The document discusses managing projects using SharePoint, highlighting best practices, tools, and strategies for effective project management. It emphasizes leveraging SharePoint for project tracking, artifact organization, and team collaboration, while addressing common challenges faced in project management. The presentation outlines various tips for utilizing SharePoint effectively, such as managing lists, tracking status, organizing documents, and utilizing dashboards.

1. “Managing Projects on SharePoint”
Charlotte Area SharePoint User Group
July 21, 2010
Rich Blank
www.pmpinsights.com

2. About the Speaker
Rich Blank, MBA, PMP
Managing Consultant, Charlotte, NC
• LinkedIn: http://www.richblank.com
• Blog: www.pmpinsights.com
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/pmpinsights
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/pmpinsights
Experience
• Strategy & Deployment: Over 15 years consulting, managing projects, & evangelizing collaboration,
knowledge management, ECM, and solutions/information architecture.
• Prior Speaking Engagements: most recently 2010 SharePoint Summit and previously related
IT/Business Alignment Conferences
• Technology: Microsoft SharePoint, eRoom, Documentum, Lotus Quickr, Connections, Notes among
the many competing portal, collaboration and ECM platforms.
• Certifications: MBA, Project Management Professional (PMP), Six Sigma Green Belt.
• Past Positions: Previous Sr. Consulting roles at IBM, EMC, KPMG, HP.
2

3. Agenda: Managing Projects On SharePoint 1-2-3
Enterprise
3. Portfolio (& Project)
Scope of Effort Management
2. Project
Teams
1. Project
Individual
Managers
Level of Complexity
PM 101 Low High
3

4. PMI 101: Complexity = Need for Structure
Project “Categories”
Unstructured Structured
Project Project Project Project
Management Management Management Management
by Accident “Light” Formal Mature
(Not PMP (issues, tasks, Methodology Lifecycle
certified, ad- charter, (following a (PMO Project
hoc, email, requirements, recognized Mgt Office,
XLS, Word, deliverables, methodology Phases, Toll
etc…) etc...) such as PMI, Six Gates,
Sigma, Agile, Optimization,
Waterfall, etc…) Earned Value,
ERP integration,
etc…)
4

5. PM 101: Project Management Key Activities
1. Project Initiation
2. Kickoff Meetings
3. Stakeholder Management
4. Status
5. Communications
6. Project Schedule and WBS
7. Issues
8. Risks
9. Change Control
10. Budget/Financials
5

6. PM 101: Current Tools
 Email
 MS Project
 Excel
 Word
 File-shares
 Vanilla (TB)
SharePoint Sites
 Project Svr 2007
6

7. PM 101: Current Challenges Managing Projects
 “eMail Jail”: held hostage by our inboxes
 Methodology: exists but not followed
 Communication: ineffective, missed, or lack of
 Time and Distance: across time zones and geography
 Artifacts: Poor organization of project relation information & artifacts
 Visibility: Lack of important metrics, issues, discussions, risks, etc…
 Priorities: Competing priorities (synchronous meetings)
 Multiple Systems: Duplicate entry across systems/documents, lack of a
unified platform for portfolio, project, and collaborative document
management
7

8. PMI 101: Right Tools for the Job
Unstructured Structured
Project Project Project Project
Management Management Management Management
by Accident “Light” Formal Mature
Methodology Lifecycle
Out of the box (OOTB) MS Project Professional MS Project Server
“vanilla” SharePoint MS SharePoint Server MS Project Professional
sites (site templates or MS SharePoint Server
customized sites)
Microsoft Office Applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook
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9. How Project Managers can leverage SharePoint?
Enterprise
3. Portfolio (& Project)
Scope of Effort Management
2. Project
Teams
1. Project
Individual
Managers
Level of Complexity
Low High
9

10. Tip #1: Manage Lists in SharePoint (not documents)
PM Activities SharePoint Site Structure
 Risks
Sites
 Issues (intranet pages, wikis, blog, team, document, meetings)
 Requirements
Lists
 Contacts Document libraries, calendars, discussions, surveys, custom…
 Communications
Items
 Tasks Folder, Files, events, contact, customer, image, custom
 Milestones
 Change Requests Sub-Sites
 Checklists
 Test Cases
If you have a table in a Word Document, or are using Excel to manage
ANYTHING, consider creating a SharePoint List. If you do use MSWord,
reference the URL Link to the SharePoint list inside the Word document.
10

11. Lists that Belong in SharePoint
Example: BRD Word Document
Redundant
tables of
information
filled out in
multiple
project
artifacts.
11

12. Lists that Belong in SharePoint
Example: Risk Matrix as Viewed in Excel
Risk Factors Initial Low Risk Cues Medium Risk Cues High Risk Cues
Risk
Assessm
Facto ent (L, M,
r ID H)
Organization Management & Alignment
1Project Fit to Business directly supports BU indirectly impacts one or more BU does not support or relate to
Unit (BU) mission and/or goals goals BU mission or goals
Organization
2Organization Stability little or no change in some management change or management or organization
management or structure reorganization expected structure is continually or
expected rapidly changing
3Organization Roles individuals throughout the individuals understand their own many in the organization are
and Responsibilities organization understand roles and responsibilities, but are unsure or unaware of who is
their own roles and unsure who is responsible for work responsible for many of the
responsibilities and those outside their immediate group activities of the organization
of others
4Business Policies and policies and standards policies and standards are in place, no policies or standards, or
Standards are defined and carefully but are weak or not carefully followed they are ill-defined and unused
followed
12

13. Tip #2: Track Status in SharePoint (not Word)
Think of Word
and Excel as
FORMS
that easily
translate into
SharePoint Lists!
Stop filling out
MS Word
Status Reports!
13

14. Tip #3: Organize Project Artifacts (Doc Libraries)
 Documents • Use Versioning, Approval, Checkin/out.
 Deliverables • Understand what a content type is and
create them.
 Budget • Views = Filtering
 Statements of Work • Folders = Browsing
• Use Views vs Folders where possible (and
if you do use folders, only 1-2 levels deep).
• Use METADATA! Learn how to create new
columns in a SharePoint document library.
• Learn how to create views and display
relevant columns like “checked out to” and
version.
14

15. Tip #4: Direct Discussions to SP (Away from eMail)
Make the Issues List
a Discussion in
SharePoint (vs. a
custom list).
Threaded
discussions in
SharePoint provide
context around
issues and save
time digging through
your email inbox.
15

16. Tip #5: Customize the Quick Links!
Make it easier
for team
members to
find project
artifacts,
deliverables,
issues,
contacts, etc..
16

17. Tip #6: Use Project Calendar
 Many times meeting agendas and attachments change which create
multiple calendar updates via Outlook email.
 Instead: Use Outlook to send a URL to the SharePoint Team
Calendar event with all the attachments and agenda.
 This will force team members to use SharePoint to access information
for the meeting.
17

18. Tip #7: Alert Feature & Experiment with Workflows
 Use the OOTB SharePoint Alert Feature to notify you immediately,
daily, nightly of changes to lists you care about.
 Learn the 3 Step OOTB SharePoint workflow or more complex
conditional logic workflows with SharePoint Designer.
 Automate recurring PM processes.
Example:
Issues List or
Change Control List
18

19. How do Project Teams better leverage SharePoint?
3. Portfolio (& Project)
Enterprise
Scope of Effort Management
2. Project
Teams
1. Project
Individual
Managers
Level of Complexity
Low High
19

20. From Central Repository to Project Dashboard
Manage Share reports,
Deliverables Lists
project Dashboard status, metrics
artifacts, & dashboards,
documents synchronize
with metadata, calendars,
search, check- team events,
in/ checkout, consolidated
and document Store discussions,
Share
versioning and assign
tasks
PMO Track PM
Executives Team Members
Track project issues, risks,
and project-related
project artifacts
20

21. Project Management Dashboard for Teams
 Charts
 KPIs
 Red, Yellow, Green Status
 Milestones
 Issues & Risk Tracking
 Financials
 With Dashboards, generally less busy is better.
 Think about the ability of the team, corporate culture, and the
audience.
21

22. Example: Milestone Dashboard
22

23. Example: PM Dashboard
23

24. Example: Executive Dashboard
24

25. Third Party Project Management Enhancements
Some dash boarding can be done OOTB (or check codeplex for web
parts)
Several vendors offer Project Management Solutions on SharePoint
(basic web parts and site templates to enterprise integration with Project
Server or “cloud” hosted solutions):
25

26. 3. Portfolio & Project Management
Enterprise
3. Portfolio (& Project)
Scope of Effort
Management
2. Project
Teams
1. Project
Individual
Managers
Level of Complexity
Low High
26

27. Formal or Mature Portfolio & Project Mgt (PPM)
A Typical Organization: “Mature PMO Lifecycle” Illustrative Example
27

28. SharePoint & Project Server 2010: Unified PPM
Demand
BI & Management Portfolio
Reporting Selection
Project Team Resource
Collaboration Schedule Management
Management
Synch to SharePoint
Sites
Composites Communities
Insights Content
Search
The Business Collaboration Platform
for the Enterprise and the Web
28

29. MS Project Server 2010
Illustrative Example of Resource Analysis
29

30. MS Project Server 2010 Illustrative Example
30

31. Microsoft Project Professional 2010
31

32. Synch MS Project Pro 2010 to SharePoint
Project Schedules
on MS Project
Professional Client
can be synched to a
SharePoint task list.
Project Resources
can enter updates in
SharePoint.
Create out of the
box charts and
dashboards with SP
2010 default web
parts.
32

33. Project Professional 2010 “TimeLine View”
33

34. Vision for Unified PPM (Portfolio & Project Mgt.)
34

35. Wrap-up: 3 Things to Remember
1. Project Managers – 7 Tips for SharePoint PM
2. Teams – Repository to Dashboards
3. Portfolio & Project Mgt – MS SharePoint Server
and MS Project Svr 2010
35

36. APPENDIX:
ADDITIONAL REFERENCE SLIDES

37. Reference Links
MS Project Server Home:
http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-server-2010.aspx
MS Project 2010 Blogs:
http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/2010-blogs.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chrisfie/
2010 White Papers:
Demand Mgt: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff686781.aspx
Portfolio Strategy: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff729454.aspx
My SharePointPMP shared bookmarks on Delicious:
http://www.delicious.com/sharepointpmp
37

38. Portfolio & Project Mgt System
Key Characteristics of a PPM System:
• Integrated planning and scheduling
• Baseline budget & schedule, and change control
• Provides some capability for costing or Earned Value
• Frequent communication with the business/customer
• Promotes a culture of transparency
• Management of resources, control of action items and tasks
• Manages project artifacts/documents
• Ability to track issues, identify risks early and develop plans to mitigate
• Provides analytics & metrics for aggregated reporting and BI
• Maintain one computer system for teams to find all information
38

39. Benefits of a Unified System that Enables PPM
Executives
• Extensive portfolio management capabilities
• Greater visibility into entire portfolio – from proposals to projects
• Real-time web access to dashboard views of financial & project information
Project Managers
• Powerful client capabilities to build and manage complex project plans
• Single interface to track time and progress and manage all project artifacts
• Use issues, risks, and project templates to build project
• Easier reporting and timesheet tracking for its resources
• Management methodology to fit the organizational culture
• More visibility and control on day-to-day work
• Alignment with organization’s strategy
39

40. Project Server 2010 Requirements
Internet Explorer IE7/IE8
Excel 2007/2010
Project Professional 2010/2007
Project Server 2010
SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise
SQL Server 2005/2008/R2: Standard or Enterprise
Windows Server 2008/R2: Standard, Enterprise, or Data Center Editions
40

41. MS Project 2010 Comparison
41

42. Comparison of 2010 MS Project Task Synch
42