SharePoint can be a misunderstood product.
When I was first introduced to SharePoint, I was lost and didn’t really understand how it worked or what was even the point. I hated it! and I was wrong. SharePoint is one of the best collaboration platforms I have used so far. Collaboration is key to a successful project and in SharePoint, the possibilities are endless.
If you had to manage a big project, you’ll probably understand how it feels when you’re not organized.
It’s Monday, my boss tells me I got a new client and the project starts tomorrow. After identifying project requirements, first thing I need to do is, find my team members. I go around the office, asking my coworkers about their skills so I can assemble the perfect team. A meeting invite gets sent out, and from there documents start emerging. These documents grow, get passed around and within a couple of weeks, after hundreds of emails and a couple of dozen meetings, people start feeling overwhelmed. I’m never sure if I have the latest version of a document and it seems like everything is spread across multiple devices and some team members have different information than others.. it just feels like every team member is on their own island.
This is where SharePoint can help ease some of the pain of collaborating.
Let’s go back to the beginning; I’m starting a new project and need to assemble a team. This time, I create a Site, where my future team members can go in and learn about the new project. Then, using search, within minutes I can identify my future team members by looking at their profile and reading up on their skills. Once the team is formed and meeting invites are sent out, team members become site members and they can start collaborating in the project site created. In the site, there’s a document library, where all documents related to the project reside. There’s also a tasks list, where I can assign each member an individual task and track their progress over time.
SharePoint becomes the source for everything related to my project. All documents, tasks, project plans, calendars… Everything lives in my SharePoint site, where there’s only one version of the truth. Now I am no longer worried about attachments and version control or making sure everyone is on the same page. SharePoint does that for me.