The Future of SharePoint Project Management

An article on CMSWire by Dux Raymond.



One of the immediate values SharePoint can deliver to an organization is the ability to address project management challenges, such as inefficient communication among stakeholders, poor information management practices and undefined project collaboration standards that compromises project success.



I had the privilege of presenting at the SharePoint Conference 2009 with Julie Auletta and Daisy Anand of Bamboo Solutions on the topic of “The Future of SharePoint Project Management”. The changes coming with SharePoint 2010 combined with the advancement of desktop tools like Microsoft Project are ushering in a new era of SharePoint project management.



SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Success



I kick started the session by discussing the importance of having a well defined project management process in place before relying on tools like SharePoint. A common mistake organizations make is to invest in a Project Management Information System (PMIS) before fundamental project management practices are in place. Relying on technology to make projects successful is as good as believing Penn & Tellers’ magic tricks are real.



Once I had made the case for sound project management practices, I demonstrated how a project manager could leverage out of the box SharePoint to:
 

 
• Centralize project information and communication in a SharePoint site



 
• Automate project processes like change control process by utilizing built in SharePoint workflows



 
• Efficiently interact with project information on a SharePoint site by integrating it with common Microsoft Office tools such as Word, Excel, and Outlook



 
• Enable alerts to send automated reminders to project stakeholders



 
• Define and monitor project tasks in the enhanced project task list which now shows task dependencies and a “Microsoft Project-like” Gantt view interface