After deciding on a business strategy and getting a rudimentary handle on governance, it's time to dive deeper into the SharePoint space. You've attended conferences, online Q&A sessions, and watched free promotional demos. You've probably even had consulting firms present their solutions, tailored to the needs of your firm. With this much research, you think you have pretty much figured out SharePoint. It's no longer just a hot buzzword or some abstract platform. It's tangible and you're ready to start deploying.

But do you really know enough about the technical side of the SharePoint landscape? Have you mapped the real hardware and software requirements for your organization, and their associated costs?

The functionality and usability requirements that you identify will ultimately drive the architectural decisions that you make. At the very least, you need to know enough to be able to effectively brainstorm a versatile architecture with your technical staff...