There are a number of skills that help make a consultant be good. Technical skills rank very high. People skills are extremely important. Communication is a must have.
I just read this post by Liam Cleary, a Microsoft SharePoint MVP. He mentions some of the skills needed to support SharePoint and further mentions/estimates that about 70% of the support calls are not related to the actual SharePoint product. I’ll second that estimation.
Here is a something that I’ll also second. There are plenty of other skills needed to support SharePoint, one big one being SQL…
“…to make sure that your support team can actually support it. So what skills do you need to support SharePoint?
- SQL, SQL and SQL – Key Skill, SharePoint is an SQL Application
- SharePoint – Obvious
- Windows Server
- IIS – Configuration and Authentication
- DNS
- Active Directory
- Networking
- Backup and Restore Technology
- Windows Clients (200, XP, Vista)
- Firewall(s)
- Diagnosing Faults across platforms
You may look at this and think, that is a lot of skills, and yes it is!! Everyone seems to forget that SharePoint is a web application that requires this core infrastructure. One of the top issues that I saw on news groups, forums or seen emails about has been to do with Alternate Access Mappings!! This is not really a SharePoint issue, it is about Firewall Rules (potentially) and DNS, nothing else. If you DNS is incorrect then you AAM’s won’t work. Make sure your team can actually fix the system, or at least have the knowhow to diagnose the issue and not just stop at SharePoint. I have to say about 70% or support calls I am involved in for SharePoint do not relate to the actual product itself. For me what makes a great consultant is not someone who can not only build your system, design taxonomy, brand etc, but the key for me is someone who can actually figure out the issues. This is a hard skill as you have to be very pragmatic and understand the application stack. If you look at the development for SharePoint the stack talks nothing about Windows Server, DNS, AD or even that much about IIS, yet these are the core skills that are needed.”
Welcome to a day in the life of a SharePoint Consultant!
Filed under: Geek, Inetium, MOSS, SharePoint, TechProfound, WSS Tagged: | LinkedIn
