SharePoint Isn't Boring Anymore: How Copilot Is Reinventing the Modern Workplace with Marcin Siewnicki [MVP]

For years, SharePoint has carried a reputation for complicated document libraries, outdated intranets, confusing navigation, too many sites, and information that employees simply cannot find. But Microsoft 365 is changing, and Copilot is making SharePoint more important than it has been in a long time.In this episode of the M365 FM Podcast, Mirko Peters talks with Microsoft MVP Marcin Siewnicki about how SharePoint is evolving from a traditional document and intranet platform into a central information and knowledge layer for the modern workplace. Marcin has worked with SharePoint since the SharePoint 2003 era, giving him more than two decades of perspective on how the platform has changed.

WHY SHAREPOINT GOT A BAD REPUTATION
Much of SharePoint’s reputation was created by the way organizations implemented it. Intranets were often designed by IT, heavily customized, difficult to use, and disconnected from what employees actually needed.Instead of continuously gathering feedback and improving the experience, many companies delivered an intranet and expected employees to adapt to it. The result was complex navigation, outdated content, overloaded pages, and systems people avoided whenever possible.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE BEFORE TECHNOLOGY
One of the biggest problems is not SharePoint itself but how information is organized inside it. Without a clear information architecture, SharePoint can quickly become a huge shared folder filled with duplicated files, outdated information, unclear ownership, and multiple versions of the same document.Marcin explains why organizations should start with a simple structure, understand their data, remove unnecessary content, and introduce basic metadata. Information architecture does not have to be complicated to make SharePoint significantly easier to use.

BUILDING A MODERN SHAREPOINT WORKPLACE
A modern SharePoint homepage should not become an endless collection of web parts, corporate announcements, applications, and links. It should be simple, personalized, visually clear, and focused on what employees actually need.Communication sites can provide departments and organizations with modern, mobile-friendly publishing experiences without requiring the enormous custom intranet projects that were common in the past. The focus should be on useful information, important applications, relevant documents, straightforward navigation, and strong search capabilities.

SOLVING THE SHAREPOINT NAVIGATION PROBLEM
Navigation remains one of SharePoint’s biggest challenges. Organizations frequently attempt to expose every department, application, resource, and internal page through a single navigation structure.Marcin explains why simpler navigation usually works better. Global navigation should focus on the most important destinations, while detailed navigation can be provided closer to individual departments, sites, and business areas. Otherwise, navigation itself becomes another information problem.

SHAREPOINT AND TEAMS SPRAWL
Microsoft Teams and SharePoint are deeply connected. Every new Team and many Teams channels can introduce additional SharePoint resources, which means uncontrolled Teams creation can quickly become uncontrolled SharePoint growth.Organizations therefore need simple creation processes, templates, basic metadata, lifecycle management, and user education. Employees should understand when they need a Team, when a SharePoint site is sufficient, and what happens behind the scenes when these collaboration environments are created.One useful way of looking at the relationship is to think of Microsoft Teams as the collaboration interface while SharePoint provides much of the document and information layer underneath it.

GOVERNANCE WITHOUT KILLING INNOVATION
Governance does not need to mean preventing employees from using new technology. The goal is to provide enough freedom for people to work...