SharePoint for PMs: How to Navigate and Excel in Your Projects

Project management is quite a complicated subject that calls for effective teamwork, communication and well-structured data management. Given the variety of tools and features offered by the Microsoft platform, SharePoint can greatly improve project management skills.

Read on to know how to utilize SharePoint for project management, ensuring successful project execution and delivery.

Understanding Project Management

Before exploring project how to use SharePoint to manage projects, it’s essential to understand project management basics. Planning, executing, overseeing and finalizing a project are all aspects of project management. As much as there are restrictions such as scope, time and resources, the management of all project-related activities is successfully managed using SharePoint. This provides a centralized platform for streamlining these processes.

Key Components of Project Management in SharePoint

Lists: SharePoint contains lists for effectively storing different forms of project-related data. These forms of data include tasks, milestones, obstacles, and dangers. It’s quite essential as it helps in closely observing and updating project data regularly to make for effective team work.

Leveraging Web Parts: Web Parts are flexible SharePoint components, and it helps in improving the data visualization process involved in project management. Project managers can use Web Parts to easily include interactive features to their project sites such as calendars, graphs and charts.

Understanding SharePoint Sites: In SharePoint, each project could have a unique site that acts as the platform for all related project activities. This ensures viewing is simplified and sharing of project data, documents and status updates among team members is easily done.

Understanding Site Collections: In SharePoint, site collections group many sites under a single top-level site and provide a logical structure for effectively managing projects throughout an organization.

Advantages Of Using SharePoint For Project Management

Optimizing Auto-Alerts for Timely changes: SharePoint features an alert system that quickly notifies team members about project changes, adjustments and deadlines. This lessens the risk of making errors and missing deadlines.

Dashboard Summary: This SharePoint’s feature helps project managers in organizing project data into graphs and charts using dynamic dashboards. This offers a high-level overview of the project’s status.

Leveraging In-built Communication Tools: To have a seamless team collaboration, SharePoint offers a range of communication tools such as message boards and announcements.

Software for Monitoring Project Goals: Project managers can also maximize the goal-tracking capabilities of SharePoint to set project goals, monitor progress and align team efforts with project milestones.

Streamlining Document Organization: Project managers can utilize the document management features in SharePoint to organize and disseminate project-related materials efficiently. This makes for easy access and version control.

How to Use SharePoint To Manage Projects

Gathering Project Resources

Before you set up a project site, ensure you have all the necessary documents including paperwork, details about the stakeholders and the project’s scope and objectives.

Creating a Project Site

In SharePoint, you can easily create a site that suits your project. Given the fitting customization, team members will have the appropriate access and permissions.

Setting up the Project

SharePoint makes it easy to add the necessary web components, libraries and listings to the project site. The layout of the website can also be customized to meet the demands of your project.

Adding and Managing Project Tasks

In SharePoint, you can create a task list and assign responsibilities and due dates to team members. To effectively track progress, you must update the task status regularly.

Organizing Project Documents

In SharePoint, project files can be categorized and kept in the document libraries, ensuring the entire project is well-organized. To keep track of changes and ensure document integrity, versioning should be employed.

Customizing the Website to Suit Your Needs

As mentioned earlier, SharePoint’s customization tools help in setting up your project site to your team’s preferences. You can easily make any required layout adjustments and add any applicable site components.

Seeking Team Feedback and Reviews

Collaboration is essential as it encourages team members to provide feedback and take part in frequent project reviews.

Giving the team precise review instructions

To guarantee focused and beneficial participation, ensure the team is informed of the review’s needs and objectives.

Monitoring Project Progress

You can use the dashboard and goal-tracking features in SharePoint to monitor the project’s progress, identify potential bottlenecks and take preventative measures to address them.

Editing and finalizing the project plan

Also ensure the project schedule is updated in response to feedback and changes. As the project nears completion, complete the plan and get ready for the project close.

These are the steps on how to use SharePoint to manage projects.

Final Thoughts

Given the fact that it offers a seamless platform for effectively and cooperatively managing projects, SharePoint is a game-changer for project managers. Project managers may easily manage their projects by understanding the basics of project management and taking advantage of SharePoint’s benefits.

SharePoint guarantees successful project execution and delivery. It effectively sets up project sites, keeping track of developments, and involving team members. Plus, it ensures your project management abilities soar to new heights.

So, if you have a project you need completed in a stipulated amount of time, SharePoint is the ideal platform to use.