Have you ever wondered what being a project manager in an organization looks like? Being a project manager involves managing, assigning, and executing tasks. This means incorporating challenges like unclear goals and poor communication that contribute to increasing the risk of project failure. Considering these factors is there a way technology, such as SharePoint for Project Management, can help in solving these issues and help you to stay on track while everyone else is on the same page?
The answer is yes! Microsoft SharePoint is one such platform that offers a wide range of tools that simplify project management. Its primary goal is to streamline the project while improving collaboration and tracking changes. In this blog, we will explore and understand its benefits, tools, and best strategies and further how Microsoft SharePoint can help you to manage projects prominently.
For a deeper understanding, be sure to refer to our SharePoint Guide, which offers a comprehensive look at its functionalities and best practices.
What is Microsoft SharePoint?
Introduced by Microsoft in 2001, SharePoint is a web-based application that provides 360-degree support in managing your content over created intranet platforms that are secured by access restrictions. Its adaptability with different formats of documents and accessibility from any location helps make it a reliable assistant throughout the process.
Last but not least, it is equipped with the latest technology to align with real-time collaboration with extended workflow automation. Its highlighted SharePoint features also include its versatile mobile adaptability and its ability to analyze data with Power BI.
Microsoft SharePoint is a dedicated project management tool that has built-in intricate structures for every step and level of managing and executing a successful project. To understand them in more depth, let’s talk about the various options that can be supported while working with Microsoft SharePoint.
If you’re wondering whether to use SharePoint On-Premises or SharePoint Online for your project management needs, check out our blog on What makes SharePoint On-Premises different from SharePoint Online?
Tools for Project Management in Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is known for its multifaceted tools and adaptability to other outer sharing platforms. Designed to solve issues on every level in the process of the project cycle, Microsoft SharePoint beats out other platforms with its effective tools. There are majorly three categories. Let’s dive into the details and know how the combination of these tools can contribute to the successful completion of your project.
Core Collaboration Tools
As the name suggests, these tools are deliberately focused on finding solutions for eliminating challenges faced by communicating details across departments and, hence, help to keep the team on different sides on the same line.
- Team Site: This tool focuses on building a site where a team can build, plan, share, track, and exchange ideas. It has a layering of protection for access while centralizing communication, tasks, and documents. It allows everyone on the team to collaboratively work on it and is an easy-to-use feature for the complex design of teams and the execution of projects.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Working closely with a team that has professional experience in different domains can increase the chances of opinions and conflicts. This feature allows you to work on documents simultaneously while tracking changes. Doing so helps in clarifying the requirements and ensuring everyone is working on the most updated information.
- Document Libraries: This tool allows access to the document from any place within a team. It organizes, stores, and manages projects, keeping the documents in a centralized position that has security layers. This leads to real-time collaborations and ensures everyone is aware of the latest version.
- Discussion/Performance Boards: This feature visualizes important information while keeping everyone in the same loop of information. Tracking performance while discussing potential ideation to reach the goal, hence, results in upgraded quality of work and better decision making.
Core Automation and Integration Tools
Automation and integration in the project cycle immensely help to build the right product, automatically cultivate the needed alerts, and enable content approvals according to the access variations within the team. With the help of these tools, one can align their processes and reduce any extra work that might be adding up to the load of work.
- Power Automate: This tool focuses on keeping everyone in the team aware of the progress by servicing repetitive tasks like notifying important updates, updating status, and alerting them of any type of changes happening.
- Custom List: Microsoft SharePoint gives you the option of creating lists that can be accessed by teams and does all the repetitive tasks for you. This allows users to create a place where they can track and manage the data. By default, this created list is available to anyone in the organization, but it can also be controlled for security access. Has a control feature to choose from who can have access to it.
- Workflow: Creating workflows that are by start automated for the reduction of repetitive tasks and document routing helps in reaching the goals with less hassle and provides clarity in completing the work.
Core Tracking and Monitoring Tools
Keeping track of changes being made continuously by different members of the team, especially with multiple time zones, can be difficult. With the help of these tools, it becomes easy to monitor the response at times and further work with fewer errors.
- Project Management Site Template: This tool provides a pre-build structure t tracking projects at different levels, risks, and issues. Putting in simple words, this will act as the team’s homepage. It consists of every fine detail, alert, notification, and meeting note with an access option to whom it can be shared.
- Task List: A task list helps in creating customized solutions to figure out the next step. This list prominently helps managers track the progress of projects, determine deadlines, and assign intricate tasks to team members.
There are a few more popular tools in Microsoft Office 365 that you might already know. This helps to reduce the extra work in the process of the project cycle. The diagram below illustrates these.
Strategies for Project Management in SharePoint
Completing a project while maintaining consistency and completing tasks while meeting deadlines can be exhausting if one does not have strategies from the start. Mapping out the outcomes with possible challenges can look like a task, but completing this step of any project cycle can actually boost the confidence in the team as one knows what to do and can help in achieving goals with clear objectives. Thus, here are five strategies one can implement while working on a project to eliminate distractions and accomplish goals.
- Establish Centralized Document Management: This built-in feature of Microsoft SharePoint supports the project manager at every step. Building a documentation space helps in notifying important alerts for easy access to required information. Doing so with strategy keeps everyone on the team updated, resulting in fewer communication mishaps.
- Define clear goals and responsibilities: Multi-layers of access control are a feature responsible for the clear distribution of work while collaborating confidently within the hierarchy. It helps in focusing on the right agenda and tracking progress through records.
- Automate Workflows: This helps to automate important information while avoiding unnecessary delays. This feature highlights the required alerts within needed trials, deflecting repetitive tasks.
- Trak with Professional Dashboards: Professional dashboards are one of the best features in SharePoint that help track the real-time performance of a project. It contributes to giving out a clear picture of visualizing progress, approaching deadlines, and analyzing errors. This results in a continuous display of the status of different levels of work, giving the team their next step.
- Integration with Microsoft 365: As illustrated in the above diagram, Microsoft 365 tools are available for seamless collaboration. Its ability and accessibility are a magnificent tool for project managers, making it an evident first choice for them. The biggest advantage of Microsoft 365 is it creates an ecosystem for the project from start to finish, while providing all the necessary tools to meet the deadline.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Microsoft SharePoint has some effective tools that can help project managers escalate their work through improved collaboration, reduced administration, and access to documentation from remote locations. Its power to manage teams with large-scale projects makes it a significant tool for any size of organization.
With that, we hope this blog gave you a clear perspective on excelling tools for your project management journey. Also, if you are someone who is looking to upgrade your professional portfolio by acquiring certification in SharePoint, we at Microtek Learning have experts in the industry with experience who can guide you.
