Intrenion

Decision Backbone: SharePoint Async Work & Wiki Setup Project

Christian Ullrich
January 2026

Info
This decision backbone lists the explicit decisions that must hold as an initiative approaches an irreversible commitment. Each sentence clarifies scope, ownership, and accepted downsides, ensuring contracts, plans, and slides remain consistent under scrutiny and that any decision that cannot survive review is corrected or removed before commitment.

Table of Contents

Purpose & Scope

  1. We decide to position the site as voluntary rather than mandatory because this gives us higher long-term acceptance and lower resistance in everyday work instead of enforcing organization-wide usage from day one and accept that adoption will be slower and uneven.
  2. We decide to keep existing SharePoint team sites authoritative because this gives us continuity of ownership and avoids disruption of established workflows instead of declaring the new site as the primary source of truth and accept that information will remain distributed across multiple locations.
  3. We decide to frame the site explicitly as a complement rather than a replacement because this gives us political safety and reduces defensive reactions from teams instead of positioning it as a consolidation or cleanup initiative and accept that redundancy and parallel documentation will persist.
  4. We decide to allow teams to use the site for both cross-team and team-specific content because this gives us flexibility in real usage patterns instead of restricting the site to strictly organization-wide topics and accept that boundaries of relevance will be less clear.
  5. We decide to treat pages as the primary artifact rather than files because this gives us better contextual knowledge capture and navigability instead of organizing the site mainly as a file repository and accept that some users will find this less familiar for document-centric work.
  6. We decide to allow decision proposals as first-class artifacts because this gives us visible decision preparation and traceability instead of limiting the site to static knowledge pages and accept that incomplete or unresolved proposals will remain publicly visible.
  7. We decide to allow anyone in the organization to create pages because this gives us low entry barriers and decentralized contribution instead of requiring prior approval or role-based creation rights and accept that inconsistent quality and structure will occur.

Leadership sponsorship

  1. We decide to launch the site without a named executive sponsor because this gives us speed and avoids dependency on leadership availability instead of delaying launch until a sponsor is secured and accept that the initiative has less political protection.
  2. We decide not to require sponsor approval for rules or templates because this gives us operational autonomy and faster iteration instead of routing governance decisions through executive review and accept that rule conflicts cannot be escalated upward for resolution.
  3. We decide to treat sponsorship as optional and additive rather than required because this gives us flexibility to evolve the site experimentally instead of binding the site to a fixed leadership mandate and accept that legitimacy must be earned through use rather than endorsement.
  4. We decide not to assign any operational responsibilities to a sponsor because this gives us clarity that governance stays with the custodial team instead of creating shared or ambiguous accountability structures and accept that sponsors cannot be used to enforce compliance.
  5. We decide not to schedule recurring sponsor reviews because this gives us continuity of operating rules without leadership cadence constraints instead of formal periodic executive oversight and accept that governance drift must be handled internally.
  6. We decide to exclude leadership from approving individual pages because this gives us distributed ownership and avoids bottlenecks instead of introducing hierarchical content approval flows and accept that leadership cannot directly intervene in content disputes.

Operating model & Ownership

  1. We decide to establish a small custodial group with authority over system rules because this gives us a clear operational owner for governance decisions instead of relying on informal consensus across all users and accept that this concentrates decision power in a limited group.
  2. We decide to publish the identities of custodians on the site because this gives us a visible escalation and feedback path instead of keeping governance anonymous or implicit and accept that custodians become personal points of contact for criticism.
  3. We decide to give everyone edit rights while assigning custodians responsibility only for templates and metadata because this gives us maximal contribution freedom without content gatekeeping instead of restricting edit rights to a privileged group and accept that content consistency cannot be enforced centrally.
  4. We decide to exclude custodians from approving or modifying page content because this gives us clear separation between governance and authorship instead of a reviewer or editor model and accept that low-quality or disputed content may persist longer.
  5. We decide to define a short, explicit escalation path for rule violations because this gives us a predictable way to resolve conflicts instead of handling issues ad hoc through personal negotiation and accept that some edge cases will not fit cleanly into the process.
  6. We decide to document the operating model on a single canonical page because this gives us one authoritative reference point instead of distributing rules across multiple documents and accept that nuances not captured on that page will be overlooked.
  7. We decide not to enforce response time commitments for custodians because this gives us flexibility and avoids volunteer burnout instead of binding custodians to service-level expectations and accept that issue resolution may be slow.
  8. We decide not to fix the size of the custodial group in advance because this gives us the ability to adapt governance capacity over time instead of locking into a predefined structure and accept that group growth may become uneven or politically sensitive.
  9. We decide to review the operating model annually because this gives us a deliberate checkpoint for structural change instead of continuous informal adjustments and accept that known issues may remain unresolved until the review.
  10. We decide to allow custodial role changes without a fixed rotation schedule because this gives us situational flexibility instead of enforcing periodic handovers and accept that roles may remain with the same individuals for long periods.

Adoption & Rollout

  1. We decide to launch the site with a soft opening rather than a forced rollout because this gives us space to observe organic use without resistance instead of mandating immediate adoption across teams and accept that visibility and momentum will build slowly.
  2. We decide to seed the site with a small number of exemplar pages because this gives us concrete usage signals and copyable patterns instead of launching with an empty structure and accept that early examples may bias future usage.
  3. We decide to avoid automatic migration of existing content because this gives us a clean start without legacy noise instead of bulk moving material into the site and accept that historical knowledge remains fragmented.
  4. We decide not to provide a separate onboarding guide beyond the homepage because this gives us a single point of truth and lowers maintenance effort instead of creating additional training material and accept that first-time users may struggle initially.
  5. We decide to run one organization-wide introduction session because this gives us a shared baseline understanding instead of multiple team-specific briefings and accept that many users will miss or ignore the session.
  6. We decide to allow teams to opt out entirely because this gives us voluntary participation without coercion instead of enforcing minimum usage expectations and accept that some teams will never engage.
  7. We decide to track first-time page creation only for internal learning because this gives us adoption insight without pressure instead of publishing individual usage metrics and accept that we cannot drive behavior through measurement.
  8. We decide to limit active promotion to a defined initial period because this gives us a clear launch phase without ongoing broadcast noise instead of continuous reminders and accept that late adopters receive less encouragement.
  9. We decide to review adoption signals after three months because this gives us an evidence-based checkpoint for adjustment instead of reacting continuously and accept that early problems may persist until the review.

Communication

  1. We decide to communicate the purpose and rules exclusively through the homepage because this gives us one canonical reference point instead of maintaining parallel explanations across multiple channels and accept that users who do not read the homepage will miss guidance.
  2. We decide to announce the site through multiple existing channels rather than a single formal announcement because this gives us a broader reach across different audiences instead of relying on one official broadcast and accept that messaging consistency is harder to control.
  3. We decide to explicitly state what the site is not in launch communication because this gives us clearer expectation management instead of focusing only on intended use cases and accept that messaging becomes longer and more complex.
  4. We decide to avoid repeated broadcast reminders after launch because this gives us low pressure and reduces communication fatigue instead of ongoing promotion campaigns and accept that awareness will fade over time.
  5. We decide to link all communications back to the landing page because this gives us a single source of truth instead of embedding instructions directly in messages and accept that users must navigate away to get the full context.
  6. We decide to integrate the FAQ directly into the homepage because this gives us one maintained surface instead of a separate FAQ document and accept that the homepage becomes denser.
  7. We decide to restate voluntary participation in every announcement because this gives us psychological safety and avoids compliance framing instead of implying expected usage and accept that urgency and authority are reduced.
  8. We decide not to update or resend communications when rules change because this gives us a stable communication footprint instead of repeated change announcements and accept that users must proactively check the homepage for updates.
  9. We decide to keep a visible archive of announcements on the site because this gives us transparency and traceability instead of deleting or overwriting old messages and accept that outdated information remains accessible.

Usage guidelines

  1. We decide to publish all usage rules only on the homepage because this gives us a single authoritative rule surface instead of maintaining separate guideline pages and accept that detailed explanations cannot be expanded elsewhere.
  2. We decide to define pages as the primary unit of collaboration because this gives us a clear structural anchor for content and discussion instead of promoting files to act as primary artifacts and accept that some workflows feel constrained.
  3. We decide to state explicitly that comments are not the final record because this gives us clearer accountability for decisions and outcomes instead of letting conclusions remain buried in discussion threads and accept that extra effort is required to summarize outcomes in the page body.
  4. We decide to allow multiple but loosely defined page usage patterns because this gives us flexibility across different topics instead of enforcing a single page interaction model and accept that structural consistency is limited.
  5. We decide to avoid enforcing a mandatory template because this gives us maximum freedom in page creation instead of standardizing structure upfront and accept that pages vary widely in clarity and comparability.
  6. We decide to discourage but not forbid multiple topics per page because this gives us pragmatic flexibility for index and ideation pages instead of enforcing one topic per page strictly and accept that topic boundaries can become blurred.
  7. We decide to discourage presentations as primary artifacts because this gives us more readable and editable knowledge formats instead of slide-driven documentation and accept that some teams will continue to rely on slides.
  8. We decide to explicitly allow embedded spreadsheets because this gives us support for data-centric collaboration instead of restricting content to text-only pages and accept that pages can become harder to read.
  9. We decide to keep the guidelines short enough to read in under five minutes because this gives us higher likelihood of being read instead of comprehensive rule documentation and accept that edge cases remain undocumented.
  10. We decide not to version guidelines with a visible change history because this gives us freedom to make small corrections without ceremony instead of formal versioning and accept that users cannot easily track what changed.

Integration with existing sites

  1. We decide to document only a small set of integration principles because this gives us low governance overhead instead of comprehensive integration rules and accept that integration decisions rely on judgment.
  2. We decide to avoid technical dependencies on other SharePoint sites at launch because this gives us resilience and simpler setup instead of building automated or coupled integrations and accept that some efficiencies are delayed.
  3. We decide to allow pages to link freely to external SharePoint sites because this gives us lightweight integration without duplication instead of copying source content into the site and accept that understanding depends on external availability.
  4. We decide to allow pages to summarize and point to authoritative source material because this gives us contextual overviews while preserving ownership elsewhere instead of rewriting or relocating original documents and accept that summaries can become outdated.
  5. We decide to avoid cross-posting content and comments between sites because this gives us clearer ownership boundaries instead of synchronizing discussions across locations and accept that conversations stay fragmented.

Page structure

  1. We decide not to prescribe a standard page layout because this gives us real usage-driven patterns instead of designing a fixed structure upfront and accept that pages will differ significantly in readability.
  2. We decide to rely on example pages as implicit guidance because this gives us organic pattern adoption instead of documented layout rules and accept that learning requires browsing existing content.
  3. We decide not to use page titles as the primary organizational mechanism because this gives us flexibility through metadata and index pages instead of strict title-based navigation and accept that titles alone may not convey scope clearly.
  4. We decide to allow tables, lists, and embedded elements as first-class page content because this gives us expressive freedom in how information is captured instead of limiting pages to narrative text and accept that visual consistency is reduced.

Page ownership

  1. We decide to require exactly one primary personal owner, one secondary personal owner, and one organizational owner per page because this gives us clear accountability paths instead of allowing collective or implicit ownership and accept that ownership assignment adds upfront coordination.
  2. We decide to build site processes around personal owners while also recording an organizational owner because this gives us a clear operational contact instead of relying on group ownership and accept that personal owners carry more coordination load.
  3. We decide to display page ownership prominently as metadata because this gives us immediate clarity on responsibility instead of hiding ownership in history or relying on authorship and accept that owners become visible points of contact.
  4. We decide to allow owners to change ownership at any time without a formal process because this gives us fast adaptation to role changes instead of requiring approval workflows and accept that ownership can shift frequently.
  5. We decide to leave rules for minor edits to the page owner rather than central policy because this gives us contextual control at the page level instead of uniform enforcement and accept that edit practices differ across pages.
  6. We decide to allow owners to archive their own pages because this gives us decentralized lifecycle control instead of custodial archiving and accept that archiving decisions vary in rigor.
  7. We decide not to record ownership changes in formal page history because this gives us lower implementation overhead instead of building custom tracking and accept that past ownership transitions are harder to audit.

Trust & Boundaries

  1. We decide to prohibit silent overwriting of another person’s work through explicit rules rather than technical enforcement because this gives us shared behavioral expectations without complex controls instead of locking pages by default and accept that violations rely on social correction.
  2. We decide to leave consent requirements for major content changes to page owners because this gives us contextual decision-making at the page level instead of centrally mandated approval rules and accept that protection against unwanted changes varies by page.
  3. We decide to define acceptable behavior rules briefly and explicitly because this gives us clarity with minimal policy weight instead of comprehensive conduct documentation and accept that some situations remain ambiguous.
  4. We decide to route boundary violations to the existing organizational code of conduct because this gives us a clear escalation path without duplicating governance instead of creating site-specific enforcement mechanisms and accept that resolution is slower and less tailored.
  5. We decide not to document site-specific consequences for repeated violations because this gives us alignment with organizational authority instead of parallel sanction systems and accept that the site itself has limited enforcement power.
  6. We decide to prioritize speed of change over psychological safety because this gives us faster iteration and learning instead of cautious consensus building and accept that some users may feel exposed.
  7. We decide to keep boundary rules extremely short because this gives us a higher likelihood of being read and remembered instead of detailed prescriptions and accept that interpretation depends on judgment.
  8. We decide to review boundary rules annually because this gives us a predictable adjustment point instead of continuous refinement and accept that known issues may persist until review.

Writing rules

  1. We decide to encourage plain language over formal reports because this gives us faster comprehension and lower writing overhead instead of expecting polished report-style documents and accept that nuance and formal rigor are sometimes reduced.
  2. We decide to allow bullet lists as a primary content structure because this gives us concise and scannable pages instead of requiring narrative prose formats and accept that complex arguments may be oversimplified.
  3. We decide not to mandate linking over copying text because this gives us author discretion in how context is presented instead of enforcing reference-only documentation and accept that duplicated content can diverge over time.
  4. We decide to require clear section headings on pages because this gives us navigable and maintainable long-form content instead of unstructured text blocks and accept that authors must invest minimal structuring effort.
  5. We decide to avoid prescribing writing style beyond basic rules because this gives us flexibility across different use cases instead of enforcing a uniform voice or tone and accept that stylistic inconsistency increases.
  6. We decide to allow iterative improvement of wording over time because this gives us living documents that evolve with understanding instead of freezing content after initial publication and accept that pages may remain temporarily rough.
  7. We decide not to require sources or links for factual claims because this gives us lower friction for contribution instead of enforcing citation standards and accept that factual accuracy relies on reader judgment.
  8. We decide to document all writing rules only on the homepage because this gives us a single reference surface instead of maintaining a separate writing guide and accept that writing guidance remains intentionally minimal.

Comment use

  1. We decide to allow anyone to comment on any page by default because this gives us open discussion and low participation barriers instead of restricting comments to owners or editors and accept that comment volume and relevance vary widely.
  2. We decide not to introduce comment moderation or approval because this gives us immediate visibility of reactions instead of controlled publishing flows and accept that inappropriate comments must be handled socially.
  3. We decide to let page owners define page-specific comment rules in the page body because this gives us contextual control instead of global comment policies and accept that expectations differ from page to page.
  4. We decide not to require that final decisions be moved out of comments because this gives us flexibility in how discussions conclude instead of enforcing formal decision capture workflows and accept that outcomes can remain buried.
  5. We decide to rely on owners to summarize relevant comments into the page content because this gives us curated knowledge instead of treating comments as durable records and accept that summaries depend on owner effort.
  6. We decide to document the purpose and limits of comments explicitly because this gives us shared expectations instead of leaving comment use implicit and accept that misuse still occurs.

Metadata

  1. We decide to require owner metadata on every page because this gives us a reliable accountability mechanism instead of inferring responsibility from authorship and accept that owners must maintain metadata actively.
  2. We decide not to require a status field on every page because this gives us flexibility in how pages evolve instead of enforcing lifecycle tracking and accept that page maturity is harder to assess.
  3. We decide to require at least one topic category tag per page because this gives us navigable content groupings instead of untagged pages and accept that tagging effort is imposed on authors.
  4. We decide to define a fixed set of allowed status values because this gives us a consistent interpretation where status is used instead of free-text status fields and accept that edge cases are forced into predefined labels.
  5. We decide not to display metadata automatically at the top of pages because this gives us layout freedom for authors instead of rigid page headers and accept that metadata visibility depends on author effort.
  6. We decide to document metadata definitions centrally because this gives us a shared understanding of fields instead of informal interpretation and accept that updates require coordinated changes.
  7. We decide to review metadata fields annually because this gives us controlled evolution instead of frequent adjustments and accept that mismatches persist until review.
  1. We decide to provide a curated landing page as the primary entry point because this gives us a single orientation surface instead of relying on users to discover content through lists alone and accept that the landing page requires ongoing attention.
  2. We decide not to highlight recently updated pages on the landing page because this gives us lower maintenance overhead instead of dynamic curation and accept that fresh activity is less visible.
  3. We decide to allow browsing through metadata-based list views because this gives us structured discovery without folders instead of manual navigation hierarchies and accept that browsing depends on correct metadata.
  4. We decide to avoid folder hierarchies entirely for pages because this gives us a flat and flexible structure instead of deep navigation trees and accept that spatial organization cues are lost.
  5. We decide to make search the primary navigation mechanism because this gives us scalable access across all content instead of menu-driven navigation and accept that effective discovery depends on search quality.
  6. We decide not to create multi-level navigation structures because this gives us simplicity and low governance overhead instead of maintaining menus and submenus and accept that users must learn alternative discovery paths.
  7. We decide to rely on a small number of manually maintained index pages because this gives us topic-level entry points instead of comprehensive automated navigation and accept that index pages can become outdated.
  8. We decide to review navigation usability after launch via user feedback rather than upfront design because this gives us evidence-based adjustment instead of speculative optimization and accept that early navigation pain persists until review.

Knowledge maintenance

  1. We decide to place responsibility for keeping pages current on page owners because this gives us clear accountability instead of assigning maintenance to custodians and accept that some pages will become outdated.
  2. We decide not to enforce fixed maintenance intervals because this gives us flexibility for content with different lifecycles instead of scheduled review requirements and accept that stale content is not systematically flagged.
  3. We decide not to display last updated dates directly on pages because this gives us cleaner page layouts instead of prominent freshness indicators and accept that readers must check metadata lists to assess recency.
  4. We decide not to flag or warn about pages that have not changed for long periods because this gives us low governance overhead instead of automated staleness controls and accept that obsolete content remains discoverable.
  5. We decide to allow anyone to suggest updates via comments because this gives us lightweight feedback without edit authority instead of formal change requests and accept that suggestions may be ignored.
  6. We decide to document maintenance expectations only on the homepage because this gives us a single reference instead of repeated reminders and accept that expectations are easy to overlook.
  7. We decide not to trigger maintenance tasks or reminders centrally because this gives us autonomy for owners instead of enforced upkeep processes and accept that content quality varies.
  8. We decide to allow pages to remain unchanged indefinitely if still valid because this gives us respect for stable knowledge instead of forced updates and accept that validity judgments are subjective.
  9. We decide not to review stale content signals periodically at a system level because this gives us minimal operational effort instead of active hygiene programs and accept that the accumulation of outdated pages increases.
  10. We decide to avoid mass cleanups without owner involvement because this gives us trust and ownership continuity instead of centralized deletion or archiving and accept that cleanup progresses slowly.

Archiving

  1. We decide to provide an explicit archive status as metadata because this gives us a clear lifecycle signal instead of relying on informal page abandonment and accept that owners must actively manage status.
  2. We decide to allow page owners to archive their own pages because this gives us decentralized lifecycle control instead of custodial approval flows and accept that archiving criteria vary between owners.
  3. We decide to keep archived pages searchable because this gives us historical traceability instead of removing content from discovery and accept that users may encounter outdated information.
  4. We decide to visually mark archived pages prominently because this gives us immediate context for readers instead of subtle or hidden indicators and accept that page aesthetics are constrained.
  5. We decide not to prohibit editing of archived pages because this gives us flexibility to correct or revive content instead of locking archived material and accept that archived status loses strict finality.
  6. We decide to allow unarchiving through owner action alone because this gives us fast reversal without governance overhead instead of requiring custodial review and accept that lifecycle discipline is weaker.
  7. We decide to avoid automatic archiving rules initially because this gives us learning time on real usage patterns instead of time-based automation and accept that inactive pages accumulate.
  8. We decide not to require documented reasons for archiving because this gives us low friction for owners instead of mandatory justification fields and accept that future readers lack context.
  9. We decide not to exclude archived pages from active views by default because this gives us completeness of visibility instead of filtered experiences and accept that active views include noise.
  10. We decide to review archiving rules annually because this gives us a controlled adjustment cadence instead of continuous tuning and accept that known issues persist until review.

Success metrics

  1. We decide to track the number of active pages because this gives us a concrete signal of content growth instead of relying on anecdotal impressions and accept that page count does not reflect quality or usefulness.
  2. We decide to track unique contributors over time because this gives us insight into participation breadth instead of focusing only on content volume and accept that contribution depth is not measured.
  3. We decide to avoid individual-level performance metrics because this gives us compliance with data protection expectations instead of using metrics for accountability and accept that we cannot identify non-participation.
  4. We decide to review metrics yearly rather than quarterly because this gives us stability and low reporting overhead instead of frequent evaluation cycles and accept that corrective actions are delayed.
  5. We decide to publish metrics transparently monthly because this gives us shared visibility instead of keeping metrics internal and accept that numbers may be misinterpreted.
  6. We decide to limit metrics to a small predefined set because this gives us focus and simplicity instead of comprehensive measurement frameworks and accept that some signals are ignored.
  7. We decide not to use metrics for enforcement because this gives us voluntary engagement instead of compliance pressure and accept that metrics cannot drive behavior.
  8. We decide to document metric definitions explicitly because this gives us a consistent interpretation instead of an informal understanding and accept that updating definitions requires coordination.

Feedback & Iteration

  1. We decide to provide a visible feedback channel on the site because this gives us direct, contextual input from users instead of routing feedback through external tools and accept that feedback volume can become noisy.
  2. We decide to review feedback on a fixed cadence rather than ad hoc because this gives us a predictable processing rhythm instead of constant reactive changes and accept that urgent issues may wait.
  3. We decide to maintain an internal log of potential changes instead of publishing all feedback verbatim because this gives us a manageable decision record instead of a public backlog and accept that transparency into deliberation is limited.
  4. We decide to publish responses to common feedback because this gives us visible learning and closure instead of silent adjustments and accept that some feedback remains unanswered.
  5. We decide to announce significant changes clearly on the homepage because this gives us a single update surface instead of multi-channel change communication and accept that users who do not revisit the homepage may miss changes.
  6. We decide to allow only minor silent rule changes because this gives us room for maintenance fixes instead of freezing rules between announcements and accept that users may not notice small adjustments.
  7. We decide to time-box experiments explicitly because this gives us clear learning boundaries instead of open-ended trials and accept that experiments may end before full adoption.

Risk management

  1. We decide not to maintain a dedicated risk register page because this gives us tighter coupling between risks and concrete decisions instead of managing a separate risk artifact and accept that risks are harder to scan holistically.
  2. We decide to document risks only as part of recorded site decisions because this gives us contextualized mitigation thinking instead of abstract risk statements and accept that some risks are repeated across decisions.
  3. We decide to assign risk ownership implicitly to the site owner rather than per risk because this gives us clear overall accountability instead of distributing ownership across multiple roles and accept that individual risks lack named stewards.
  4. We decide to review risks on a half-yearly cadence because this gives us a manageable governance rhythm instead of frequent reassessment and accept that emerging risks may remain unaddressed for months.
  5. We decide to embed mitigation actions directly in decision updates because this gives us operational follow-through instead of separate action tracking and accept that mitigation progress is less visible.

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