Why every SharePoint Site needs two Owners

When I work with clients, I often observe situations where there are tens or hundreds of SharePoint sites that have been created, and no one knows what the hell they are for and why they were created in the first place. This, unfortunately, can lead to some severe consequences, including loss of intellectual property. With this short post, I would like to make a point of why each and every SharePoint Site or Team needs to have at least two Owners.

It takes two to tango!

Two types of Owners

First, I would like to define the Owners. You can either be a Content Owner or a Site Owner. Let me explain.

Content Owner

Content Owner is the owner of Content – documents, lists, tasks, links, pages – whatever you store on your site. Content Owners are responsible for the content/intellectual property and wellbeing and correctness of the information on a site (correct versions/revisions of content, documents, etc.)

Site Owner

By Site Owners, I mean “technical people” who control the technical aspects of the site: security/permissions, look, and feel of the site.

Can the Content Owner be the Site Owner?

Of course, they can. And most often, this ends up being the case where the user who is responsible for content also maintains the site and site security. But at the same time, I also see many situations where Content Owners are technophobes who want nothing to do with SharePoint site and security management. Therefore, though by design Content Owner is not the same as Site Owner, they could be the same person too.