making them bad architects.
IT architects come in many flavors, even in SharePoint. Saying youre a

SharePoint architect means about as much as saying youre a SharePoint
developer. Sure, I know you design or architect things, but do you architect
solutions, infrastructure, security, information, or what?
Although youll find architects who work in multiple disciplines, keep in
mind that, as with all professions, if you split your profession over multiple
disciplines, you will not be able to go as deep into each area.
For example, a SharePoint solutions architect specializes in knowing as much
as possible about the capabilities of various features and components in
24
Chapter 4
SharePoint and even other platforms such as Office, Exchange, Lync, and so
on. This is a massive undertaking, and to be good at it or for it to yield an
actual return on investment for the training you need, you need to focus.
If in addition you start to work as an information architect, where your tasks
will be to understand the business taxonomies and architect information
management system to support those tasks, youll find a completely new
discipline that will take attention away from your solutions architecture
practice. You wont excel in all disciplines, or even many. Like developers or
administrators, if you want to become an expert, you need to focus.
In short, however, think of architects not as advanced developers or
administrators but rather as breadth-first practitioners within those
disciplines, who know a massive number of topics to only a small extent.
This means that there are developer discipline architects who essentially
architect building and development, and there are administrator discipline
architects who essentially architect management and operations.
Finally, keep in mind that we are talking only about SharePoint architects so
far. However, there are many architect roles that are not SharePoint specific
but are still relevant to SharePoint professionals.
For example, a solutions architect (not to be confused with a SharePoint
solutions architect) focuses on solutions in general, where SharePoint is just
one option. These solution architects pick SharePoint as a tool but dont
necessarily know SharePoint features or components in detail. They then
hand over the architecture and requirements to a SharePoint architect who
can then pick the required features and components.
25
Chapter 4
The Path of Becoming an Architect
Note
This all comes down to another problem with IT, the ambiguity of titles, but
Ill leave that for a separate issue.
The Path of Becoming an

Architect
I sometimes hear SharePoint professionals say that you cannot have junior
architects, because all architects are in senior roles. This may be correct, but
probably not in the way you think.
Many current architects have extensive experience. They moved into their
new career after having spent years doing other disciplines, such as
development, infrastructure, security, or similar technical professions.
However, theres nothing preventing you from starting out in a career as an
architect from scratch.
When moving into a new career, experience may be a good thing because it
usually means you are older and have been exposed to more situations from
which you can learn. This isnt unique to architects; for an experienced
administrator to move into development, for example, their life experience
means they will have a head start on many of their younger and less
experienced colleagues.
You become an architect just like any other profession. You start with the
architects version of your first Hello World solution, and from that point
on, you are an architect, albeit not more than a developer would be a
developer after creating their first Hello World application or an
administrator would be an administrator after doing their first spouse-mode
install (and adds a Hello World web part to their wizard-created site).
Architects, like developers and administrators, start out by doing simple tasks
to build their experience and confidence, such as setting up a site for your
26
Chapter 4
Advancing Your Architecture Skills
department or even just designing the document structure for a single library.
Perhaps youre on the infrastructure path, so you figure out what hardware
you need to run a single department SharePoint solution.
These tasks are simple but expose you to some of the considerations you need
to make in your future career. From these simple tasks (and dont feel
ashamed to repeat them for experience or make failure to get a few burned
fingers), you advance to more advanced scenarios.
Advancing Your
Architecture Skills
If your time and job description allows, dont waste time after a project, but
immediately start to think about the next steps in a more complex scenario,
even if you know for a fact that a more complex scenario will never happen
for this project. What would your solution look like if it were scaled to five
times its current size? What if you had three times the number of document
types? What if there was a need for external user access? What if you had to
support a rapid restore after a critical breakdown?
As an architect, your skill set includes thinking two or three stages ahead of
your current project, so after youve completed your first and simpler
projects, start practicing on the thought pattern. By doing so, even if the
project never moves ahead, you will see your simpler project in a new light.
Perhaps you didnt take into account that when you add three new
departments to your solution, your chosen solution isnt scalable enough.
Good! Youve just gained experience that will help you in your next project.
Perhaps you didnt consider changing document requirements in your
taxonomy solution. Great! You wont make the same mistake again.
The next time you are asked to create a new department site or document
taxonomy, youll have these new and imaginary experiences to help you
along, and youll architect a solution that is better than your first one.
Congratulations, youve improved.
27
Chapter 4
I Have No Projects!
Eventually, youll start working on larger projects (if your organization is

satisfied with the work you did for your department and want to do a larger
SharePoint deployment). By the time you get to this point, you should have
architected several smaller installations already, youll have joined the
SharePoint community to have a peer network from which to learn, and
youll have confidence in your own abilities.
The point, though, is that at no part of the path is there a stop that says Now,
go be a SharePoint developer for a few years or Now, manage your servers
for a couple of years to build experience. You dont build experience as an
architect by working as a developer or administrator no more than you build
experience as a chef by eating a lot or selling food at a convenience store.
Granted, these are related tasks, but if you want to be a better chef, you need
to cook, and if you want to be a better architect, you need to architect.
Similarly, theres no exit path after youve reached a certain skill level.
You dont naturally advance from being the worlds greatest food eater to
being a great chef or from being a chef to a grocery store manager, even if all
of these are related to food. Great developers dont become great solutions
architects by advancement; a developer who wants to become an architect
starts from the bottom, just like anyone else. You dont become a business
analyst as a natural progression from an architect role; if you want to become
a business analyst, you start from the bottom, just like anyone else.
Your path of advancement in your career is usually within that discipline, so
your advancement path as an architect is to become a great architect, and the
advancement path as a developer is to become a great developer.
I Have No Projects!
If you work for a single organization and as an architect primarily for that
organization, you might end up with spare time where you dont get to
practice your skills.
Heres an exercise I did in my early days as an aspiring SharePoint
infrastructure architect (and if you didnt know, I originally started out on the
path toward SharePoint administration). Look through case studies posted for
28
Chapter 4
Whats Next?
SharePoint solutions, and focus on the areas of requirements. In fact, stop

reading after finding and understanding the requirements. Thats where youll
spend most of your architect time in any case.
Then, based on the usually limited requirement information you find in those
case studies, start architecting the solution. If you are stuck in one area, for
example the scale of servers, read the requirements again, and see whether
there are other factors you can address. These may reveal clues that can help
you solve your original problem of scale.
After a while, youll be stuck for good, and you wont be able to go further.
Thats OK, because at this point, you have a ton of questions you need to ask
and get answered to move on. You also have, and this is why youll want to
use a case study, the solution so that you can verify your own suggestions and
learn from what the organization in the case study chose to do.
In addition, the questions you have are important because youll find the
same problems in other real-life situations. By knowing in advance what
questions you need answered, you also know more about what you need for
your next project.
Whats Next?
Were still not done yet, at least not with the issue. I still have many
questions for you to ask.
Before I end this chapter, however, Id like to send out a special thanks to
Paul Culmsee for helping me with this chapter. I often reach out to Paul when
I need feedback on topics and articles, and he always brings valuable insight
to the table. I highly recommend checking out his book Heretics Guide to
Best Practices (he made me say that).
http://hereticsguidebooks.com/
29
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Chapter 5
Key Questions:
How to Become
an Expert
You want to become a true SharePoint expert? Ill tell you
how in three simple steps.
Oh, I said simple, not easy. If you have half a brain, youll realize that
simple may not mean easy and that there is any secret formula that youll
learn over the next few paragraphs.
Become a Word-Class
SharePoint Expert in
Three Simple Steps
If you spend a little time in the ever-growing SharePoint community, youll
see a lot of people who refer to themselves or others as experts. These are
often the most famous people in the community, and youll do well to look to
them for inspiration and as role models.
However, what does it really take to become a SharePoint expert? What does
it take to become an expert at anything? Ive done some research and distilled
31
Chapter 5
Become a Word-Class SharePoint Expert in Three Simple Steps
the results into three simple steps you can take to achieve expertness in
SharePoint or anything, really.
Still, the steps required are simple enough, even if knowledge of them will
pour some cold water into your blood.
Steps 1, 2, and 3: Practice

OK, so this may surprise some of you, but you actually need to practice to
become good at something. I know working seems to make you better, but
studies show that it is hours and hours of diligent practice that separate the
mediocre from the experts.
If youre an avid book reader, like Im definitely not, you may have heard
about or even read a book called Outliers. In short, the author Malcolm
Gladwell researches what makes people more successful than others and
makes some interesting observations.
Gladwell looks at various successful people and existing research and comes
up with a claim that the true experts within a field seem to have one major
differentiator from those who perform merely adequately: they practice a lot.
In fact, Gladwell states that the number of hours of practice needed to
become an expert in a field is 10,000. Thats ten thousand. To put that in
perspective, you sleep for about 3,000 hours every year, so if you stop
sleeping and only practice, it will still take you more than three years to
become an expert.
Want to know whats really bothersome about this number? Only hours of
deliberate practice count. Thats right, working while using the skill,
participating in tournaments, or merely doing stuff related to your skill
does not count. You need to actively and structurally develop your skill with
methodical training that eliminates your weaknesses and strengthens your
skills. Performing, whether it is work, sports, or arts, is not considered
deliberate training.
32
Chapter 5
How Do I Practice SharePoint?
Note
Several commentaries have questioned the exact number of hours required
(and indeed Gladwells methods). Even one of the researchers, Anders
Ericsson, on which Gladwell rests much of his 10,000-hour number claim,
has later specified this to mean an average. Others argue that great
performers could get away with as little as 5,000 hours of deliberate
practice before they became true experts.
Still, few opposing comments argue about the effect of practice. They may
question the ability to turn expertise into success or whether there are other
factors that also lead to expertise, but they all seem to agree that deliberate
practice leads to expertise, defined as being world-class at whatever they
do.
Im not going to vouch for the number, and Im also questioning several
aspects of the simplicity of the claim. However, if you want to become a
SharePoint expert, this is good news! Although its no guarantee for financial
success, deliberate practice that is targeted and structured for thousands of
hours virtually guarantees that you become a true SharePoint expert. Its
really that simple.
OK, granted, you need a lot of hours of practice, but there are few, if any,
other things you need to do. Practice, and you become good. Practice more,
and you may become brilliant. Practice a whole lot, and youll become a
SharePoint expert.
How Do I Practice
SharePoint?
When youre training to become an expert in a sport or music or a game
perhaps, then what you need to practice is pretty straightforward. You do the
things of that activity repeatedly to develop muscle memory or internalize
moves and strategies. Hit a serve a million times, and every serve will be
33
Chapter 5
How Do I Practice SharePoint?
better. Whack a ball a million times, and youre far better at making it land
where you want it to land (and that concludes my golf training for this
article).
Its more difficult with SharePoint, but fear not, there are plenty of ways for
you to practice if you are willing to put in the hours required. Here are a few
tips.
If youre working with SharePoint already, you probably have tasks that you
struggle to get right every time. For administrators, setting up the User
Profile Service (UPS) is one example.
Now, do that task over and over again until you can almost do it in your
sleep. Spend a day, in 90-minute sessions with 20-minute breaks, and do
nothing else for those 90 minutes.
When youre done, change the parameters of your practice. For example, do
it in a two-server environment or do it using different credentials. If your VM
engine supports it, simulate directory controller network failures and practice
more. Do this for eight hours every day, and after a week, youll fear UPS no
more.
If youre a developer struggling with understanding object orientation, then
practice building a railroad using objects and classes. When youve done this,
delete your Visual Studio project and start over.
If your problem is remembering the possibilities in the SharePoint server
object model, then pick a project you like and redo it, over and over again.
Change your desired outcomes and repeat the drill once youre tired of the
same project. Those SPListItem properties and methods will become a
second language to you.
Think you dont know how to architect solutions that give benefits to an
organization? Talk to your boss, your colleagues, your friends, or your
family, and find out what problems ails them. Then, come up with different
solutions to all their problems. Are you done? Come up with other solutions
that utilize other features and components. Done with that? Change their
problems into something different and solve those problems. Youll architect
the most brilliant solutions before you know it.
34
Chapter 5
I Dont Have Time!
Have you done this, for eight hours every day for a working week yet? If so,
good, youve just completed 40 hours or your practice, and you just have 249
weeks left until youre an expert. Or, if you are one of the exceptions that
requires 5,000 hours of practice only, you have 124 weeks to go. Thats
around three years if you take a few weeks off for vacation each year.
I Dont Have Time!

To most people, putting this much effort into becoming an expert SharePoint
developer, architect, or administrator is beyond what they would consider.
Even the geeks among us, who spent all their waking youth hours in front of
a compiler, may have trouble racking up the required time. After all, we are
talking about two hours of deliberate practice every day for thirteen years, or
eight hours per day for more than three years.
Then, there are family concerns, and youll want to catch the latest movies
and definitely go to a party every now and then. There simply isnt enough
time to spend eight hours every day for several years.
Well, theres always the option of being mediocre. Ive even argued that the
most reward per hour spent is gained by being mediocre.
Also, dont discount any previous training youve had. You may be a
seasoned .NET developer with a masters degree in Awesome Programming
501, and that certainly counts in your favor. You may have spent a year in
SharePoint administrator training before you picked up your first installer
CD, and that is definitely on the list of approved hours.
However, if you expect to be a world-class expert, then theres no way
around it. You practice, you practice, and then you practice.
Think about that when you meet or talk to experts in your field, whether
thats SharePoint, chess, project management, or golf. Their success most
likely isnt a result of random luck or chance encounters but rather of
deliberate training over years and years. You can be among them if you put in
the effort, but dont expect any quick paths to expert-level skills.
35
Chapter 6
What Are
SharePoint
Developers?
Builders
So, you want to become a SharePoint professional and have come to one of
the trickiest questions to answer: what is a SharePoint developer?
Actually, the question is rather easy to answer once you have some common
and basic understanding of what SharePoint development entails.
If you look at the term and throw away any personal feelings for what you
think words should mean, then it becomes quite clear what a SharePoint
developer is. Let me illustrate.
If you want to get your hair dressed, you go to a hairdresser, and from that we
can assume that a hairdresser dresses hair. If you want something baked, you
go to a baker (or your local medical marijuana outlet, but thats for another
blog), so a baker is someone who bakes. If you want to get something moved,
you hire a mover, and a mover is thus someone who moves.
Now, if you want to get something developed on SharePoint, what could we
possibly call the person who does that task? You should get this right on the
first try; we call them a SharePoint developer.
Another commonality between the hairdresser, the baker, and the driver is
that you are rarely interested in the tools they user to perform their task. You
dont say to a baker that you want to buy his bread only if its made with a
37
Chapter 6
I Dont Have Time!
specific stand mixer. You usually arent interested in the brand of scissors
your hairdresser users, and for the lifting support the movers use, well, as
long as they get that piano up the stairs, you dont really care, do you?
And even if you are interested and specific about the tools used for whatever
valid or invalid reason, youll still call them bakers, hairdressers, and movers,
even if they use different tools. The reason for this is that their job titles
describe the tasks they perform, not the tools they use. You dont have
KitchenAid bakers or Shiro hairdressers (yes, I had to Google that). You may
have a heavy items mover, but you would still call other people who move
things movers, even if they dont have specializations in moving heavy items.
So, a SharePoint developer develops in SharePoint, as simple as that. If, or
rather when, you start hearing the conversations that have been ongoing for
years in the community about whether people using specific tools are allowed
to call themselves developers, well, ignore them and think about what makes
sense.
The first duty of any SharePoint developer is to solve business problems. As
long as you do that and you do so in a professional manner, the tools you use
or the title you put on your business card is largely irrelevant. If you think
that the term developer is too ambiguous, and honestly, even the SharePoint
community cannot really agree on what it means, then feel free to call
yourself whatever you want.
By solving business problems, I mean that your first focus isnt necessarily to
work with a business owner or client but that the ultimate goal of your
solutions is to cater to the needs of the business. Many developers may never
see much less talk to an end user or business owner, but SharePoint is a
business platform first and foremost.
However, SharePoint development is a complex profession. In fact, its not
even a profession; it is a class of professionals who to some extent are
defined by the tools they use.
38
Chapter 6
SharePoint Developer Tiers
SharePoint Developer
Tiers
In broad terms, you can categorize SharePoint development methods into
three tiers.
Note
This tier division is the brain child of luminary Marc D. Anderson, detailed
in his Middle-Tier Manifesto.
The first tier deals with development using the web interface and client
software only. First-tier developers utilize the web interface to build
taxonomies for business objects, create user experiences using web parts and
maybe a few simple premade scripts, install and configure apps and sandbox
solutions, build information panels for Office, and so on. First-tier developers
benefit from the most rapid development methods at the expense of freedom
and power.
The middle tier of SharePoint development starts utilizing specialized tools
and uses scripting and markup to develop solutions. Typical tools are
SharePoint Designer, InfoPath, and maybe Visual Studio for script
development. Middle-tier development produces more flexible and
customizable solutions than is the case for the first tier, and middle-tier
developers have more freedom and power at the expense of having to do a lot
more work and be somewhat limited in terms of solution portability.
The third-tier developer focuses solely or mainly on developing WSP
solution files and managed code solutions using tools such as Visual Studio
and extensions such as WSPBuilder, VS Tools for SharePoint, and STSDev.
Third-tier development offers the greatest degree of freedom and options and
also gives developers the most power of all the tiers. However, this comes at
39
Chapter 6
How to Become a SharePoint Developer
a price, which is having to build all the bits they need and also of needing
the discipline to harness all that power.
What is important to know is that these tiers are not mutually exclusive.
Although most seasoned SharePoint developers spend most of their time in
one of the tiers, they also utilize the other tiers when required. A middle-tier
developer may build a prototype for a solution taxonomy before building a
web part in SharePoint Designer to display or manage that taxonomy. A firsttier developer may utilize SharePoint Designer to modify or create scripts or
style sheets to build their sites, and a third-tier developer will more often than
not start a project by prototyping the solution in the first tier.
What is absolutely critical to know, however, is that none of these tiers is
better or worse, nor are developers who specialize in any of the tiers any
better than the developers of other tiers. What matters to your skill level is
what development skills you have, not the tools you use. Any SharePoint
developer regardless of favorite tier will need skills and understanding of
development topics such as source control, debugging, data modeling, event
handling, security, and so on. Tools are there to make these tasks easier, not
to save you from having to know these topics.
Also note that using the developer tiers is a broad categorization. Once you
get familiar with each tier, you will likely want to focus even more. For
example, first-tier developers may specialize in taxonomy or client
applications, middle-tier developers may specialize in InfoPath or DataView
web parts, and third-tier developers may specialize in workflow or web part
development.
How to Become a
Regardless of what type of SharePoint developer you want to become, you
need a good understanding of what SharePoint is and what problems it
solves. If you are using SharePoint in your job, for example, you may want to
start exploring the possibilities that exist. Ask whoever is responsible for
40
Chapter 6
How to Become a SharePoint Developer
SharePoint (or ask a mirror if it is you) to give you a site collection in which
you can experiment.
Start going through the list and library types available to get an idea of the
tasks SharePoint can handle. Explore the existing web parts, look up the site
and site collection features, explore the permissions model, and so on. In
short, play with it to see what it can do beyond what you already do.
Note
There are plenty of resources available to learn SharePoint, but rather than
recommend any specific resource, I encourage you to start practicing your
Google skills and find the resources that make sense for you.
When you decide to start your SharePoint development career, focus on

learning the tools and methods in which you have prior experience. You
should already be well versed in using SharePoint and understanding its
capabilities, and if you have no other development experience, this is a great
starting point for first-tier development.
If you have prior HTML and JavaScript experience, then looking at the
options in the middle tier may be appropriate for you. If you know XML and
its related technologies, thats even better. Get yourself a copy of SharePoint
Designer (its free) and start looking at your site or site collection through the
eyes of that tool. Also, start looking at the client-side object models.
If you have prior programming experience, defined as building compiled
code in some form, then the third tier will likely give you the most familiar
starting point. Youll need to get Visual Studio, and you need to start learning
the SharePoint object models (server and client-side, so no cheating). Further,
if you dont already dream in XML, you havent used it enough.
41
Chapter 6
SharePoint Developer Myths Debunked
Note
Beyond XML, your language and tool choice in the third tier is largely up to
you. In fact, you can build third-tier solutions using Notepad if thats your
fancy.
Since Im the one writing this, let me modestly take this chance to blatantly
promote my own book on learning third-tier development, Beginning
SharePoint Development, as a great resource to get you up and running. You
can pick it up from http://uspjournal.com/issues/beginning-sharepointdevelopment/.
In fact, all of my USP Journal issues will help you become a better
SharePoint developer.
Myths Debunked
As your development career moves along, youre bound to come upon many
myths that may or may not sound plausible. Let me wrap up this issue by
debunking some of them.
First, SharePoint development is not harder or easier than developing on any
other platform. Youll find plenty of statements from developers saying that
development on SharePoint is too hard. The fact is that the hard part isnt any
harder in SharePoint than it is on other platforms. Like any other platform,
SharePoint has its bad and good sides. Any task you know is easy, and any
task you dont know seems hard, at least when you get beyond the how hard
can it be? stage.
Second, a SharePoint developer does not have to do compiled code
programming. One of the most common myths is that to be allowed to call
yourself a developer, you need to be a programmer of compiled code. See the
initial sections of this chapter for an explanation of why this is bollocks. If
42
Chapter 6
Final Thoughts and a Warning
you develop, youre a developer. If you bake, youre a baker. If you move,
youre a mover. If you dress hair, drive, build, paintwell, you get the
picture.
Third, third-tier SharePoint development is not your last resort. Youll also
quickly find a plethora of claims that building third-tier solutions should be
your absolute last resort, after trying everything else, including prayer and
chicken sacrifices.
The arguments are often that third-tier solutions are difficult to maintain and
upgrade. The fact is that well-built SharePoint solutions not only upgrade
excellently but can actually work across SharePoint versions, making
upgrades easier than for other development tiers. Note the emphasis on wellbuilt.
Finally, no SharePoint developer is an expert in all SharePoint development
tasks. SharePoint is a complex mistress, and its developers need to focus to
satisfy her needs. The less you focus, the less you become good. Each
development tier takes years to master. If someone says they are an expert in
more than one or two tiers, they are probably just an expert in pulling your
leg, or theyre just plain ignorant.
Note: The same applies to recruiters. A clear sign of a recruiter who has no
idea about how to find SharePoint developers is one who looks for experts in
multiple tiers or even specializations.
Final Thoughts and a

Warning
A SharePoint developer is a resource to any organization, and a career in
SharePoint development can yield both material benefits and great personal
rewards. At the time of this writing, there is a great shortage of skilled
SharePoint developers, and since a SharePoint developers first duty is to
solve business problems, as long as businesses have problems, youll have a
job.
43
Chapter 6
In fact, take this as a warning. Right now, you can get a job as a SharePoint
developer if you manage to spell SharePoint correctly.
However, having a job is a far stretch from being an expert. Dont expect to
quickly become a SharePoint developer expert simply because you can
rapidly churn out solutions that impress your boss. Any skill in which you
want to become an expert requires you to focus and dedicate considerable
time to both learn and practice.
Before you develop these considerable skills, remember that what you are
doing is ultimately what the business will use to remain profitable. Your
failures or lack of skill may cost the company much in terms of lost
efficiency or revenue or cost employees their jobs. Start with what you know,
practice before you go into production, and make sure you learn the basic
skills of software development.
This isnt unique for SharePoint, though, so take it as general advice. Expect
to spend thousands of hours increasing your skill if you want to become an
expert SharePoint developer.
44
Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
Administrators
Are Good People!
Treat them nice; your future may depend on it!
Its time now to look at another greatly misunderstood role in SharePoint,

that of the SharePoint administrator.
Or rather, let me start by looking at whats not a SharePoint administrator.
Oh, and if you are an employer reading this, prepare to want to give your
SharePoint administrators a raise.
What a SharePoint
Administrator Isnt
Remember that when I talk about roles here, I do mean roles and not people.
A common situation in SharePoint is to have one person in multiple roles,
such as developer/architect or administrator/developer.
Thats fine; just realize that it takes twice the effort to become good in two
roles, meaning you invest twice the training in growing your career. That
should reflect in your salary requirements.
An administrator, though, is not a developer. You may see an administrator
do at least basic development work, for example by developing taxonomies,
views, workflows, and such, but these tasks are not administrator tasks.
47
Chapter 7
So, What Is a SharePoint Administrator?
An administrator is not an architect either. If you ask your administrator

person what the requirements in hardware will be to run a specific solution,
chances are you might as well as your mother, and by that I mean the
proverbial, nonarchitect mother.
Neither is the SharePoint administrator a server operator. Sure, many
SharePoint administrators have backgrounds in server administration, and
having such a background is definitely useful, but the tasks a SharePoint
administrator does is not in the realm of Active Directory operations, SQL
server management, and so on.
I realize that many administrators, like other SharePoint professionals, have
experience and knowledge spanning multiple fields. However, it is important
to realize where you focus your learning, training, and professional
development.
If you want to become a SharePoint professional, at least one who knows
how to tie your own shoelaces, you need to focus.
Note
Refer to Chapter 5 in this issue if you want to understand the need to focus
better.
So, What Is a SharePoint

Administrator?
A SharePoint administrator, well, administrates SharePoint. (It amazes me
how bleedin obvious many of these titles really are.)
In other words, a SharePoint administrator manages and operates a
SharePoint environment, making sure it is healthy, performs as expected, is
safe and stable, and doesnt adversely affect other systems. Further, the
48
Chapter 7
Tools of the Trade
SharePoint administrator is responsible for the day-to-day technical

operations, monitors ongoing system jobs, performs routine maintenance, and
may perform supporting tasks for other roles.
Finally, and this is important to any developer who has wandered into this
chapter, an administrator, being ultimately and solely responsible for the
stability and safety of a SharePoint environment, is the only role allowed to
add any kind of code to SharePoint. This includes custom code built by
developers, third-party applications or solutions, system updates such as
hotfixes and service packs, and any solutions whether they are farm, sandbox,
or apps.
Note
In case other roles are allowed to add sandbox solutions or apps, they are
allowed that by the administrator. A prudent administrator grants such
allowance only after careful consideration and likely without haste.
Despite developers having egos the size of Jupiter and thinking they control
the world, the real power over a SharePoint environment comes from the
administrator. Sure, developers can build the cure for cancer, but it wont
matter unless the administrator puts the code on a production machine and
allows that code to run.
Tools of the Trade

The first and primary tool of any SharePoint administrator is Central
Administration. Where do they get these confusing names?
In fact, if you want to get a good overview of the tasks SharePoint
administrators perform, then explore the Central Administration application
because inside are the secrets of the administrator, neatly organized into
categories.
Of course, complete and utter mastery of Central Administration is but the tip
of the iceberg for a truly skilled administrator. In fact, many administrator
49
Chapter 7
Wait, I Do Far More Than That!
tasks cannot be performed with the default out-of-the-box functionality of

Central Administration, for example adding new solutions to the farm,
creating security groups and accounts, and so on.
For these tasks, you need to rely on other tools, for example STSADM or the
more modern and powerful PowerShell.
Finally, SharePoint administrators are blessed with a wide variety of thirdparty tools to help with tasks. I wont mention names because nobody pays
me to do so, but SharePoint vendors provide tools, for example, to improve
monitoring, security management, migrations, systems analysis, and so on.
Wait, I Do Far More Than

That!
We should all be so lucky as to serve only one role in our SharePoint
professional careers. Unfortunately, thats rarely that case.
For administrators, additional and supplemental tasks may include working
with server operations to ensure the server operates as expected. In fact,
beyond any dedicated server administrators, only SharePoint administrators
should have direct access to the server at all. No developers allowed!
If you, as an employer, place the responsibility of running your servers on
your SharePoint administrator, remember that you are effectively giving them
two jobs. I realize this is common and that it may be difficult to see just how
much work and responsibility goes into even one of these roles, but you
should know this as an employer: server administration is complex enough;
SharePoint administration is just as complex.
Further, although not really a SharePoint-specific task, backup and restore
operations often end up being the SharePoint administrators responsibility.
In most environments I have seen, backup happens outside SharePoint, for
example using dedicated SQL Server backup tools, but many organizations
still ask their SharePoint administrators to handle those backups.
50
Chapter 7
Thats a Lot of Responsibility
When all hell breaks loose and the manure hits the proverbial fan, your
SharePoint administrator is the person responsible. Whether your
organization ever retrieves its data depends on a SharePoint administrator.
Security is another aspect important to administrators, and a SharePoint
security administrator is responsible not just for setting permissions on site
collections but also for working with managed accounts, monitoring and
handling code-level security issues, ensuring proper delegation of
permissions, and so on.
Of course, all other efforts are meaningless unless your servers perform their
tasks fast enough that users can get something done, so performance
monitoring, planning, and handling of any performance issues are also tasks
for a SharePoint administrator.
Thats a Lot of
Responsibility
You are right! SharePoint administration is a massively complex role, and I
have just scratched the surface of all you need to know. If you expect
SharePoint administrators to handle other roles, or other roles to just do some
administration on the side, well, you probably have extremely high
expectations of your people or low expectations of the work and skills
required.
As with developers, SharePoint administrators also come in various subroles,
sadly usually operated or expected to be operated by the same person.
Subroles include security, backup and recovery, monitoring and operations,
and so on. Each of these, and several other subroles, is complex enough that
you can easily spend years developing your skills without even looking at
any other subroles.
What should be obvious, however, is that you probably underestimate the
work and skill required to be a proficient SharePoint administrator. The next
time you see a SharePoint administrator, give them a thanks for their work.
51
Chapter 7
Thats a Lot of Responsibility
If you employ one of them, seriously consider giving them a raise, right now.
Your future may very well depend on them.
52
SharePoint AMS
KNOW THE GAME CHANGERS

SOME ADD-ONS GIVE YOU THE EDGE
E-Commerce | Smart Forms | Email Module | Smart Login
www.SharePointAMS.com
Chapter 8
Landing a
SharePoint Job
What we really want
All of your hard work to become a SharePoint professional is pointless unless

you manage to land a job. In this chapter, Ill offer some advice on landing
that job.
This chapter is based on an article I wrote several years ago that focused on
how to market yourself as a SharePoint developer. However, the advice
offered applies equally to any SharePoint professional.
Marketing Yourself as a
SharePoint Professional
Troubled times ahead, lay-offs more and more frequent, a tougher job
market, and customers suddenly thinking twice before jumping on the
SharePoint wagon. How will you cope?
Welcome, class, to Landing That High-Paying SharePoint Job 101. Today
were going to talk a bit about how you can convince your customers to
invest in you as their SharePoint developer.
55
Chapter 8
Keep
Marketing Yourself as a SharePoint Professional
Your
Customers
Needs in Mind
Most people, and even more so with companies, think primarily of
themselves. If you want to convince your customer to hire you rather than the
next guy who walks in the door, you need to show them that what you will
deliver gives them value.
Consider the following resume:
I have been working with MOSS for 3 years and have delivered more than
15 successful projects for Fortune 500 companies. I have worked in IT for 9
years and have extensive experience in C#, .NET, and SQL.
In itself, this might be an impressive rap sheet, but you just turned your job
interview into a numbers game. The customer can compare 3 years on
MOSS, 15 projects, and 9 years of experience with any other
consultant, and if they find someone with higher numbers, you just lost the
game. Of course, beating three years of MOSS will be difficult, but you get
the point.
Now consider this:
I have worked with companies where I have shown how to use SharePoint
to optimize business processes. I have accomplished this by reducing
overhead, speeding up deliveries, and providing better service to the
customers, resulting in reduced need for manager intervention, lower delivery
cost, and increased customer retention rate.
The latter resume focuses on what you have done and can do, not how long
you have done it.
56
Chapter 8
Do Not Sell SharePoint, Sell

Problem Solutions
The customer does not care about you. The customer does not care about
SharePoint. A few months or maybe a year ago you could mention
SharePoint to your spouse over dinner and customers would knock your door
down trying to get you to work for them. These days, customers want to hear
about their own problems and how you can solve them. For all they care, the
product can be called ACMEs click here to save your business. If it
fixes their problems, whats in a name, right?
So, start by listening to what your customer needs. Then, focus on how you
think that problem can be solved. If, by chance, SharePoint is the answer,
then so much the better.
Lets say your customer has problems with customer support: the time it
takes to fix a problem is far too long. Your answer might be to introduce a
knowledge management system to help support technicians find answers
faster and make it easier to share new solutions. Using, oh, say a software
solution that can be used for searchingsomething that can be customized to
provide a great user experiencesomething built for sharing.
Notice that the solution is a knowledge management system. Not SharePoint.
SharePoint just happens to be a brilliant system for sharing information and
organizing that information, but you still need to sell the customer a solution
to their problem, not a product.
Be Confident in Your Own

Knowledge
You might be the most brilliant developer on the face of Mother Earth. You
may be able to recite every best practice there ever was. In your sleep. While
being gagged.
57
Chapter 8
Thats all great, but if you do not believe you are capable of providing added
value to the company, then you will never be able to convince the company
that you are the right person. Again, companies are not there to do you a
favor by hiring you; they are there to get as much value as possible from as
little effort as possible.
So, when preparing for an interview or a sales pitch, focus your mind on
where you are strong.
However, to really build confidence, you must also be aware of your
weaknesses. If you plain suck at SQL, no problem, take five minutes to write
down, for yourself, what you can do to improve. Hate design and CSS?
Great, spend 30 minutes online to map out a plan and find the right training
resources. You dont have to go through everything you plan, but it is
important you realize that you can improve anywhere you might feel below
standard.
Be Visible
I just went over my incoming calls on my cell phone, and of the last 20 calls,
15 were from headhunters and companies looking to hire me.
(Just in case any of those people are reading this: I do not have time to get
dressed in the morning, much less take on more work.)
Why did they call? Most of them have found my profile online, especially on
LinkedIn. Recruiters, being people, at least most of them, also Google you
the second they find anything remotely interesting. Heck, I even Google
many of the people who subscribe to my mailing list, just in case they know
something from which I can learn.
What disappoints me is if I find nothing. I mean, how much trouble can it be
to stop by a forum, either ask a question or, even better, answer one. You can
even write a blog article in someone elses blog. Take two hours of your
schedule and write a short presentation about something you did. Dont
worry, you are probably going to look like a fool, but at least I would much
rather hire a fool I know than an expert with no visible track record.
58
Chapter 8
And, if you are posting something thats wrong, people will let you know.
And you can learn. That leads me to the final tip.
Gnothi Seauton
Yeah, Im trying one of those WTF! tricks to get you curious. Curious is
good, because curious leads to discoveries, and discoveries lead to
knowledge.
Go on, Google the phrase. You know you want to.
So, what do ancient Greek oracles have to do with SharePoint? Nothing! But
learning does. SharePoint is a massive field that takes a lifetime to master.
You will never know everything there is to know, and that is a good thing,
because that means you can continue to learn more and improve. Never, not
for a single second, think that you know enough.
Once you have the attitude of wanting to learn more, to explore, and to be
curious, you start gaining confidence. The only true confidence comes from
knowledge, and just knowledge of that fact can give you a competitive edge
in an interview.
Mr. Anderson, I see that you have never worked with BDC. We rely heavily
on BDC, so why should you be our best candidate?
Ah, you say, you know, BDC wasnt around until late 2006, so most
people do not know that much in any case. Since that time, however, I have
focused on learning [this] and [that] in SharePoint, and I am confident [yes
you really are] that getting up to speed with any new technology, whether it is
BDC or new features introduced in vNext, comes as easy to me as everything
else.
Because you like to learn and improve, right?
Know thyself.
59
Chapter 8
Advancing Your Career

Before I wrap up this issue, Ill offer some additional advice. These bits and
pieces are my own personal opinions, so feel free to disagree with them to
any extent you like.
Start from the bottom with few, if any, skills. Many current SharePoint
professionals have experience, sometimes extensively so, from other areas of
SharePoint, but this is not a requirement and can even be a hindrance.
You need to practice to increase your skills. Working in your chosen
discipline is important but not the full picture. If youre uncertain about a
particular area and you want to improve, then practice. Redo the project,
rebuild the solution, and set up the features again. Change the environment to
see what happens. Change it again once youve seen that. Try to cause as
many problems for yourself as you can and then see if you can fix them.
Spend time studying the gurus of your field and read what they share related
to that field. Sharing is an important aspect of learning in itself, and many of
the best professionals in the world spend considerable time and resources
sharing what theyve learned. Once you build enough confidence, start
sharing too! The entire community will benefit from your experiences,
especially if you experience failure.
Expect to spend a lot of time to build your skills, and dont overestimate your
abilities. It is very easy to get a feeling of mastery when you start out, but it is
more often a sign that youre not seeing the full picture. When you feel
youve mastered a field, youve probably just declared yourself ignorant.
Focus. You cant be good at everything. In fact, it takes twice the effort to be
equally good at two things compared to one. Either you put in twice the effort
or you get less good in both areas.
Be honest to yourself and those who work with you about your abilities or
lack thereof. Nobody expects you to say Yes, I can do that to every request.
If you dont know how to do something, say so, and youll probably have a
chance to learn at a later time if you want. If you take on tasks you dont
60
Chapter 8
know how to handle, you end up causing damage, and youll be left exposed
as untrustworthy or unskilled.
Adjust your expectations to the effort you want to put in. Not everyone will
become a SharePoint superstar, and thats good. Aspire to greatness but not at
the cost of the goals you set.
Keep in mind that your life is neither SharePoint nor the money you get paid
from doing SharePoint. Consider whats important in your life and use
SharePoint to accomplish the goals of that life. Never switch those priorities
around, and never sacrifice your goals in life for the tools you use to
accomplish those goals.
My final thought and conclusion to this issue, which I hope you have enjoyed
immensely, is this: have fun. SharePoint is a great place to be; youll find
great people, problems to challenge your mind, and opportunities for a long
and prosperous career, but first and foremost, it should always be fun.
Good luck and happy SharePointing!
.b
61
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making this issue freely available to
readers.
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Understanding SharePoint Journal

VOLUME 3: SPECIAL ISSUE 2

I dedicate this issue to my beautiful wife, Lena.

About Understanding SharePoint Journal

Community Involvement ........................................................................ 11

Key Questions: Your Attitude ................................................................ 17

Understanding the Architect Role ......................................................... 23

Key Questions: How to Become an Expert ........................................... 31

Steps 1, 2, and 3: Practice .................................................................................................... 32

I Dont Have Time! ......................................................................................... 35

What Are SharePoint Developers? ......................................................... 37

Administrators Are Good People! .......................................................... 47

Landing a SharePoint Job ...................................................................... 55

Keep Your Customers Needs in Mind ............................................................................... 56

Become a SharePoint Professional

First Question: Discipline

First Question: Discipline

Business users, focused on nontechnical concepts such as user

First Question: Discipline

KnowledgeLake does the heavy lifting of

Become a SharePoint Professional

In this chapter, I will address learning through the SharePoint community. I

What Is the SharePoint

What Is the SharePoint Community?

The SharePoint community extends beyond online activities, however. The

There are downsides, however. SharePoint is a massively successful

How Do I Get Started?

How Do I Get Started?

Become a SharePoint Professional

Its All About

Its All About Expectations

Think About Your Family!

Think About Your Family!

Ill try to clear up some of the misconceptions and bring at least my

KNOW THE GAME CHANGERS

Become a SharePoint Professional

One of the most misunderstood career paths in SharePoint is that of the

The Role of an Architect

The Role of an Architect

IT architects come in many flavors, even in SharePoint. Saying youre a

The Role of an Architect

The Path of Becoming an Architect

The Path of Becoming an

Advancing Your Architecture Skills

Eventually, youll start working on larger projects (if your organization is

SharePoint solutions, and focus on the areas of requirements. In fact, stop

Metalog x Content Matr x

Visit us online at Metalogix.com/SPupgrade

from any SharePoint version

Software that solves the big challenges of Big SharePoint Content

Become a SharePoint Professional

Become a Word-Class SharePoint Expert in Three Simple Steps

Steps 1, 2, and 3: Practice

How Do I Practice SharePoint?

How Do I Practice SharePoint?

I Dont Have Time!

I Dont Have Time!

Become a SharePoint Professional

I Dont Have Time!

SharePoint Developer Tiers

How to Become a SharePoint Developer

How to Become a SharePoint Developer

When you decide to start your SharePoint development career, focus on