SharePoint is a versatile platform, capable of doing various tasks. Among them project management is widely considered as easy to accomplish with good ROI. Due to its rich features and natural proximity with office tools like Excel and Power Point, SharePoint can be adopted for project management.
As we also know, project management is a complex issue, no tool fits perfectly all project management requirements. Only those fitting specific project management needs are considered to be doing a good job.
In this post, I am going to explore a project management subfield called Project Progress management. The reason for this choice is SharePoint has some features that make a perfect match to fundamental requirements of Project Progress management. Some of the commonly known requirements are data visualization, collaboration as well as others features that are common in SharePoint. With a little twist, we could make SharePoint a good project management platform.
Now let me tell you a little bit about management staff. I know, some of you hate management, either manage others or be managed by others, you just hate it. That is common, truth be told, especially when you deal with lousy managers. But you know there are some managers that are truly amazing to work with. Why? Well, in addition to their charisma, they know management.
Management is both art and science. It is the art of making people more effective than they would have been without you. The science is in how you do that. There are four basic pillars: plan, organize, direct and monitor.
Looking closer into more specific subject like project management, we can say it includes a number of elements and processes. Major processes generally includes:
- initiation
- planning or development
- production or execution
- monitoring and controlling
- closing
Of them, monitoring could be achieved with SharePoint, at least partially. Now let’s take a look at one of the tool which is designed to do this. It is called SharePoint Project Progress Monitor brought to you by a leading SharePoint web part and add-on developer.
SharePoint Project Progress Monitor is a simple yet useful tool for SharePoint project management. This may destroy the surprise, but I cannot wait to mention that it is free, yes it is a totally free SharePoint project management tool.
This tool takes advantage of SharePoint list data, and brings data visualization into raw boring data. Users can add colors to different percentage bars to represent different projects.
With this tool, team numbers or team manager just need to type in data then their project will be shown in percentage bars.
This may be a minor feature, but still worth mentioning : SharePoint Project Progress Monitor has the capacity to display percentage values above 100 percent, making it easier to see when milestones or project goals are achieved and surpassed.
In addition to that, you can toggle between visual color and numeric data.
Below is how it looks visually.
Honestly, and as you may know, this tool could not make a dent in your project management, and it is a better-have rather than a must-have. However, considering it is a free tool, if you think it fits into your current project management set of tools, then give SharePoint Project Management a try.