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SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
SECOND EDITION SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Dux Raymond Sy Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Tokyo
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, Second Edition by Dux Raymond Sy Copyright © 2012 Innovative-e, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com. Editors: Courtney Nash and Rachel Roumeliotis Production Editor: Kristen Borg Proofreader: Marlowe Shaeffer Indexer: Lucie Haskins Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Interior Designer: David Futato Illustrator: Robert Romano October 2008: First Edition. February 2012: Second Edition. Revision History for the Second Edition: 2012-01-11 First release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449306373 for release details. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, the image of a black fox squirrel, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con- tained herein. ISBN: 978-1-449-30637-3 [LSI] 1326292606
Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 1. Project Kickoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 What Is a PMIS? 4 Deciding to Use a PMIS 4 What Is SharePoint? 5 Other Options 8 Our Case Study: SharePoint Dojo, Inc. 8 Best Practices Checklist 9 Summary 9 2. Setting Up the PMIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 How Will You Organize Your PMIS? 12 Using Site Templates 14 Creating a SharePoint 2010 Site 14 Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation 15 Part 1: Creating the PMIS 16 Part 2: Customizing the Site Theme 17 Part 3: Adding an Announcement List 18 Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page 20 Workshop 2.1 Debriefing 22 Customizing the PMIS 22 Workshop 2.2: Updating Your Site’s Regional Settings 25 Workshop 2.2 Debriefing 25 Best Practices Checklist 26 Summary 26 3. Adding PMIS Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Using SharePoint Lists 28 Creating SharePoint Lists 34 Workshop 3.1: Creating and Populating Lists 35 iii
Part 1: Creating and Populating a Calendar List 36 Part 2: Creating and Populating a Contacts List 38 Part 3: Creating a Risks List 40 Part 4: Creating a Project Tasks List 41 Part 5: Creating and Populating a Custom Resource List 41 Part 6: Displaying the New Lists on the Home Page 46 Workshop 3.1 Debriefing 48 Using Libraries 49 Creating a Document Library (a How-To) 52 Populating a Document Library 55 Workshop 3.2: Creating and Populating a Document Library 55 Part 1: Creating a Document Library 55 Part 2: Populating a Document Library 57 Workshop 3.2 Debriefing 60 Organizing Project Information 60 Best Practices Checklist 61 Summary 61 4. Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Project Communications Plan 64 Site Access in SharePoint 65 Creating SharePoint Groups 65 Adding Site Members 66 Enabling the Access Request Feature 69 Customizing Permissions 70 Workshop 4.1: Adding Site Members 73 Part 1: Adding Site Members 74 Part 2: Customizing List Permissions 75 Workshop 4.1 Debriefing 77 Best Practices Checklist 79 Summary 79 5. Supporting Team Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Enabling Document Management Solutions 82 Overview of Check-Out/Check-In 83 Overview of Version History 85 Overview of Content Approval 87 Workshop 5.1: Updating a Project Document 89 Part 1: Requiring Check-Out 89 Part 2: Checking Out and Editing a Document from the Document Library 91 Part 3: Viewing All the Changes Made to the Document 93 Workshop 5.1 Debriefing 96 iv | Table of Contents
Facilitating Team Collaboration 96 Wikis 97 Discussion Boards 98 Document Workspaces 99 Creating a Document Workspace 100 Best Practices Checklist 102 Summary 102 6. Project Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Tracking Project Tasks 104 Tracking Risks 107 Workshop 6.1: Updating the Schedule and Tracking Risks 110 Part 1: Updating the Project Tasks List 110 Part 2: Populating and Updating the Project Tasks List 112 Part 3: Documenting Risks 115 Workshop 6.1 Debriefing 119 Controlling Changes with Workflow 119 Workshop 6.2: Creating a Change Control System with Three-State Workflow 122 Part 1: Creating a Custom List 123 Part 2: Customizing the Three-State Workflow 124 Part 3: Testing the Workflow 130 Workshop 6.2 Debriefing 135 Best Practices Checklist 135 Summary 135 7. Project Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Custom Views 137 Workshop 7.1: Creating a Custom View 141 Workshop 7.1 Debriefing 145 Using Web Parts for Interactive Reporting 145 Workshop 7.2: Maximizing Project Reporting with Web Parts 150 Part 1: Updating Web Parts on Your PMIS Home Page 150 Part 2: Creating a Project Dashboard 153 Part 3: Finalizing the Dashboard 160 Workshop 7.2 Debriefing 163 Subscribing to Alerts 163 Using Meeting Workspaces 166 Workshop 7.3: Creating a Meeting Workspace 169 Workshop 7.3 Debriefing 171 Best Practices Checklist 172 Summary 172 Table of Contents | v
8. Integrating PM Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Integrating Microsoft Project into SharePoint 174 Workshop 8.1: Using Microsoft Project 176 Workshop 8.1 Debriefing 178 Using Microsoft Excel and SharePoint 178 Creating a Custom List from an Existing Excel Spreadsheet 179 Exporting an Excel Spreadsheet to SharePoint As a Custom List 180 Synchronizing Excel Tables with a SharePoint List 182 Workshop 8.2: Synchronizing Excel with SharePoint 185 Part 1: Creating an Excel Table 185 Part 2: Synchronizing the SharePoint List with Excel 188 Workshop 8.2 Debriefing 189 Best Practices Checklist 189 Summary 190 9. Project Closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Overview of Creating a PMIS Template 192 Overview of Archiving the PMIS 194 Workshop 9.1: Creating a PMIS Site Template 195 Workshop 9.1 Debriefing 198 Ensuring Stakeholder Buy-In 198 1.LeverageandProvetheValueofSharePointasaPMISonaPilotProject 198 2. Provide User Support in Learning and Utilizing SharePoint 199 3. Measure and Broadcast Success 199 4. Gather Feedback 200 Best Practices Checklist 201 Summary 201 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 vi | Table of Contents
Preface Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinangalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan. (He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.) —Dr. José P. Rizal, Philippine national hero Do you find yourself asking for more time whenever you work on a project? Do you ever get the extra time you asked for? Well, if you’re like me, you rarely get the extra time you need from your customers. This got me thinking about how I can buy more time for my projects. I decided to find out if I could gain more time by reducing inefficiencies within the project team (which also includes myself). In a recent project, I monitored and analyzed a few individuals for a week and was amazed at what I discovered. During an average eight-hour workday, each individual spent about 45 minutes looking for information. For example, when asked by a client to retrieve a specific status report, the project coordinator had to look for it on the network share, in her email inbox, in the project folder of her computer, and she even had to call up another colleague to help her find it. This typical mode of searching took up time that could have been spent on something more productive. In addition, project resources were unproductive due to poor document management practices, inefficient project communication stand- ards, and ineffective project collaboration tools. According to a May 31, 2007, New York Times article, “Time Wasted? Perhaps It’s Well Spent” (http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/05/31/fashion/31work.html), a Microsoft study found that American workers, on average, spend 45 hours a week at work, with 16 of these hours described as “unproductive.” Although 45 minutes may not sound like a lot, when you look at the bigger picture, it essentially means that a team of 20 people wastes 900 minutes a day. In a three-month project, that is 54,000 minutes, or roughly 38 personal days—more than one-third of the project! vii
Other than time, how much does this cost the project and the organization? Well, depending on who you’re considering, 45 minutes might cost $50 for a project coor- dinator or $250 for a technical contractor, each day. Bottom line: time and money are not well spent. What if my team could regain just 20 of those 45 minutes wasted each day? With SharePoint, we achieved this and more. Apart from increasing productivity, we were able to: • Automate status reporting for stakeholders • Use collaboration to generate real-time project lessons learned that were easily accessible by a globally dispersed team • Synchronize standard project information such as calendars, contacts, and documents • Document and track project risks and issues • Maintain a quality log • Integrate existing project management tools such as email, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Project into SharePoint • Create and manage a change control system For me, the best part of using SharePoint was that once the IT/IS department performed the installation and initial configuration, I didn’t have to burden anybody to set up and further configure this unique Project Management Information System (PMIS)—I did it all myself. In addition, I was still able to better use existing tools like Microsoft Office along with SharePoint. That’s what this book is all about. By clearly mapping the relationships between project management processes and project stakeholders, and by leveraging tools like Share- Point, you will learn how to apply common and practical project management techni- ques using SharePoint. More importantly, with this book you will quickly master SharePoint so you can build a PMIS that can help you efficiently coordinate commu- nication and collaboration throughout your project team. Who Should Read This Book This book will be most valuable to individuals working on projects who want to adapt SharePoint for project management, including: Project managers By managing a project officially or unofficially, project managers are involved from the project’s inception to its closure. Their responsibilities include project plan- ning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. In addition, they lead a project team and are the project liaison with key stakeholders. viii | Preface
Project team members Members of the team work in a project environment that requires participating in collaborative activities, such as project planning, status updates, risk monitoring, tracking, requesting changes, and maintaining critical project information. Program managers Program managers seek a standard, consistent, and best-practices approach to im- plementing a PMIS across projects in the organization. IT/IS directors Directors want to learn how SharePoint can meet the needs of project managers in the organization. SharePoint consultants SharePoint consultants can help you to leverage your SharePoint technical skills by offering a focused approach in implementing SharePoint as a PMIS. What You Need to Best Use This Book To maximize the benefits of this book, familiarity with basic project management con- cepts and terminologies is assumed. This book is intended for individuals with a project management background who are interested in leveraging SharePoint on their projects. Furthermore, it is ideal that you have an existing SharePoint environment (SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Server) where you can practice and apply the techniques that you will learn. If you are not sure about this, ask your IT/IS department these two questions: • Am I a member of an existing SharePoint site? • Am I allowed to create SharePoint subsites? If the answer to both questions is yes, you are in good shape. If the answer to either or both questions is no, I suggest you ask for appropriate SharePoint access or rely on external SharePoint hosting vendors such as Office 365. Even better, you can leverage a fully functioning SharePoint environment, designed for this book from Cloudshare, that you can use FREE for 14 days. Visit http://innovative -e.com/sp4pmlab for more details. Finally, apart from having a SharePoint environment to work in, your computer must be running Windows (XP or above versions), and it must have Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft Office installed. Certain sections of this book showcase the integration of MicrosoftOfficeproductswithSharePoint.Alloftheexamplesinthebookwerecreated using Microsoft Office 2010. Preface | ix
My Assumptions in Writing This Book My assumptions are that you: Have some sort of project management experience You have managed projects formally or informally and are familiar with funda- mental project management concepts and practices. Are new to SharePoint You may have heard of SharePoint or have been told to use SharePoint to manage yourprojects.IfyouhaveusedSharePointbefore,youwillgainpracticalknowledge in applying SharePoint for project management. Are using SharePoint for project management purposes This book is focused on helping you leverage SharePoint for project management, regardless of what industry you are in. The concepts and techniques in this book applytoIT,construction,government,education,finance,andhealthcareprojects. If you are interested in using SharePoint to deploy a corporate portal, create an ecommerce website, or develop a proprietary SharePoint application, this is not the book for you. Are not interested in the nitty-gritty technical details of SharePoint I am not inclined to write yet another technical book about SharePoint. Though I am a certified SharePoint geek, there are tons of other books available that do a great job of discussing advanced technical topics. The level of technical detail I will cover is just enough for you to get your PMIS up and running. Are comfortable using Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and a web browser The technical background required to fully utilize SharePoint is minimal. As long as you are familiar with basic computing concepts—such as creating and saving documents, copying files, logging in and logging out, using passwords, surfing the Web, clicking on links on a web page, downloading and uploading, and distin- guishing files versus folders—you are in good shape. Are willing to change and try something new Remember, to benefit from this book, you have to consciously decide that how you manage project information, facilitate team collaboration, and enable project communication must change for the better. Additional Resources Websites: • Project Management Institute (http://www.pmi.org) • PRINCE2 (http://www.prince2.com/) • Max Wideman’s Project Management Wisdom (http://www.maxwideman.com) • All the Top SharePoint News (http://sharepoint.alltop.com) x | Preface
• Microsoft Project for the Masses: FREE Resource Management Solution (http:// spgur.us/MSPFM) Books: • Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management by Scott Berkun (O’Reilly, 2008) • Applied Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation by Harold Kerzner (Wiley, 1999) • Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple by Jonathan Lightfoot and Chris Beckett (Microsoft Press, 2010) Contents of This Book This book includes hands-on workshops, which will help you leverage a SharePoint PMIS just as you would in a typical project environment. And using each chapter’s detailed, step-by-step logical processes, you will integrate project management best practices and standards to fully reap the benefits of a SharePoint PMIS. Chapter 1, Project Kickoff Chapter 2, Setting Up the PMIS Chapter 3, Adding PMIS Components Chapter 4, Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS Chapter 5, Supporting Team Collaboration Chapter 6, Project Tracking Chapter 7, Project Reporting Chapter 8, Integrating PM Tools Chapter 9, Project Closing Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: Italic Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, folder names, filenames, and file extensions. Constant width Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords. Constant width bold Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user. Preface | xi
Constant width italic Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values deter- mined by context. This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note. This icon indicates a warning or caution. Using Code Examples This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission. We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “SharePoint 2010 for Project Manage- ment, Second Edition, by Dux Raymond Sy (O’Reilly). Copyright 2012 Innovative-e, Inc., 978-1-449-30637-3.” If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at permissions@oreilly.com. Safari® Books Online Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that lets you easily search over 7,500 technology and creative reference books and videos to find the answers you need quickly. Withasubscription,youcanreadanypageandwatchanyvideofromourlibraryonline. Read books on your cell phone and mobile devices. Access new titles before they are available for print, and get exclusive access to manuscripts in development and post feedback for the authors. Copy and paste code samples, organize your favorites, down- load chapters, bookmark key sections, create notes, print out pages, and benefit from tons of other time-saving features. xii | Preface
O’Reilly Media has uploaded this book to the Safari Books Online service. To have full digital access to this book and others on similar topics from O’Reilly and other pub- lishers, sign up for free at http://my.safaribooksonline.com. How to Contact Us Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, CA 95472 800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada) 707-829-0515 (international or local) 707-829-0104 (fax) We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020387.do To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to: bookquestions@oreilly.com For more information about our books, courses, conferences, and news, see our website at http://www.oreilly.com. Find us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/oreilly Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/oreillymedia Watch us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/oreillymedia Acknowledgments It’s been an amazing ride since the first edition of SharePoint for Project Management was published. SharePoint has exploded in the enterprise; in a recent report from AIIM, project management is the top use of SharePoint today (http://www.aiim.org/Research/ Industry-Watch/SharePoint-2011). With this second edition, I would like to thank the following for their unwavering support, trust, and patience: • The Lord God for the awesome plan He has for me, as promised in Jeremiah 29:11 • My wonderful wife, Ramona, and amazing children, Johannes and Danika, for making all this worthwhile • Team Innovative-e for all the help and insights • The O’Reilly Media crew for being top-notch as always Preface | xiii
• The global SharePoint community for the kindness and hospitality you’ve shown me • My good friend Dave Murphy for jumping in at the last minute to review Off You Go The last thing I want is for you to think of SharePoint as a burden or a necessary evil, simply because your boss is making you use it for your projects. My hope is that, after reading this book, you will be able to use SharePoint to effectively manage your projects, make them less complicated, and make your team more efficient. Should you have any questions, comments, and/or feedback, feel free to visit http:// www.spforpm.com or contact me at dux@spforpm.com. Enjoy! xiv | Preface
CHAPTER 1 Project Kickoff It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dan- gerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. —Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian philosopher As most of you would agree, the definition of a project varies greatly—it can be building the next space shuttle, upgrading the production line of your manufacturing facility, or just creating a new website for a customer. One common factor that holds true across these varying project types is that all of them involve multiple people interacting with a wide array of project information. This information can include templates, emails, schedules, proposals, forms, budgets, contact information, status reports, regulatory compliance, and even ad hoc docu- ments. In spite of our best attempts to effectively manage project information, we all seem to fall short at times. We rely on inconsistent and inefficient tools that are typically a combination of three things: Local/personal storage If project information is stored in an individual’s personal computer, email, or portable storage device, can important information—such as a project schedule— be made available to relevant stakeholders in a timely manner? If the computer or portable storage device breaks down, how is the information restored? Network-based storage If you are using central storage through a file-sharing network or web-based envi- ronment, how do you prevent files from being overwritten? What are the standards for maintaining versions? Can you easily define who can access what information? Mixed bag of project management tools Some common tools used in project environments are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and possibly Microsoft Project. In certain cases, complex enterprise tools such as Microsoft Project Server and Primavera are also made available. 1
Checklist: Essential Project Management Activities When I formally started managing projects more than 15 years ago, I had the wrong impression that the very first step to take was to fire up a scheduling tool (such as Microsoft Project) and start cranking out the project tasks, defining the task duration, and establishing the task dependencies. It never really worked out well for me. Only later did I realize that there are other crucial steps I failed to do. Here’s my essential list of project management activities that every project manager should be doing throughout the life of a project: • Create guidelines for how your projects will be initiated • Run a kickoff meeting to define project objectives • Identify your stakeholders • Identify project information taxonomy • Plan your projects with your team, including creating the work breakdown struc- ture (WBS), creating the network diagram, identifying the critical path, and opti- mizing the project schedule • Define the probability and impact of project risks • Create a change control process for scope changes • Define quantifiable project-tracking processes • Facilitate a lessons-learned meeting To improve these inefficiencies, three things are necessary: Apply a standard set of project management processes from the start of the project until the end While I won’t go into detailed discussions on project management concepts and theories, I will say that to make SharePoint work to your advantage, you have to employ sound project management techniques and practices. If you don’t have one, the best way to develop a project management methodology is to review best practices from the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide and the Projects in Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) road map. Consider this example: I have no cooking experience, so if I were to compete in a cooking contest against the best chef in the world (à la Iron Chef), I would definitely lose. This is because even if, by chance, I cooked really well, there’s no method to my madness—I dislike reading recipe books, so it’s hit or miss. I am certain that a veteran chef would have proven processes in place, from how to chop the vegeta- bles to how long okra should simmer. Not only do veteran chefs document these steps, they also constantly tweak their processes for improvement. Guess what? The same thing applies to project management. 2 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
Use a Project Management Information System (PMIS) to support your project manage- ment processes As any experienced project manager would validate, having an easy-to-use, accessible, reliable, and scalable collaborative platform can contribute greatly to a project’s success. That’s the crux of what you will learn in this book: using Share- Point as your PMIS. Educate and update your project team with project management best practices Having an incremental approach to continuous process improvement will enable the project team to make better use of the PMIS. Dux Quax: Is It Changeworthy? Listen, before you go gung-ho and start implementing formalized project management processes in your organization, slow down, my good friend. I guarantee that it won’t work if you change the rules overnight. People, by nature, are averse to change (as you might already know). As the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So, what should you do? How can you convince your team that it’s necessary to im- plement project management processes? Taking baby steps is key: Make the case that having sound project management processes will greatly improve how projects are run in the organization A good exercise is to examine a previous project that didn’t turn out too well—it might have been delayed or gone over budget. Assess whether you had sound planning processes. Could you have done a better job defining the work and draw- ing up a more realistic schedule and budget? Implement new processes one at a time Initially, focus on the planning aspects of project management. Perhaps come up with a standard on defining project goals, identifying stakeholders, prioritizing requirements, generating work breakdown, assigning work, developing a project schedule, and documenting a risk management plan. Involve the team Allow the team to provide feedback on the processes that will be implemented. Ask if they’re relevant. If not, how can they be improved? Is there anything missing? What kind of support is necessary to ensure that these processes are adopted? Remember, people can change as long as they perceive it as worthwhile. They are more likely to make changes that will bring about benefits at a personal level than at the organizational level. To get you started in developing your project management process, go to http://www .spforpm.com for a step-by-step guide, complete with supporting templates, docu- ments, and references. Project Kickoff | 3
What Is a PMIS? As defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI; see http://www.pmi.org), a Project Management Information System (PMIS) is a standardized set of automated project management tools available within an organization and integrated into a sys- tem. Although the PMI does not specify which tools or technologies to use as a PMIS, SharePoint can be customized as one. Checklist: Essential PMIS Capabilities AreliablePMISshouldsupportmost,ifnotall,ofthecommunicationandcollaboration needs of a project environment. Here is a list of essential PMIS capabilities: • Supports the generation of a project charter, schedule, and budget • Facilitates communication and feedback • Monitors project activities • Controls project changes • Analyzes and forecasts project performance • Disseminates project status to relevant stakeholders • Provides real-time information essential for initiating, planning, executing, con- trolling, and closing a project Deciding to Use a PMIS No matter how small or large a project is, being able to efficiently manage project information whenever, wherever, and however can greatly contribute to project suc- cess. A key requirement for making this possible is leveraging a PMIS. Here are five telltale signs that you need to begin using a PMIS: No standardized system for integrating project goals Project schedule, cost, and quality objectives are individual silos. For example, financial information in Excel is not automatically recalculated anytime the project schedule is adjusted using scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project. Making manual updates takes time away from other project activities. Inefficient document management Project documents are not stored in a central location. Tracking, undoing changes, and the ability to roll back to prior versions are limited. Additionally, varying levels of access permissions are unavailable. IT/IS can only do so much in supporting information access requirements. Lack of appropriate tools to facilitate team collaboration Project information is not accessible anytime, anywhere. In addition, the team is incapable of developing or working with information at the same time. 4 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
Inability to report accurate and timely status of the project Project status information is available only when the project manager makes it available. How do you deal with project sponsors who want to view real-time project status data? Not achieving organizational strategic goals Lacking a standardized tool to facilitate consistent project management processes throughout an organization can limit the ability to effectively support strategic goals. As a project manager, these five issues can more than justify the need for any organi- zation to invest in a reliable, effective, customizable, and easy-to-implement PMIS. Today, multiple PMIS solutions are available. However, in addition to being costly, they can require specialized skills to implement, customize, and maintain. That’s why a lot of these initiatives have achieved only limited adoption. This is how SharePoint sets itself apart. What Is SharePoint? How do people describe SharePoint? In my experience, the definition always gets lost somewhere between collaboration and document management. Here’s a concise and straightforward description of SharePoint: SharePoint allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage their own collaborative solutions. It sounds simple, but let me dissect what it truly means: Individuals Does this word specify that SharePoint users have to be technically savvy? No. In fact, as long as users have familiarity with Windows, Microsoft Office, and surfing the Web, they will be in good shape. Organization This term implies that SharePoint can be used by a limited number of people be- longingtothesamegroup.Italsomeansthattherewillbevaryinglevelsofauthority and privileges within the group. As a result, you don’t have to rely on the IT/ IS department to set up permissions in SharePoint—you are empowered to define and manage access to specific information. You will learn more about permissions in Chapter 4. Easily Instead of contacting IT/IS, any individual can create, customize, and manage this collaborative tool. Although IT/IS will not be totally out of the picture, SharePoint empowers users to develop a customized automated solution that can appropri- ately support their needs in a timely manner. What Is SharePoint? | 5
Collaborative The intent of SharePoint is to support collaborative activities (formal or informal) in which groups engage. SharePoint has been around since 2001. It has evolved from a simple website manage- ment tool to an empowering collaboration platform that integrates seamlessly with the Web, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Office. Since it is a foundational Microsoft technology, various organizations—including government institutions, airlines, banks, construction companies, and retail industries—have benefited from its tools and fea- ture sets. SharePoint does not refer to a specific product or technology. Using the phrase “Mi- crosoft SharePoint” is like using the phrase “Microsoft Office.” It refers to several as- pects of collaborative solutions. The key components are SharePoint Foundation (SF) and SharePoint Server (SS). To distinguish SF and SS, an analogy that I often use is to compare SharePoint to a car. What’s the main purpose of a car? To take you from point A to point B, agreed? Which component of a car is required to do this? The engine, of course. The main purpose of SharePoint is to empower users with document management and team collaboration tools. SF fulfills this purpose. It is the core “engine” of SharePoint. Without SF, there is no SharePoint. SF (shown in Figure 1-1) is available with Windows 2008 Server or later. Figure 1-1. A SharePoint site using a SF site template SS provides extended capabilities to SF. Going back to the car analogy, we can equip our vehicles with accessories such as GPS, a DVD system, voice command, etc. How- ever, these extended features are not required to run a car (taking us from point A to point B). If these accessories are not installed, the car will still work. It’s just that having a GPS might enable us to reach our destination faster without getting lost. SS extended 6 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
features include Enterprise Search, Personalization, Enterprise Content Management, etc. Unlike SF, SS (shown in Figure 1-2) has separate licensing. Licensing can vary and becomequitecostly.Formoreinformationaboutlicensing,visitMicrosoft’sSharePoint website at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint. Figure 1-2. A SharePoint site using SS features Since SharePoint can be considered a platform for improving document management and collaboration, it can be adopted as a tool to assist most project environments. In this book, I will show you how to build a SharePoint PMIS primarily using SF. This means that the techniques you will learn can be applied regardless of whether you have SF or SS in your organization. Dux Quax: Is SharePoint the Only Game in Town? Don’t get me wrong here. There are a lot of other great products that can be used as a PMIS. There are full-featured enterprise-level products, such as Microsoft Project Server, Clarity, and Primavera; and even open source, web-based products, such as Google Apps and Basecamp. The challenge with rolling out complex enterprise PMIS toolsets is that it assumes your organization already has a certain level of project management maturity. By “maturity” I mean that you have a Project Management Office (PMO) in place; project processes are being applied, embraced, and continuously improved upon by all project teams; and project artifacts such as plans, reports, templates, and communication mechanisms are well defined and structured. The reason for such a stringent requirement is that these tools must be customized to adapt the processes you currently have in place. A lot of clients I have worked with assumed that implementing such comprehensive tools would make projects run better overnight. Yeah, right. Without sound processes in place, a complex tool is quite a beast to leverage. What Is SharePoint? | 7
As depicted in Figure 1-3, project management maturity should have the people, pro- cess, and technology in lockstep. Figure 1-3. Project management maturity Other Options How about free, web-based, open source products such as Google Sites, Dux? Well, they can serve as a relatively good PMIS to a certain extent. My issue with these tools is their lack of integration with existing project management tools that I use. The last thing I want to do is enter the same set of information 10 times in 10 different places. So, how is SharePoint different? If you are coming from an environment where you don’t really have an established project management process and are mostly using Mi- crosoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and maybe Microsoft Project to manage your projects, using SharePoint is taking a baby step ahead. Remember that people are often averse to change. Well, stepping up to SharePoint is not as drastic a change as learning how to use other, more complex PMIS tools. Also, I really like the integration between SharePoint and the Microsoft Office products that I use day in and day out. For example, I can enter project schedule information in my Outlook calendar and it will show up in SharePoint, and vice versa. Additionally, an Excel spreadsheet can synchronize milestone tracking with SharePoint, so if my team leads enter milestone completion dates in SharePoint, those dates show up in the Excel spreadsheet sitting on my computer. Isn’t that amazing? See “Using Microsoft Excel and SharePoint” on page 178 in Chapter 8 for more on this. Our Case Study: SharePoint Dojo, Inc. To better reinforce what you will learn, you will practice key concepts and techniques by managing a project for SharePoint Dojo, Inc., a fictional company that we will use throughout this book. SharePoint Dojo is a premier martial arts training facility with more than 200 studios in North America. Established in 1976, it has trained 700,000 students and produced many world-class athletes. 8 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
As history has proven, SharePoint Dojo provides first-rate instruction in the art of tae kwon do, led by a staff of certified masters who have at least eight years of teaching experience and who have competed in international events. In 2008, the company was cited as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the United States. To continue its explosive growth, SharePoint Dojo is expanding internationally, open- ing company-owned martial arts training studios in major cities. Multiple project teams have been assembled, and each team will be responsible for managing the opening of each respective studio. As the project manager, you will be personally responsible for integrating SharePoint Dojo into the local culture and community of the city to which you have been assigned. The challenges will be significant. You will be required to select the site and furbish the studio, comply with local laws and regulations, set up distribution and logistics, de- velopITinfrastructureandregionalreportinginitiatives,integratewithexistingsystems and processes, identify which programs will sell the best in your region, and highlight local opportunities. You will have to handle local contractors, employ staff locally, and carry out local marketing and advertising. The whole time you will have to stay focused on the SharePoint Dojo brand and the SharePoint Dojo experience—this is more than a series of local initiatives to make some money; it is about global expansion. As identified by senior management, there are two areas that are crucial to your overall success. The first is having correct project governance in place. It is critical that existing project management standards and processes be followed. Second, a PMIS must be established for each project team, enabling all the teams to share and collaborate on detailed project information, risks, and lessons learned in real time. To accomplish all of these goals, SharePoint Dojo has adopted PMI standards for project governance and implemented a PMIS using Microsoft SharePoint. You will need to set up your own SharePoint PMIS for your project. Best Practices Checklist • Establish or be familiar with your project management processes. • Establish a PMIS for your project. • Centralize project documents. • Streamline project communication. • Become familiar with your SharePoint environment. Summary • Successful projects result from sound project management practices, standards, and processes. • You can increase project productivity by decreasing project inefficiencies. Summary | 9
• SharePoint’s main purpose is to improve how we manage information and facilitate collaboration. It can be used as a PMIS. • SharePoint can empower project managers because it is easier to learn, has better integration with existing project management tools, and requires less assistance from the IT/IS department than many other PMIS solutions. 10 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
CHAPTER 2 Setting Up the PMIS Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. —Chinese proverb The first step in taking advantage of SharePoint 2010 in a PMIS is to familiarize yourself with the structure of SharePoint 2010 sites. SharePoint 2010 sites are collaborative websites that are organized in a hierarchy. They are composed of top-level sites and subsites, as shown in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1. SharePoint site hierarchy A top-level site is created upon installation of SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010). It will never have a parent or higher-level site, and it may or may not have child sites or subsites. It is sometimes referred to as a root web- site. By default, additional top-level sites can only be created by the SharePoint 2010 administrator—essentially, the IT/IS folks responsible for SharePoint 2010—or anyone else given the permission to do so. (SharePoint 2010 permissions are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.) Subsites are sites that are created beneath an existing SharePoint site. They will always have a parent site and may or may not have their own subsites. 11
A site collection is an aggregation of a top-level site and its subsites. Site collections are independent of one another. A top-level site without subsites can also be considered a site collection. So, in short, a top-level site is synonymous with a site collection. A PMIS can be created as a top-level site or a subsite. Keep in mind that, by definition, projects are temporary—they have a start date and an end date. This means that a SharePoint PMIS is a temporary site, unlike other SharePoint sites created for perma- nent purposes, such as departmental sites, product sites, customer support sites, etc. You have to think about what will happen to the PMIS once the project is completed. SharePoint 2010 does not automatically remove inactive sites. How Will You Organize Your PMIS? Organizations typically have more than one project utilizing SharePoint as a PMIS. It is critical that you plan and assess how these project-focused sites will be organized and structured for your environment. Involve key decision-makers from IT/IS and your Project Management Office (PMO), if you have one, when choosing one of the three high-level PMIS hierarchy options: Single-site collection Includes a top-level PMO site. All project sites are subsites (Figure 2-2). Multiple-site collections Each PMIS is a top-level site (Figure 2-3). Multiple-site collections created for a specific department, business unit, product line, etc. The PMIS is created as a group of subsites within these top-level sites (Figure 2-4). Figure 2-2. Single-site collection Figure 2-3. Multiple-site collections 12 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
Figure 2-4. PMIS created as subsites Your decision should be based upon the following three organizational criteria: IT/IS involvement in creating a site that spans the three collections If each PMIS is a top-level site, IT/IS will likely be responsible for creating the site and defining its site members. However, if each PMIS is a subsite, IT/IS is less likely to be involved, and either the project manager or someone on the project team will create the site. Technical considerations SF has search limitations. By default, SF can only search within a single site col- lection. For example, if somebody in senior management is interested in looking for a specific document contained within the various project sites, she will have to go to each individual site to run a search if every PMIS is a top-level site. This is not the case if the entire PMIS is grouped as a single site collection. Note that this limitation can be resolved if you have SS instead of SF, because SS comes with an Enterprise Search capability. If IT/IS decides to enable Automated Site Collection Deletion, a feature that automatically deletes an inactive site collection, the deletion will only work if each PMIS is a top-level site, since the feature deletes an entire site collection. If multiple PMISes are grouped in a single site collection, the site collection probably won’t be automatically deleted because the likelihood of the entire site collection being inactive is minimal. Decision-making and reporting structure As well as deciding whether the PMIS should be structured as individual top-level sites or grouped as a site collection, it is also important to consider your organi- zational structure. For example, are there scenarios where you would group project sites based on business units, product lines, portfolios, or regional operating units? ThekeytohavingasuccessfulimplementationofSharePointasaPMISistoinitially plan the organization of sites so they can support the growth of SharePoint adop- tion in your organization. Microsoft has many great resources that can assist you in organizing SharePoint sites, including the SharePoint deployment planning guide (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917). How Will You Organize Your PMIS? | 13
Dux Quax: Permanent Versus Temporary Sites I typically advise my clients that they should have a site collection for permanent sites. These sites would be specific to departments, business units, products, and anything that could be used for permanent collaboration. Additionally, a site collection should be created for temporary sites such as a PMIS or a meeting-centric SharePoint site known as a meeting workspace (see the section “Using Meeting Workspa- ces” on page 166 in Chapter 7). What typically happens is that there are more temporary SharePoint sites created than permanent ones. Once a temporary site is no longer needed, it is easier to maintain and audit if it was in a separate site collection. Using Site Templates SharePoint 2010 comes with site templates for convenient site creation. Common site templates are listed in Table 2-1. Table 2-1. Default site templates Site template name Description Team Site A site used for collaboration Blank Site A blank site with no predefined features Document Workspace A site that allows collaboration on one or more specific documents Wiki Site A site that can be quickly edited to record information and then linked through keywords Blog A site for a person or team to post ideas, observations, and expertise that also allows site visitors to leave comments The template determines the default site functionality, layout, menus, etc. (see Fig- ure 2-5). You can also create custom site templates (see “Overview of Creating a PMIS Template” on page 192 in Chapter 9). Typically, organizations would have custom templates created and made available. Creating a SharePoint 2010 Site After selecting your PMIS structure, you are ready to create the PMIS. In my experience, most PMISes built in SharePoint will be subsites, so this will be the approach used for our case study. To create a subsite, you must have the appropriate permissions in your SharePoint 2010 environment. Specifically, you must have at least the Contribute per- mission. Check with your IT/IS department to clarify and confirm. See “Customizing Permissions” on page 70 in Chapter 4 for more information. 14 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
These are the basic steps in creating a SharePoint 2010 subsite from an existing Share- Point 2010 site: 1. Click Site Actions→New Site. 2. Select the desired template. 3. Enter the appropriate information for the Title and “URL name”. You need only put the name of the subsite in the URL form, rather than rewriting the entire URL. 4. Click Create. 5. On the “Set Up Groups for this Site” page, define your site members and their permissions, and then click OK. Dux Quax: When Do I Start Building a PMIS? Ideally, you should start building your PMIS as soon as you get the project assignment, or ASAP. Prior to getting involved with the initial phase of project planning, make sure that all of the necessary components and tools that you need in the PMIS are already in place to support project activities from the beginning until the end. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation In this workshop, you will create a SharePoint 2010 PMIS for the case study project. You are tasked with building a PMIS for managing the opening of a SharePoint Dojo in the city of Cebu, in the Philippines. Feel free to use any city you want as you follow along. Figure 2-5. SharePoint 2010 site using the Team Site template Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 15
For fields and settings that aren’t mentioned in the workshop steps, accept the default settings. Part 1: Creating the PMIS Follow these steps to set up your PMIS: 1. Using Internet Explorer, access any existing SharePoint 2010 site of which you are a member. Make sure that you have the permission to create a subsite. 2. Click Site Actions→New Site. 3. Click the Browse All tab. 4. In the “Select a Template” section, select Blank Site. 5. Click More Options. A page similar to the one shown in Figure 2-6 will be displayed. Figure 2-6. Update site information 6. Enter the Title, Description, and “URL name”. 7. In the User Permissions section, select the “Use unique permissions” option. 8. In the “Use the top link bar from the parent site?” section, select No. 9. Click Create. 10. The “Set Up Groups for this Site” page will be displayed. Click OK. Once the site has been created, the home page will be displayed. For now, we will bypass the process of adding site members, but we will address it in detail in the section “Adding Site Members” on page 66 in Chapter 4. 16 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
Part 2: Customizing the Site Theme Once your site has been created, you can update your basic site settings using the Site Settings page. You can access this page by clicking Site Actions→Settings on your home page. The Site Actions menu is only visible to users who have site administration per- missions (primarily the site owners). We will discuss site customizations in detail after this workshop. For now, let’s look at some of the basic customizations that you can apply: 1. On your newly created site, click Site Actions→Site Settings. The Site Settings page will be displayed. 2. In the “Look and Feel” section, click Site Theme. The Site Theme page will be displayed (see Figure 2-7). Figure 2-7. The Site Theme page 3. Select a site theme and click Apply. The color palette may change depending on which theme you choose. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 17
4. Click the home tab (in Figure 2-7, the home tab is “Cebu Project PMIS” in the upper-left corner of the page; yours will show the name of your project title) to return to your home page with the new theme applied. There are several ways to navigate back to your home page: using the home tab, using breadcrumb navigation, and using the Navigate Up button. All three navigation options are located in the upper-left corner of the page and are visible in Figure 2-8. In Figure 2-8, you see the home tab, entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” in the upper left. You may also nav- igate back to your home page using the breadcrumb, which is the click- able link also entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” above the home tab. One additional way to navigate back to home is to click the Navigate Up button (the icon with the up arrow and the folder), which will provide a drop-down box enabling you to navigate to the portion of the site you would like to find. Part 3: Adding an Announcement List In Parts 1 and 2, you created the foundation of a SharePoint 2010 PMIS. You will now add basic site components, which are known as SharePoint lists. Lists are used to store and organize information in SharePoint (for more information, see the section “Using SharePoint Lists” on page 28 in Chapter 3). In this section, you will add an An- nouncements list that can be used to provide relevant project announcements: 1. On the home page, click Lists, and then click Create (Figure 2-8). Figure 2-8. The Site Actions menu 18 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
2. The Create page will be displayed. In the Lists section, click Announcements. 3. Click More Options. 4. In both the Name and Description fields, enter the text Project Announcements, and in the “Display this list on the Quick Launch?” section, select Yes (see Fig- ure 2-9). Yes is the default selection. See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 for more about the Quick Launch. Figure 2-9. Creating an Announcements list 5. Click Create. You have just created a Project Announcements list. The purpose of an Announcements list is to store relevant information that you would like to an- nounce or broadcast to site members. 6. To add an announcement to your Project Announcements list, click “Add new announcement”. Enter the Title, Body, and expiration date (Figure 2-10). Note that there are a number of features available for formatting the text, similar to what you’d find in Microsoft Word. 7. To navigate back to your home page, click the home tab (as in Part 2, Step 4). For additional methods of navigating to your home page, see the note on page 18 or refer to “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 to learn more about SharePoint 2010 navigation. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 19
Figure 2-10. Creating a new announcement 8. After creating the announcement, click Save. You will now see the new announce- ment on the Project Announcements page, but you will not see the announcement on the site’s home page. Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page Now that we have a Project Announcements list in our PMIS, we would like to display the most recent announcements on the home page. This is done by adding the Project Announcements list web part to the home page. Web parts are small programs or widgets that are primarily used to display snippets of information from existing lists (see the section “Using Web Parts for Interactive Reporting” on page 145 in Chap- ter 7). Every time a SharePoint list is created, a corresponding web part is created as well. For now, you will embed the Project Announcements list web part onto the home page to display the latest and greatest project announcements. In a PMIS, web parts can also be used to create project dashboards and provide high-level reporting capabilities: 20 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
1. On the home page, click Site Actions→Edit Page. Your site will now be in Edit mode. Edit mode allows you to add, remove, and update web parts and their settings. 2. In the Main section, click “Add a Web Part”. All available web parts will be dis- played (Figure 2-11). Figure 2-11. Adding web parts 3. Select “Lists and Libraries” from the menu on the left. 4. Select Project Announcements and click Add. The announcement you created ear- lier will be displayed (see Figure 2-12). 5. Click Stop Editing, which is located at the top left of the screen below Site Actions. The announcement you created earlier will now be displayed on the home page. 6. To return to your home page, use the home tab, the Navigate Up button, or nav- igate by breadcrumb. See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 for a refresher on navigation. Congratulations! You have successfully created a SharePoint 2010 PMIS. How did you find the process of creating a SharePoint 2010 site? Quite easy, isn’t it? Did you know that if a similar site was created from scratch (using manual coding), it would take at least two weeks to build? Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 21
Workshop 2.1 Debriefing In Part 1 of the workshop, you selected a blank template in order to build the PMIS from the ground up. This will allow you to later define each component and feature of the site, as well as its access restrictions and other custom functionalities, helping you to fully experience and work with various aspects of SharePoint 2010. Instead of al- lowingexistingusersfromtheparentsitetoaccessthesite,youselectedthe“Useunique permissions” option under user inheritance. As a result, you are responsible for defining who can access your PMIS. In Part 2, you updated the basic look of the site with a predefined theme. To add a custom theme (to conform to your organization’s branding scheme, for example), you must have the IT/IS department create the theme and make it available as a selection. In Part 3, you added the built-in Announcements list and called it Project Announce- ments. You will use this list later to store and display project announcements. In the section “Creating SharePoint Lists” on page 34 in Chapter 3, you will learn how to create additional lists for your PMIS. Finally, in Part 4, you used Edit mode to add the Project Announcements list web part to your home page so that visitors to your PMIS can see the latest project announce- ments. You will learn more about web parts in the section “Using Web Parts for Inter- active Reporting” on page 145 in Chapter 7. Customizing the PMIS Once you have created your SharePoint 2010 site, the next step is to customize the PMIS. Customization can be done in four key areas: Figure 2-12. Project Announcements web part in Edit mode 22 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
Branding It is important to determine whether you have to apply corporate branding stand- ards to your PMIS. You will have to check with IT/IS to see if there are any custom site templates or themes that have your corporate colors and logo. These custom templates or themes must be developed by somebody who is familiar with tools such as SharePoint Designer or, in some cases, Visual Studio .NET. In a project environment, a consistent look and feel throughout various projects will minimize your stakeholders’ learning curve as they start using the PMIS. Wouldn’t it be frustrating to have a PMIS that looks different every time you begin a new project within your organization? Usability Two things come to mind when we look at site usability: • Site navigation: In SharePoint 2010, three mechanisms are used for site naviga- tion: breadcrumb navigation, the top link bar, and the Quick Launch (see Fig- ure 2-13). Figure 2-13. Site navigation options Breadcrumb navigation is used to navigate between top-level sites and subsites. Typically, when you initially create a site, SharePoint 2010 enables the top link bar and Quick Launch, and it is up to you to customize and update them. By default, the top link bar and Quick Launch are prepopulated with links to com- mon site sections. Essentially, you can define which links appear both in the top link bar and the Quick Launch, and you can customize them on the Site Settings page. In a project environment, it is essential to have the most commonly ac- cessed site sections—such as project documents, the calendar, and the risk log—available in your site navigation. • Site access from a mobile device: Will anyone on the project team need access to the PMIS using a portable mobile device, such as a BlackBerry, iPhone, or iPad? Obviously, there are screen limitations with a portable device compared to a PC. You can take advantage of SharePoint’s built-in mobile browsing capability Customizing the PMIS | 23
by accessing the mobile version of the PMIS. The mobile version is optimized for mobile devices. It limits unnecessary visuals and, more importantly, it still keeps most of the PMIS functionalities, such as logging in, posting, and updating information, as well as deleting entries from existing sets of project information. The mobile version is available by default. All you have to do is enter /m at the end of the PMIS address (for example, http://sp.sharepointdojo.com/cebu/m), and you’re good to go. Additionally, there are apps available for various mobile devices that provide more features and functionalities to better interact with your SharePoint-based PMIS (for example, http://www.shareplusapp.com/). Compliance Are there any standards or regulatory compliance issues you have to address for your PMIS? For example, if you have to subscribe to Section 508, SOX, PRINCE2, CMMI, ISO, or PMI standards, how long do you have to archive project informa- tion? What are the stipulations on information access or privacy? You should set this up as early as possible. Project-specific needs Do you have a global project team? If so, on which regional setting will your PMIS be based? Will project information be displayed in multiple languages? Is there a need to monitor and audit PMIS usage and traffic? All of this can be configured on the Site Settings page of your PMIS, which we’ll cover next. Dux Quax: How Can I Get There? I always hear complaints that SharePoint is bad. However, if I can rephrase that state- ment, it should be, “The implementation of SharePoint is bad.” You see, nothing is wrong with SharePoint. In fact, I think SharePoint is brilliant for its purpose. It is not fair to compare SharePoint with existing tools and products out there, because most of the time you are comparing apples and oranges. The typical problem people run into is that when SharePoint is being implemented, IT/ IS fails to engage the needs of the greater population. Who are the users? What kind of technical backgrounds do they have? How can they leverage SharePoint? A key area that causes frustration for end users is navigation. Users get confused about what to click; consequently, they fail to get to the information that they are looking for. I live and breathe by the mantra, “Less is more.” Do not overwhelm your users with various navigational options. Keep it simple. Personally, I do not recommend using the top link bar because it can contain only a limited number of links. For a PMIS, I suggest keeping the Quick Launch as the navigational tool. For great insights in usability and navigation, check out http://www.useit.com/. 24 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
Workshop 2.2: Updating Your Site’s Regional Settings In this workshop, you will update the regional settings, such as time zone, calendar, and time format, for the SharePoint 2010 PMIS you created in Workshop 2.1. For fields and settings that aren’t mentioned in the workshop steps, accept the default settings. 1. Click Site Actions→Site Settings. 2. In the Site Administration column, click Regional Settings. 3. A page similar to the one shown inFigure 2-14 will be displayed. Update the desired fields, and then click OK. Figure 2-14. The Regional Settings page Congratulations! You have updated the Regional Settings for your SharePoint 2010 PMIS. Workshop 2.2 Debriefing Customizing the navigational mechanism of a PMIS is critical but often overlooked. Remember, most of your PMIS’ users will not be reading a book like this, so you have to make it easy for them to get to the information they need without spending too much time trying to figure out which link to click. Workshop 2.2 Debriefing | 25
Best Practices Checklist • Decide how to structure SharePoint 2010 sites. • Make all sites top-level sites or a single site collection with multiple subsites. • Group sites by department, project, or customer product. • Perform necessary customizations early on. Summary • SharePoint 2010 sites are organized in a hierarchy. A site collection is composed of top-level sites that may or may not include subsites. • When creating a PMIS, it is important to know which corporate standards have to be applied for branding, usability, compliance, and any other project-specific requirements. • Be sure to customize the navigational elements of the PMIS effectively to allow stakeholders to easily access project information. 26 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
CHAPTER 3 Adding PMIS Components Virtually every company will be going out and empow- ering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes. —Bill Gates, philanthropist Now that our SharePoint site has been created and customized, the next step is to decide which features are necessary for our PMIS. At a basic level, PMIS components should allow the project team to: Centralize project information Project information includes project contacts, calendars, documents, templates, forms, and checklists. In addition to storing project information, the PMIS should maintain a history and define who has access to the information. Facilitate project communication and collaboration Collaborative project activities include scheduling meetings, jointly developing proposals, and informally brainstorming project strategies. The PMIS should sup- port all activities of this type. Automate project processes Automating project processes, such as change control, should be available in the PMIS. The PMIS can automate the submission of change request forms by sending the form to the appropriate members of the change control board, recording the decision, and routing to the appropriate stakeholder the necessary actions to be taken. In this chapter, you will use SharePoint lists and libraries to create essential PMIS com- ponents for the case study; see Table 3-1. 27
Table 3-1. Essential PMIS components PMIS component Purpose Project Calendar Stores common project events such as meetings, deadlines, and resource availability Project Tasks Stores project task information, assignments, and status Project Risks Stores project risk information, priority, and status Project Contacts Stores common project contacts Project Resources Stores project resource information, skill sets, and rates Project Documents Stores relevant project documents, templates, checklists, and reports Change request system Stores change request information, decisions, and actions Project Announcements Stores relevant project announcements Project Milestones Stores project milestone information with baseline dates and actual dates With a SharePoint PMIS, critical project information is centrally stored in a secured location, where document management features such as version control, check-in/ check-out, and content approval can be enabled. It can be accessed from a web browser and from most Microsoft Office applications. Dux Quax: No More Double Entry One of the goals of using a PMIS is to minimize or completely eradicate the need to enter project information twice. Don’t you love it when you have to enter project mile- stone dates into some system and then have to do it again in your copy of Microsoft Outlook? How about when a resource emails you a timesheet and you have to enter it into some funky timesheet software and then also in your copy of Microsoft Project or Excel? With SharePoint, you can say bye-bye to many of these redundancies through the use of its two fundamental information storage and management capabilities: lists and libraries. Using SharePoint Lists In SharePoint, information is organized and stored in lists. A list is a collection of shared information in a SharePoint site. Anyone who has access to the site will be able to view the lists. However, as you will learn in Chapter 4, you can also limit who can add, edit, and view lists by updating access permissions. Viewing a list is comparable to viewing information in a spreadsheet—the data is dis- played in a tabular format (see Figure 3-1). 28 | Chapter 3: Adding PMIS Components
Figure 3-1. A SharePoint list SharePoint comes with ready-made lists, but also allows you to create custom lists. The following are some standard PMIS lists (these standard lists can be renamed to fit your needs; for example, the “Issues” list can be renamed “Project Risks”): Project Calendar list Events associated with meetings, schedules, milestones, and other project activities (Figure 3-2). This information can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010. Figure 3-2. Project Calendar list Using SharePoint Lists | 29
Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
My hand tired. My uncle and I were seated at a round table in a celebrated American restaurant, the “Western Sea House.” It was my first occasion to face an orderly heavy Meriken table d’hote. Its fertile taste was oily, the oppressive smell emetic. Must I make friends with it? I am afraid my small stomach is only fitted for a bowl of rice and a few cuts of raw fish. There is nothing more light, more inviting, than Japanese fare. It is like a sweet Summer villa with many a sliding shoji from which you smile into the breeze and sing to the stars. Lightness is my choice. When, I wondered, could I feel at home with American food! My uncle is a Meriken “toow.” He promised to show me a heap of things in America. He is an 1884 Yale graduate. He occupies the marked seat of the chief secretary of the “Nippon Mining Company.” He has procured leave for one year. What were the questionable-looking fragments on the plate? Pieces with pock-marks! Cheese was their honourable name. My uncle scared me by saying that some “charming” worms resided in them. Pooh, pooh! They emitted an annoying smell. You have to empty the choicest box of tooth powder after even the slightest intercourse with them.
I dare not make their acquaintance—no, not for a thousand yens. I took a few of them in my pocket papers merely as a curiosity. Shall I hang them on the door, so that the pest may not come near to our house? (Even the pest-devils stay away from it, you see.) 4th—The “Belgic” makes one day’s delay. She will leave on the seventh. “Why not one week?” I cried. I pray that I may sleep a few nights longer in my home. I grow sadder, thinking of my departure. My mother shouldn’t come to the Meriken wharf. Her tears may easily stop my American adventure. I and my maid went to our Buddhist monastery. I offered my good-bye to the graves of my grandparents. I decked them with elegant bunches of chrysanthemums. When we turned our steps homeward the snowy-eyebrowed monk —how unearthly he appeared!—begged me not to forget my family’s church while I am in America. “Christians are barbarians. They eat beef at funerals,” he said. His voice was like a chant. The winds brought a gush of melancholy evening prayer from the temple. The tolling of the monastery bell was tragic. “Goun! Goun! Goun!” 5th—A “chin koro” barked after me.
The Japanese little doggie doesn’t know better. He has to encounter many a strange thing. The tap of my shoes was a thrill to him. The rustling of my silk skirt—such a volatile sound—sounded an alarm to him. I was hurrying along the road home from uncle’s in Meriken dress. What a new delight I felt to catch the peeping tips of my shoes from under my trailing koshi goromo. I forced my skirt to wave, coveting a more satisfactory glance. Did I look a suspicious character? I was glad, it amused me to think the dog regarded me as a foreign girl. Oh, how I wished to change me into a different style! Change is so pleasing. My imitation was clever. It succeeded. When I entered my house my maid was dismayed and said: “Bikkuri shita! You terrified me. I took you for an ijin from Meriken country.” “Ho, ho! O ho, ho, ho!” I passed gracefully (like a princess making her triumphant exit in the fifth act) into my chamber, leaving behind my happiest laughter and shut myself up.
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
Drawn by Genjiro Yeto “A new delight to catch the peeping tips of my shoes” I confess that I earned the most delicious moment I have had for a long time. I cannot surrender under the accusation that Japs are only imitators, but I admit that we Nippon daughters are suited to be mimics. Am I not gifted in the adroit art? Where’s Mr. Somebody who made himself useful to warn the musumes? Then I began to rehearse the scene of my first interview with a white lady at San Francisco. I opened Bartlett’s English Conversation Book, and examined it to see if what I spoke was correct. I sat on the writing table. Japanese houses set no chairs. (Goodness, mottainai! I sat on the great book of Confucius.) The mirror opposite me showed that I was a “little dear.” 6th—It rained. Soft, woolen Autumn rain like a gossamer! Its suggestive sound is a far-away song which is half sob, half odor. The October rain is sweet sad poetry. I slid open a paper door. My house sits on the hill commanding a view over half Tokio and the Bay of Yedo. My darling city—with an eternal tea and cake, with lanterns of festival—looked up to me through the gray veil of rain.
I felt as if Tokio were bidding me farewell. Sayonara! My dear city!
GOOD NIGHT—NATIVE LAND!
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
ON THE OCEAN “Belgic,” 7th Good night—native land! Farewell, beloved Empress of Dai Nippon! 12th—The tossing spectacle of the waters (also the hostile smell of the ship) put my head in a whirl before the “Belgic” left the wharf. The last five days have been a continuous nightmare. How many a time would I have preferred death! My little self wholly exhausted by sea-sickness. Have I to drift to America in skin and bone? I felt like a paper flag thrown in a tempest. The human being is a ridiculously small piece. Nature plays with it and kills it when she pleases. I cannot blame Balboa for his fancy, because he caught his first view from the peak in Darien. It’s not the “Pacific Ocean.” The breaker of the world! “Do you feel any better?” inquired my fellow passenger. He is the new minister to the City of Mexico on his way to his post. My uncle is one of his closest friends. What if Meriken ladies should mistake me for the “sweet” wife of such a shabby pock-marked gentleman?
It will be all right, I thought, for we shall part at San Francisco. (The pock-mark is rare in America, Uncle said. No country has a special demand for it, I suppose.) His boyish carelessness and samurai-fashioned courtesy are characteristic. His great laugh, “Ha, ha, ha!” echoes on half a mile. He never leaves his wine glass alone. My uncle complains of his empty stomach. The more the minister repeats his cup the more his eloquence rises on the Chinese question. He does not forget to keep up his honourable standard of diplomatist even in drinking, I fancy. I see charm in the eloquence of a drunkard. I exposed myself on deck for the first time. I wasn’t strong enough, alas! to face the threatening grandeur of the ocean. Its divineness struck and wounded me. O such an expanse of oily-looking waters! O such a menacing largeness! One star, just one sad star, shone above. I thought that the little star was trembling alone on a deck of some ship in the sky. Star and I cried. 13th—My first laughter on the ocean burst out while I was peeping at a label, “7 yens,” inside the chimney-pot hat of our respected minister, when he was brushing it. He must have bought that great headgear just on the eve of his appointment. How stupid to leave such a bit of paper! I laughed.
He asked what was so irresistibly funny. I laughed more. I hardly repressed “My dear old man.” The “helpless me” clinging on the bed for many a day feels splendid to-day. The ocean grew placid. On the land my eyes meet with a thousand temptations. They are here opened for nothing but the waters or the sun-rays. I don’t gain any lesson, but I have learned to appreciate the demonstrations of light. They were white. O what a heavenly whiteness! The billows sang a grand slow song in blessing of the sun, sparkling their ivory teeth. The voyage isn’t bad, is it? I planted myself on the open deck, facing Japan. I am a mountain-worshipper. Alas! I could not see that imperial dome of snow, Mount Fuji. One dozen fairies—two dozen—roved down from the sky to the ocean. I dreamed. I was so very happy. 14th—What a confusion my hair has suffered! I haven’t put it in order since I left the Orient. Such negligence of toilet would be fined by the police in Japan. I was busy with my hair all the morning. 15th—The Sunday service was held.
There’s nothing more natural on a voyage than to pray. We have abandoned the land. The ocean has no bottom. We die any moment “with bubbling groan, without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.” Only prayer makes us firm. I addressed myself to the Great Invisible whose shadow lies across my heart. He may not be the God of Christianity. He is not the Hotoke Sama of Buddhism. Why don’t those red-faced sailors hum heavenly-voiced hymns instead of—“swear?” 16th—Amerikey is away beyond. Not even a speck of San Francisco in sight yet! I amused myself thinking what would happen if I never returned home. Marriage with a ’Merican, wealthy and comely? I had well-nigh decided that I would not cross such an ocean again by ship. I would wait patiently until a trans-Pacific railroad is erected. I was basking in the sun. I fancied the “Belgic” navigating a wrong track. What then? Was I approaching lantern-eyed demons or howling cannibals? “Iya, iya, no! I will proudly land on the historical island of Lotos Eaters.” I said. Why didn’t I take Homer with me? The ocean is just the place for his majestic simplicity and lofty swing.
I recalled a few passages of “The Lotos Eaters” by Lord Tennyson —it sounds better than “the poet Tennyson.” I love titles, but they are thought as common as millionaires nowadays. A Jap poet has a different mode of speech. Shall I pose as poet? ’Tis no great crime to do so. I began my “Lotos Eaters” with the following mighty lines: “O dreamy land of stealing shadows! O peace-breathing land of calm afternoon! O languid land of smile and lullaby! O land of fragrant bliss and flower! O eternal land of whispering Lotos Eaters!” Then I feared that some impertinent poet might have said the same thing many a year before. Poem manufacture is a slow job. Modern people slight it, calling it an old fashion. Shall I give it up for some more brilliant up-to-date pose? 17th—I began to knit a gentleman’s stockings in wool. They will be a souvenir of this voyage. (I cannot keep a secret.) I tell you frankly that I designed them to be given to the gentleman who will be my future “beloved.” The wool is red, a symbol of my sanguine attachment. The stockings cannot be much larger than my own feet. I dislike large-footed gentlemen.
18th—My uncle asked if my great work of poetical inspiration was completed. “Uncle, I haven’t written a dozen lines yet. My ‘Lotos Eaters’ is to be equal in length to ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ Now, see, Oji San, mine has to be far superior to the laureate’s, not merely in quality, but in quantity as well. But I thought it was not the way of a sweet Japanese girl to plunder a garland from the old poet by writing in rivalry. Such a nice man Tennyson was!” I said. I smiled and gazed on him slyly. “So! You are very kind!” he jerked. 19th—I don’t think San Francisco is very far off now. Shall I step out of the ship and walk? Has the “Belgic” coal enough? I wonder how the sensible steamer can be so slow! Let the blank pages pass quickly! Let me come face to face with the new chapter—“America!” The gray monotone of life makes me insane. Such an eternal absence of variety on the ocean! 20th—The moon—how large is the ocean moon!—sat above my head. When I thought that that moon must have been visiting in my dearest home of Tokio, the tragic scene of my “Sayonara, mother!” instantly returned. Tears on my cheeks! Morning, 21st—Three P.M. of to-day! At last!
Beautiful Miss Morning Glory shall land on her dream-land, Amerikey. That’s my humble name, sir. 18 years old. (Why does the ’Merican lady regard it as an insult to be asked her own age?) My knitting work wasn’t half done. I look upon it as an omen that I shall have no luck in meeting with my husband. Tsumaranai! What a barren life! Our great minister was placing a button on his shirt. His trembling fingers were uncertain. I snatched the shirt from his hand and exhibited my craft with the needle. “I fancied that you modern girls were perfect strangers to the needle,” he said. He is not blockish, I thought, since he permits himself to employ irony. My uncle was lamenting that he had not even one cigar left. Both those gentlemen offered to help me in my dressing at the landing. I declined gracefully. Where is my looking-glass? I must present myself very—very pretty.
IN AMERIKEY
SharePoint 2010 for Project Management 2nd Edition Dux Raymond Sy
IN AMERIKEY San Francisco, night, 21st “Good-bye, Mr. Belgic!” I delight in personifying everything as a gentleman. What does it mean under the sun! Kitsune ni tsukamareta wa! Evil fox, I suppose, got hold of me. “Gentlemen, is this real Amerikey?” I exclaimed. Oya, ma, my Meriken dream was a complete failure. Did I ever fancy any sky-invading dragon of smoke in my own America? The smoke stifled me. Why did I lock up my perfume bottle in my trunk? I hardly endured the smell from the wagons at the wharf. Their rattling noise thrust itself into my head. A squad of Chinamen there puffed incessantly the menacing smell of cigars. Were I the mayor of San Francisco—how romantic “the Mayor, Miss Morning Glory” sounds!—I would not pause a moment before erecting free bath-houses around the wharf. I never dreamed that human beings could cast such an insulting smell. The smell of honourable wagon drivers is the smell of a M-O-N-K- E-Y.
Their wild faces also prove their likeness to it. They must have furnished all the evidence to Mr. Darwin. “The better part lies some distance from here,” said my uncle. I exclaimed how inhospitable the Americans were to receive visitors from the back door of the city. We are not empty-stomached tramps rapping the kitchen door for a crust of bread. We refused hotel carriage. We walked from the Oriental wharf for the sake of the street sight- seeing. Tamageta wa! A house was whirling along the street. Look at the horseless car! How could it be possible to pull it with a rope under ground! Everything reveals a huge scale of measurement. The continental spectacle is different from that of our islands. We 40,000,000 Japs must raise our heads from wee bits of land. There’s no room to stretch elbows. We have to stay like dwarf trees. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Americans exclaim in Japan, “What a petty show!” Such a riotous rush! What a deafening uproar! The lazy halt of a moment on the street must have been regarded, I fancied, as a violation of the law. I wondered whether one dozen were not slain each hour on Market Street by the cars. Cars! Cars! And cars! It was no use to look beautiful in such a cyclone city. Not even one gentleman moved his admiring eyes to my face. How sad!
I thought it must be some festival. “No, the usual Saturday throng!” my uncle said. Then I asked myself whether Tokio streets were only like a midnight of this city. My beloved minister kept his mouth open—what heavy lips he had!—amazed at the high edifices. “O ho, that’s astonishing!” he cried, throwing his sottish eyes on the clock of the Chronicle building. “Boys are commenting on you,” I whispered. I beseeched him not to act so droll. He tossed out in his careless fashion his everlasting heroic laughter, “Ha, ha, ha——” A hawkish lad—I have not seen one sleepy fellow yet—drew near the minister shortly after we left the wharf, and begged to carry his bag. He was only too glad to be assisted. The brown diplomatist thought it a loving deed toward a foreigner. He bowed after some blocks, thanking the boy with a hearty “arigato.” “Sir, you have to pay me two bits!” His hand went to his pocket, when my uncle tapped his stooping back, speaking: “This is the country of eternal ‘pay, pay, pay,’ old man!” “What does a genuine American beggar look like?” was my old question. The Meriken beggar my friend saw at Yokohama park was dressed up in a swallow-tail coat. Emerson’s essays were in his hand. He was such a genteel Mr. Beggar, she said.
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  • 7. SECOND EDITION SharePoint 2010 for Project Management Dux Raymond Sy Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Tokyo
  • 8. SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, Second Edition by Dux Raymond Sy Copyright © 2012 Innovative-e, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected]. Editors: Courtney Nash and Rachel Roumeliotis Production Editor: Kristen Borg Proofreader: Marlowe Shaeffer Indexer: Lucie Haskins Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Interior Designer: David Futato Illustrator: Robert Romano October 2008: First Edition. February 2012: Second Edition. Revision History for the Second Edition: 2012-01-11 First release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449306373 for release details. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, the image of a black fox squirrel, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con- tained herein. ISBN: 978-1-449-30637-3 [LSI] 1326292606
  • 9. Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 1. Project Kickoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 What Is a PMIS? 4 Deciding to Use a PMIS 4 What Is SharePoint? 5 Other Options 8 Our Case Study: SharePoint Dojo, Inc. 8 Best Practices Checklist 9 Summary 9 2. Setting Up the PMIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 How Will You Organize Your PMIS? 12 Using Site Templates 14 Creating a SharePoint 2010 Site 14 Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation 15 Part 1: Creating the PMIS 16 Part 2: Customizing the Site Theme 17 Part 3: Adding an Announcement List 18 Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page 20 Workshop 2.1 Debriefing 22 Customizing the PMIS 22 Workshop 2.2: Updating Your Site’s Regional Settings 25 Workshop 2.2 Debriefing 25 Best Practices Checklist 26 Summary 26 3. Adding PMIS Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Using SharePoint Lists 28 Creating SharePoint Lists 34 Workshop 3.1: Creating and Populating Lists 35 iii
  • 10. Part 1: Creating and Populating a Calendar List 36 Part 2: Creating and Populating a Contacts List 38 Part 3: Creating a Risks List 40 Part 4: Creating a Project Tasks List 41 Part 5: Creating and Populating a Custom Resource List 41 Part 6: Displaying the New Lists on the Home Page 46 Workshop 3.1 Debriefing 48 Using Libraries 49 Creating a Document Library (a How-To) 52 Populating a Document Library 55 Workshop 3.2: Creating and Populating a Document Library 55 Part 1: Creating a Document Library 55 Part 2: Populating a Document Library 57 Workshop 3.2 Debriefing 60 Organizing Project Information 60 Best Practices Checklist 61 Summary 61 4. Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Project Communications Plan 64 Site Access in SharePoint 65 Creating SharePoint Groups 65 Adding Site Members 66 Enabling the Access Request Feature 69 Customizing Permissions 70 Workshop 4.1: Adding Site Members 73 Part 1: Adding Site Members 74 Part 2: Customizing List Permissions 75 Workshop 4.1 Debriefing 77 Best Practices Checklist 79 Summary 79 5. Supporting Team Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Enabling Document Management Solutions 82 Overview of Check-Out/Check-In 83 Overview of Version History 85 Overview of Content Approval 87 Workshop 5.1: Updating a Project Document 89 Part 1: Requiring Check-Out 89 Part 2: Checking Out and Editing a Document from the Document Library 91 Part 3: Viewing All the Changes Made to the Document 93 Workshop 5.1 Debriefing 96 iv | Table of Contents
  • 11. Facilitating Team Collaboration 96 Wikis 97 Discussion Boards 98 Document Workspaces 99 Creating a Document Workspace 100 Best Practices Checklist 102 Summary 102 6. Project Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Tracking Project Tasks 104 Tracking Risks 107 Workshop 6.1: Updating the Schedule and Tracking Risks 110 Part 1: Updating the Project Tasks List 110 Part 2: Populating and Updating the Project Tasks List 112 Part 3: Documenting Risks 115 Workshop 6.1 Debriefing 119 Controlling Changes with Workflow 119 Workshop 6.2: Creating a Change Control System with Three-State Workflow 122 Part 1: Creating a Custom List 123 Part 2: Customizing the Three-State Workflow 124 Part 3: Testing the Workflow 130 Workshop 6.2 Debriefing 135 Best Practices Checklist 135 Summary 135 7. Project Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Custom Views 137 Workshop 7.1: Creating a Custom View 141 Workshop 7.1 Debriefing 145 Using Web Parts for Interactive Reporting 145 Workshop 7.2: Maximizing Project Reporting with Web Parts 150 Part 1: Updating Web Parts on Your PMIS Home Page 150 Part 2: Creating a Project Dashboard 153 Part 3: Finalizing the Dashboard 160 Workshop 7.2 Debriefing 163 Subscribing to Alerts 163 Using Meeting Workspaces 166 Workshop 7.3: Creating a Meeting Workspace 169 Workshop 7.3 Debriefing 171 Best Practices Checklist 172 Summary 172 Table of Contents | v
  • 12. 8. Integrating PM Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Integrating Microsoft Project into SharePoint 174 Workshop 8.1: Using Microsoft Project 176 Workshop 8.1 Debriefing 178 Using Microsoft Excel and SharePoint 178 Creating a Custom List from an Existing Excel Spreadsheet 179 Exporting an Excel Spreadsheet to SharePoint As a Custom List 180 Synchronizing Excel Tables with a SharePoint List 182 Workshop 8.2: Synchronizing Excel with SharePoint 185 Part 1: Creating an Excel Table 185 Part 2: Synchronizing the SharePoint List with Excel 188 Workshop 8.2 Debriefing 189 Best Practices Checklist 189 Summary 190 9. Project Closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Overview of Creating a PMIS Template 192 Overview of Archiving the PMIS 194 Workshop 9.1: Creating a PMIS Site Template 195 Workshop 9.1 Debriefing 198 Ensuring Stakeholder Buy-In 198 1.LeverageandProvetheValueofSharePointasaPMISonaPilotProject 198 2. Provide User Support in Learning and Utilizing SharePoint 199 3. Measure and Broadcast Success 199 4. Gather Feedback 200 Best Practices Checklist 201 Summary 201 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 vi | Table of Contents
  • 13. Preface Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinangalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan. (He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.) —Dr. José P. Rizal, Philippine national hero Do you find yourself asking for more time whenever you work on a project? Do you ever get the extra time you asked for? Well, if you’re like me, you rarely get the extra time you need from your customers. This got me thinking about how I can buy more time for my projects. I decided to find out if I could gain more time by reducing inefficiencies within the project team (which also includes myself). In a recent project, I monitored and analyzed a few individuals for a week and was amazed at what I discovered. During an average eight-hour workday, each individual spent about 45 minutes looking for information. For example, when asked by a client to retrieve a specific status report, the project coordinator had to look for it on the network share, in her email inbox, in the project folder of her computer, and she even had to call up another colleague to help her find it. This typical mode of searching took up time that could have been spent on something more productive. In addition, project resources were unproductive due to poor document management practices, inefficient project communication stand- ards, and ineffective project collaboration tools. According to a May 31, 2007, New York Times article, “Time Wasted? Perhaps It’s Well Spent” (http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/05/31/fashion/31work.html), a Microsoft study found that American workers, on average, spend 45 hours a week at work, with 16 of these hours described as “unproductive.” Although 45 minutes may not sound like a lot, when you look at the bigger picture, it essentially means that a team of 20 people wastes 900 minutes a day. In a three-month project, that is 54,000 minutes, or roughly 38 personal days—more than one-third of the project! vii
  • 14. Other than time, how much does this cost the project and the organization? Well, depending on who you’re considering, 45 minutes might cost $50 for a project coor- dinator or $250 for a technical contractor, each day. Bottom line: time and money are not well spent. What if my team could regain just 20 of those 45 minutes wasted each day? With SharePoint, we achieved this and more. Apart from increasing productivity, we were able to: • Automate status reporting for stakeholders • Use collaboration to generate real-time project lessons learned that were easily accessible by a globally dispersed team • Synchronize standard project information such as calendars, contacts, and documents • Document and track project risks and issues • Maintain a quality log • Integrate existing project management tools such as email, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Project into SharePoint • Create and manage a change control system For me, the best part of using SharePoint was that once the IT/IS department performed the installation and initial configuration, I didn’t have to burden anybody to set up and further configure this unique Project Management Information System (PMIS)—I did it all myself. In addition, I was still able to better use existing tools like Microsoft Office along with SharePoint. That’s what this book is all about. By clearly mapping the relationships between project management processes and project stakeholders, and by leveraging tools like Share- Point, you will learn how to apply common and practical project management techni- ques using SharePoint. More importantly, with this book you will quickly master SharePoint so you can build a PMIS that can help you efficiently coordinate commu- nication and collaboration throughout your project team. Who Should Read This Book This book will be most valuable to individuals working on projects who want to adapt SharePoint for project management, including: Project managers By managing a project officially or unofficially, project managers are involved from the project’s inception to its closure. Their responsibilities include project plan- ning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. In addition, they lead a project team and are the project liaison with key stakeholders. viii | Preface
  • 15. Project team members Members of the team work in a project environment that requires participating in collaborative activities, such as project planning, status updates, risk monitoring, tracking, requesting changes, and maintaining critical project information. Program managers Program managers seek a standard, consistent, and best-practices approach to im- plementing a PMIS across projects in the organization. IT/IS directors Directors want to learn how SharePoint can meet the needs of project managers in the organization. SharePoint consultants SharePoint consultants can help you to leverage your SharePoint technical skills by offering a focused approach in implementing SharePoint as a PMIS. What You Need to Best Use This Book To maximize the benefits of this book, familiarity with basic project management con- cepts and terminologies is assumed. This book is intended for individuals with a project management background who are interested in leveraging SharePoint on their projects. Furthermore, it is ideal that you have an existing SharePoint environment (SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Server) where you can practice and apply the techniques that you will learn. If you are not sure about this, ask your IT/IS department these two questions: • Am I a member of an existing SharePoint site? • Am I allowed to create SharePoint subsites? If the answer to both questions is yes, you are in good shape. If the answer to either or both questions is no, I suggest you ask for appropriate SharePoint access or rely on external SharePoint hosting vendors such as Office 365. Even better, you can leverage a fully functioning SharePoint environment, designed for this book from Cloudshare, that you can use FREE for 14 days. Visit http://innovative -e.com/sp4pmlab for more details. Finally, apart from having a SharePoint environment to work in, your computer must be running Windows (XP or above versions), and it must have Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft Office installed. Certain sections of this book showcase the integration of MicrosoftOfficeproductswithSharePoint.Alloftheexamplesinthebookwerecreated using Microsoft Office 2010. Preface | ix
  • 16. My Assumptions in Writing This Book My assumptions are that you: Have some sort of project management experience You have managed projects formally or informally and are familiar with funda- mental project management concepts and practices. Are new to SharePoint You may have heard of SharePoint or have been told to use SharePoint to manage yourprojects.IfyouhaveusedSharePointbefore,youwillgainpracticalknowledge in applying SharePoint for project management. Are using SharePoint for project management purposes This book is focused on helping you leverage SharePoint for project management, regardless of what industry you are in. The concepts and techniques in this book applytoIT,construction,government,education,finance,andhealthcareprojects. If you are interested in using SharePoint to deploy a corporate portal, create an ecommerce website, or develop a proprietary SharePoint application, this is not the book for you. Are not interested in the nitty-gritty technical details of SharePoint I am not inclined to write yet another technical book about SharePoint. Though I am a certified SharePoint geek, there are tons of other books available that do a great job of discussing advanced technical topics. The level of technical detail I will cover is just enough for you to get your PMIS up and running. Are comfortable using Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and a web browser The technical background required to fully utilize SharePoint is minimal. As long as you are familiar with basic computing concepts—such as creating and saving documents, copying files, logging in and logging out, using passwords, surfing the Web, clicking on links on a web page, downloading and uploading, and distin- guishing files versus folders—you are in good shape. Are willing to change and try something new Remember, to benefit from this book, you have to consciously decide that how you manage project information, facilitate team collaboration, and enable project communication must change for the better. Additional Resources Websites: • Project Management Institute (http://www.pmi.org) • PRINCE2 (http://www.prince2.com/) • Max Wideman’s Project Management Wisdom (http://www.maxwideman.com) • All the Top SharePoint News (http://sharepoint.alltop.com) x | Preface
  • 17. • Microsoft Project for the Masses: FREE Resource Management Solution (http:// spgur.us/MSPFM) Books: • Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management by Scott Berkun (O’Reilly, 2008) • Applied Project Management: Best Practices on Implementation by Harold Kerzner (Wiley, 1999) • Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Plain & Simple by Jonathan Lightfoot and Chris Beckett (Microsoft Press, 2010) Contents of This Book This book includes hands-on workshops, which will help you leverage a SharePoint PMIS just as you would in a typical project environment. And using each chapter’s detailed, step-by-step logical processes, you will integrate project management best practices and standards to fully reap the benefits of a SharePoint PMIS. Chapter 1, Project Kickoff Chapter 2, Setting Up the PMIS Chapter 3, Adding PMIS Components Chapter 4, Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS Chapter 5, Supporting Team Collaboration Chapter 6, Project Tracking Chapter 7, Project Reporting Chapter 8, Integrating PM Tools Chapter 9, Project Closing Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: Italic Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, folder names, filenames, and file extensions. Constant width Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords. Constant width bold Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user. Preface | xi
  • 18. Constant width italic Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values deter- mined by context. This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note. This icon indicates a warning or caution. Using Code Examples This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission. We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “SharePoint 2010 for Project Manage- ment, Second Edition, by Dux Raymond Sy (O’Reilly). Copyright 2012 Innovative-e, Inc., 978-1-449-30637-3.” If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Safari® Books Online Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that lets you easily search over 7,500 technology and creative reference books and videos to find the answers you need quickly. Withasubscription,youcanreadanypageandwatchanyvideofromourlibraryonline. Read books on your cell phone and mobile devices. Access new titles before they are available for print, and get exclusive access to manuscripts in development and post feedback for the authors. Copy and paste code samples, organize your favorites, down- load chapters, bookmark key sections, create notes, print out pages, and benefit from tons of other time-saving features. xii | Preface
  • 19. O’Reilly Media has uploaded this book to the Safari Books Online service. To have full digital access to this book and others on similar topics from O’Reilly and other pub- lishers, sign up for free at http://my.safaribooksonline.com. How to Contact Us Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, CA 95472 800-998-9938 (in the United States or Canada) 707-829-0515 (international or local) 707-829-0104 (fax) We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920020387.do To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to: [email protected] For more information about our books, courses, conferences, and news, see our website at http://www.oreilly.com. Find us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/oreilly Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/oreillymedia Watch us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/oreillymedia Acknowledgments It’s been an amazing ride since the first edition of SharePoint for Project Management was published. SharePoint has exploded in the enterprise; in a recent report from AIIM, project management is the top use of SharePoint today (http://www.aiim.org/Research/ Industry-Watch/SharePoint-2011). With this second edition, I would like to thank the following for their unwavering support, trust, and patience: • The Lord God for the awesome plan He has for me, as promised in Jeremiah 29:11 • My wonderful wife, Ramona, and amazing children, Johannes and Danika, for making all this worthwhile • Team Innovative-e for all the help and insights • The O’Reilly Media crew for being top-notch as always Preface | xiii
  • 20. • The global SharePoint community for the kindness and hospitality you’ve shown me • My good friend Dave Murphy for jumping in at the last minute to review Off You Go The last thing I want is for you to think of SharePoint as a burden or a necessary evil, simply because your boss is making you use it for your projects. My hope is that, after reading this book, you will be able to use SharePoint to effectively manage your projects, make them less complicated, and make your team more efficient. Should you have any questions, comments, and/or feedback, feel free to visit http:// www.spforpm.com or contact me at [email protected]. Enjoy! xiv | Preface
  • 21. CHAPTER 1 Project Kickoff It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dan- gerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. —Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian philosopher As most of you would agree, the definition of a project varies greatly—it can be building the next space shuttle, upgrading the production line of your manufacturing facility, or just creating a new website for a customer. One common factor that holds true across these varying project types is that all of them involve multiple people interacting with a wide array of project information. This information can include templates, emails, schedules, proposals, forms, budgets, contact information, status reports, regulatory compliance, and even ad hoc docu- ments. In spite of our best attempts to effectively manage project information, we all seem to fall short at times. We rely on inconsistent and inefficient tools that are typically a combination of three things: Local/personal storage If project information is stored in an individual’s personal computer, email, or portable storage device, can important information—such as a project schedule— be made available to relevant stakeholders in a timely manner? If the computer or portable storage device breaks down, how is the information restored? Network-based storage If you are using central storage through a file-sharing network or web-based envi- ronment, how do you prevent files from being overwritten? What are the standards for maintaining versions? Can you easily define who can access what information? Mixed bag of project management tools Some common tools used in project environments are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and possibly Microsoft Project. In certain cases, complex enterprise tools such as Microsoft Project Server and Primavera are also made available. 1
  • 22. Checklist: Essential Project Management Activities When I formally started managing projects more than 15 years ago, I had the wrong impression that the very first step to take was to fire up a scheduling tool (such as Microsoft Project) and start cranking out the project tasks, defining the task duration, and establishing the task dependencies. It never really worked out well for me. Only later did I realize that there are other crucial steps I failed to do. Here’s my essential list of project management activities that every project manager should be doing throughout the life of a project: • Create guidelines for how your projects will be initiated • Run a kickoff meeting to define project objectives • Identify your stakeholders • Identify project information taxonomy • Plan your projects with your team, including creating the work breakdown struc- ture (WBS), creating the network diagram, identifying the critical path, and opti- mizing the project schedule • Define the probability and impact of project risks • Create a change control process for scope changes • Define quantifiable project-tracking processes • Facilitate a lessons-learned meeting To improve these inefficiencies, three things are necessary: Apply a standard set of project management processes from the start of the project until the end While I won’t go into detailed discussions on project management concepts and theories, I will say that to make SharePoint work to your advantage, you have to employ sound project management techniques and practices. If you don’t have one, the best way to develop a project management methodology is to review best practices from the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide and the Projects in Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) road map. Consider this example: I have no cooking experience, so if I were to compete in a cooking contest against the best chef in the world (à la Iron Chef), I would definitely lose. This is because even if, by chance, I cooked really well, there’s no method to my madness—I dislike reading recipe books, so it’s hit or miss. I am certain that a veteran chef would have proven processes in place, from how to chop the vegeta- bles to how long okra should simmer. Not only do veteran chefs document these steps, they also constantly tweak their processes for improvement. Guess what? The same thing applies to project management. 2 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
  • 23. Use a Project Management Information System (PMIS) to support your project manage- ment processes As any experienced project manager would validate, having an easy-to-use, accessible, reliable, and scalable collaborative platform can contribute greatly to a project’s success. That’s the crux of what you will learn in this book: using Share- Point as your PMIS. Educate and update your project team with project management best practices Having an incremental approach to continuous process improvement will enable the project team to make better use of the PMIS. Dux Quax: Is It Changeworthy? Listen, before you go gung-ho and start implementing formalized project management processes in your organization, slow down, my good friend. I guarantee that it won’t work if you change the rules overnight. People, by nature, are averse to change (as you might already know). As the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So, what should you do? How can you convince your team that it’s necessary to im- plement project management processes? Taking baby steps is key: Make the case that having sound project management processes will greatly improve how projects are run in the organization A good exercise is to examine a previous project that didn’t turn out too well—it might have been delayed or gone over budget. Assess whether you had sound planning processes. Could you have done a better job defining the work and draw- ing up a more realistic schedule and budget? Implement new processes one at a time Initially, focus on the planning aspects of project management. Perhaps come up with a standard on defining project goals, identifying stakeholders, prioritizing requirements, generating work breakdown, assigning work, developing a project schedule, and documenting a risk management plan. Involve the team Allow the team to provide feedback on the processes that will be implemented. Ask if they’re relevant. If not, how can they be improved? Is there anything missing? What kind of support is necessary to ensure that these processes are adopted? Remember, people can change as long as they perceive it as worthwhile. They are more likely to make changes that will bring about benefits at a personal level than at the organizational level. To get you started in developing your project management process, go to http://www .spforpm.com for a step-by-step guide, complete with supporting templates, docu- ments, and references. Project Kickoff | 3
  • 24. What Is a PMIS? As defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI; see http://www.pmi.org), a Project Management Information System (PMIS) is a standardized set of automated project management tools available within an organization and integrated into a sys- tem. Although the PMI does not specify which tools or technologies to use as a PMIS, SharePoint can be customized as one. Checklist: Essential PMIS Capabilities AreliablePMISshouldsupportmost,ifnotall,ofthecommunicationandcollaboration needs of a project environment. Here is a list of essential PMIS capabilities: • Supports the generation of a project charter, schedule, and budget • Facilitates communication and feedback • Monitors project activities • Controls project changes • Analyzes and forecasts project performance • Disseminates project status to relevant stakeholders • Provides real-time information essential for initiating, planning, executing, con- trolling, and closing a project Deciding to Use a PMIS No matter how small or large a project is, being able to efficiently manage project information whenever, wherever, and however can greatly contribute to project suc- cess. A key requirement for making this possible is leveraging a PMIS. Here are five telltale signs that you need to begin using a PMIS: No standardized system for integrating project goals Project schedule, cost, and quality objectives are individual silos. For example, financial information in Excel is not automatically recalculated anytime the project schedule is adjusted using scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project. Making manual updates takes time away from other project activities. Inefficient document management Project documents are not stored in a central location. Tracking, undoing changes, and the ability to roll back to prior versions are limited. Additionally, varying levels of access permissions are unavailable. IT/IS can only do so much in supporting information access requirements. Lack of appropriate tools to facilitate team collaboration Project information is not accessible anytime, anywhere. In addition, the team is incapable of developing or working with information at the same time. 4 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
  • 25. Inability to report accurate and timely status of the project Project status information is available only when the project manager makes it available. How do you deal with project sponsors who want to view real-time project status data? Not achieving organizational strategic goals Lacking a standardized tool to facilitate consistent project management processes throughout an organization can limit the ability to effectively support strategic goals. As a project manager, these five issues can more than justify the need for any organi- zation to invest in a reliable, effective, customizable, and easy-to-implement PMIS. Today, multiple PMIS solutions are available. However, in addition to being costly, they can require specialized skills to implement, customize, and maintain. That’s why a lot of these initiatives have achieved only limited adoption. This is how SharePoint sets itself apart. What Is SharePoint? How do people describe SharePoint? In my experience, the definition always gets lost somewhere between collaboration and document management. Here’s a concise and straightforward description of SharePoint: SharePoint allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage their own collaborative solutions. It sounds simple, but let me dissect what it truly means: Individuals Does this word specify that SharePoint users have to be technically savvy? No. In fact, as long as users have familiarity with Windows, Microsoft Office, and surfing the Web, they will be in good shape. Organization This term implies that SharePoint can be used by a limited number of people be- longingtothesamegroup.Italsomeansthattherewillbevaryinglevelsofauthority and privileges within the group. As a result, you don’t have to rely on the IT/ IS department to set up permissions in SharePoint—you are empowered to define and manage access to specific information. You will learn more about permissions in Chapter 4. Easily Instead of contacting IT/IS, any individual can create, customize, and manage this collaborative tool. Although IT/IS will not be totally out of the picture, SharePoint empowers users to develop a customized automated solution that can appropri- ately support their needs in a timely manner. What Is SharePoint? | 5
  • 26. Collaborative The intent of SharePoint is to support collaborative activities (formal or informal) in which groups engage. SharePoint has been around since 2001. It has evolved from a simple website manage- ment tool to an empowering collaboration platform that integrates seamlessly with the Web, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Office. Since it is a foundational Microsoft technology, various organizations—including government institutions, airlines, banks, construction companies, and retail industries—have benefited from its tools and fea- ture sets. SharePoint does not refer to a specific product or technology. Using the phrase “Mi- crosoft SharePoint” is like using the phrase “Microsoft Office.” It refers to several as- pects of collaborative solutions. The key components are SharePoint Foundation (SF) and SharePoint Server (SS). To distinguish SF and SS, an analogy that I often use is to compare SharePoint to a car. What’s the main purpose of a car? To take you from point A to point B, agreed? Which component of a car is required to do this? The engine, of course. The main purpose of SharePoint is to empower users with document management and team collaboration tools. SF fulfills this purpose. It is the core “engine” of SharePoint. Without SF, there is no SharePoint. SF (shown in Figure 1-1) is available with Windows 2008 Server or later. Figure 1-1. A SharePoint site using a SF site template SS provides extended capabilities to SF. Going back to the car analogy, we can equip our vehicles with accessories such as GPS, a DVD system, voice command, etc. How- ever, these extended features are not required to run a car (taking us from point A to point B). If these accessories are not installed, the car will still work. It’s just that having a GPS might enable us to reach our destination faster without getting lost. SS extended 6 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
  • 27. features include Enterprise Search, Personalization, Enterprise Content Management, etc. Unlike SF, SS (shown in Figure 1-2) has separate licensing. Licensing can vary and becomequitecostly.Formoreinformationaboutlicensing,visitMicrosoft’sSharePoint website at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint. Figure 1-2. A SharePoint site using SS features Since SharePoint can be considered a platform for improving document management and collaboration, it can be adopted as a tool to assist most project environments. In this book, I will show you how to build a SharePoint PMIS primarily using SF. This means that the techniques you will learn can be applied regardless of whether you have SF or SS in your organization. Dux Quax: Is SharePoint the Only Game in Town? Don’t get me wrong here. There are a lot of other great products that can be used as a PMIS. There are full-featured enterprise-level products, such as Microsoft Project Server, Clarity, and Primavera; and even open source, web-based products, such as Google Apps and Basecamp. The challenge with rolling out complex enterprise PMIS toolsets is that it assumes your organization already has a certain level of project management maturity. By “maturity” I mean that you have a Project Management Office (PMO) in place; project processes are being applied, embraced, and continuously improved upon by all project teams; and project artifacts such as plans, reports, templates, and communication mechanisms are well defined and structured. The reason for such a stringent requirement is that these tools must be customized to adapt the processes you currently have in place. A lot of clients I have worked with assumed that implementing such comprehensive tools would make projects run better overnight. Yeah, right. Without sound processes in place, a complex tool is quite a beast to leverage. What Is SharePoint? | 7
  • 28. As depicted in Figure 1-3, project management maturity should have the people, pro- cess, and technology in lockstep. Figure 1-3. Project management maturity Other Options How about free, web-based, open source products such as Google Sites, Dux? Well, they can serve as a relatively good PMIS to a certain extent. My issue with these tools is their lack of integration with existing project management tools that I use. The last thing I want to do is enter the same set of information 10 times in 10 different places. So, how is SharePoint different? If you are coming from an environment where you don’t really have an established project management process and are mostly using Mi- crosoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and maybe Microsoft Project to manage your projects, using SharePoint is taking a baby step ahead. Remember that people are often averse to change. Well, stepping up to SharePoint is not as drastic a change as learning how to use other, more complex PMIS tools. Also, I really like the integration between SharePoint and the Microsoft Office products that I use day in and day out. For example, I can enter project schedule information in my Outlook calendar and it will show up in SharePoint, and vice versa. Additionally, an Excel spreadsheet can synchronize milestone tracking with SharePoint, so if my team leads enter milestone completion dates in SharePoint, those dates show up in the Excel spreadsheet sitting on my computer. Isn’t that amazing? See “Using Microsoft Excel and SharePoint” on page 178 in Chapter 8 for more on this. Our Case Study: SharePoint Dojo, Inc. To better reinforce what you will learn, you will practice key concepts and techniques by managing a project for SharePoint Dojo, Inc., a fictional company that we will use throughout this book. SharePoint Dojo is a premier martial arts training facility with more than 200 studios in North America. Established in 1976, it has trained 700,000 students and produced many world-class athletes. 8 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
  • 29. As history has proven, SharePoint Dojo provides first-rate instruction in the art of tae kwon do, led by a staff of certified masters who have at least eight years of teaching experience and who have competed in international events. In 2008, the company was cited as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the United States. To continue its explosive growth, SharePoint Dojo is expanding internationally, open- ing company-owned martial arts training studios in major cities. Multiple project teams have been assembled, and each team will be responsible for managing the opening of each respective studio. As the project manager, you will be personally responsible for integrating SharePoint Dojo into the local culture and community of the city to which you have been assigned. The challenges will be significant. You will be required to select the site and furbish the studio, comply with local laws and regulations, set up distribution and logistics, de- velopITinfrastructureandregionalreportinginitiatives,integratewithexistingsystems and processes, identify which programs will sell the best in your region, and highlight local opportunities. You will have to handle local contractors, employ staff locally, and carry out local marketing and advertising. The whole time you will have to stay focused on the SharePoint Dojo brand and the SharePoint Dojo experience—this is more than a series of local initiatives to make some money; it is about global expansion. As identified by senior management, there are two areas that are crucial to your overall success. The first is having correct project governance in place. It is critical that existing project management standards and processes be followed. Second, a PMIS must be established for each project team, enabling all the teams to share and collaborate on detailed project information, risks, and lessons learned in real time. To accomplish all of these goals, SharePoint Dojo has adopted PMI standards for project governance and implemented a PMIS using Microsoft SharePoint. You will need to set up your own SharePoint PMIS for your project. Best Practices Checklist • Establish or be familiar with your project management processes. • Establish a PMIS for your project. • Centralize project documents. • Streamline project communication. • Become familiar with your SharePoint environment. Summary • Successful projects result from sound project management practices, standards, and processes. • You can increase project productivity by decreasing project inefficiencies. Summary | 9
  • 30. • SharePoint’s main purpose is to improve how we manage information and facilitate collaboration. It can be used as a PMIS. • SharePoint can empower project managers because it is easier to learn, has better integration with existing project management tools, and requires less assistance from the IT/IS department than many other PMIS solutions. 10 | Chapter 1: Project Kickoff
  • 31. CHAPTER 2 Setting Up the PMIS Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. —Chinese proverb The first step in taking advantage of SharePoint 2010 in a PMIS is to familiarize yourself with the structure of SharePoint 2010 sites. SharePoint 2010 sites are collaborative websites that are organized in a hierarchy. They are composed of top-level sites and subsites, as shown in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1. SharePoint site hierarchy A top-level site is created upon installation of SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010). It will never have a parent or higher-level site, and it may or may not have child sites or subsites. It is sometimes referred to as a root web- site. By default, additional top-level sites can only be created by the SharePoint 2010 administrator—essentially, the IT/IS folks responsible for SharePoint 2010—or anyone else given the permission to do so. (SharePoint 2010 permissions are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.) Subsites are sites that are created beneath an existing SharePoint site. They will always have a parent site and may or may not have their own subsites. 11
  • 32. A site collection is an aggregation of a top-level site and its subsites. Site collections are independent of one another. A top-level site without subsites can also be considered a site collection. So, in short, a top-level site is synonymous with a site collection. A PMIS can be created as a top-level site or a subsite. Keep in mind that, by definition, projects are temporary—they have a start date and an end date. This means that a SharePoint PMIS is a temporary site, unlike other SharePoint sites created for perma- nent purposes, such as departmental sites, product sites, customer support sites, etc. You have to think about what will happen to the PMIS once the project is completed. SharePoint 2010 does not automatically remove inactive sites. How Will You Organize Your PMIS? Organizations typically have more than one project utilizing SharePoint as a PMIS. It is critical that you plan and assess how these project-focused sites will be organized and structured for your environment. Involve key decision-makers from IT/IS and your Project Management Office (PMO), if you have one, when choosing one of the three high-level PMIS hierarchy options: Single-site collection Includes a top-level PMO site. All project sites are subsites (Figure 2-2). Multiple-site collections Each PMIS is a top-level site (Figure 2-3). Multiple-site collections created for a specific department, business unit, product line, etc. The PMIS is created as a group of subsites within these top-level sites (Figure 2-4). Figure 2-2. Single-site collection Figure 2-3. Multiple-site collections 12 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 33. Figure 2-4. PMIS created as subsites Your decision should be based upon the following three organizational criteria: IT/IS involvement in creating a site that spans the three collections If each PMIS is a top-level site, IT/IS will likely be responsible for creating the site and defining its site members. However, if each PMIS is a subsite, IT/IS is less likely to be involved, and either the project manager or someone on the project team will create the site. Technical considerations SF has search limitations. By default, SF can only search within a single site col- lection. For example, if somebody in senior management is interested in looking for a specific document contained within the various project sites, she will have to go to each individual site to run a search if every PMIS is a top-level site. This is not the case if the entire PMIS is grouped as a single site collection. Note that this limitation can be resolved if you have SS instead of SF, because SS comes with an Enterprise Search capability. If IT/IS decides to enable Automated Site Collection Deletion, a feature that automatically deletes an inactive site collection, the deletion will only work if each PMIS is a top-level site, since the feature deletes an entire site collection. If multiple PMISes are grouped in a single site collection, the site collection probably won’t be automatically deleted because the likelihood of the entire site collection being inactive is minimal. Decision-making and reporting structure As well as deciding whether the PMIS should be structured as individual top-level sites or grouped as a site collection, it is also important to consider your organi- zational structure. For example, are there scenarios where you would group project sites based on business units, product lines, portfolios, or regional operating units? ThekeytohavingasuccessfulimplementationofSharePointasaPMISistoinitially plan the organization of sites so they can support the growth of SharePoint adop- tion in your organization. Microsoft has many great resources that can assist you in organizing SharePoint sites, including the SharePoint deployment planning guide (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917). How Will You Organize Your PMIS? | 13
  • 34. Dux Quax: Permanent Versus Temporary Sites I typically advise my clients that they should have a site collection for permanent sites. These sites would be specific to departments, business units, products, and anything that could be used for permanent collaboration. Additionally, a site collection should be created for temporary sites such as a PMIS or a meeting-centric SharePoint site known as a meeting workspace (see the section “Using Meeting Workspa- ces” on page 166 in Chapter 7). What typically happens is that there are more temporary SharePoint sites created than permanent ones. Once a temporary site is no longer needed, it is easier to maintain and audit if it was in a separate site collection. Using Site Templates SharePoint 2010 comes with site templates for convenient site creation. Common site templates are listed in Table 2-1. Table 2-1. Default site templates Site template name Description Team Site A site used for collaboration Blank Site A blank site with no predefined features Document Workspace A site that allows collaboration on one or more specific documents Wiki Site A site that can be quickly edited to record information and then linked through keywords Blog A site for a person or team to post ideas, observations, and expertise that also allows site visitors to leave comments The template determines the default site functionality, layout, menus, etc. (see Fig- ure 2-5). You can also create custom site templates (see “Overview of Creating a PMIS Template” on page 192 in Chapter 9). Typically, organizations would have custom templates created and made available. Creating a SharePoint 2010 Site After selecting your PMIS structure, you are ready to create the PMIS. In my experience, most PMISes built in SharePoint will be subsites, so this will be the approach used for our case study. To create a subsite, you must have the appropriate permissions in your SharePoint 2010 environment. Specifically, you must have at least the Contribute per- mission. Check with your IT/IS department to clarify and confirm. See “Customizing Permissions” on page 70 in Chapter 4 for more information. 14 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 35. These are the basic steps in creating a SharePoint 2010 subsite from an existing Share- Point 2010 site: 1. Click Site Actions→New Site. 2. Select the desired template. 3. Enter the appropriate information for the Title and “URL name”. You need only put the name of the subsite in the URL form, rather than rewriting the entire URL. 4. Click Create. 5. On the “Set Up Groups for this Site” page, define your site members and their permissions, and then click OK. Dux Quax: When Do I Start Building a PMIS? Ideally, you should start building your PMIS as soon as you get the project assignment, or ASAP. Prior to getting involved with the initial phase of project planning, make sure that all of the necessary components and tools that you need in the PMIS are already in place to support project activities from the beginning until the end. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation In this workshop, you will create a SharePoint 2010 PMIS for the case study project. You are tasked with building a PMIS for managing the opening of a SharePoint Dojo in the city of Cebu, in the Philippines. Feel free to use any city you want as you follow along. Figure 2-5. SharePoint 2010 site using the Team Site template Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 15
  • 36. For fields and settings that aren’t mentioned in the workshop steps, accept the default settings. Part 1: Creating the PMIS Follow these steps to set up your PMIS: 1. Using Internet Explorer, access any existing SharePoint 2010 site of which you are a member. Make sure that you have the permission to create a subsite. 2. Click Site Actions→New Site. 3. Click the Browse All tab. 4. In the “Select a Template” section, select Blank Site. 5. Click More Options. A page similar to the one shown in Figure 2-6 will be displayed. Figure 2-6. Update site information 6. Enter the Title, Description, and “URL name”. 7. In the User Permissions section, select the “Use unique permissions” option. 8. In the “Use the top link bar from the parent site?” section, select No. 9. Click Create. 10. The “Set Up Groups for this Site” page will be displayed. Click OK. Once the site has been created, the home page will be displayed. For now, we will bypass the process of adding site members, but we will address it in detail in the section “Adding Site Members” on page 66 in Chapter 4. 16 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 37. Part 2: Customizing the Site Theme Once your site has been created, you can update your basic site settings using the Site Settings page. You can access this page by clicking Site Actions→Settings on your home page. The Site Actions menu is only visible to users who have site administration per- missions (primarily the site owners). We will discuss site customizations in detail after this workshop. For now, let’s look at some of the basic customizations that you can apply: 1. On your newly created site, click Site Actions→Site Settings. The Site Settings page will be displayed. 2. In the “Look and Feel” section, click Site Theme. The Site Theme page will be displayed (see Figure 2-7). Figure 2-7. The Site Theme page 3. Select a site theme and click Apply. The color palette may change depending on which theme you choose. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 17
  • 38. 4. Click the home tab (in Figure 2-7, the home tab is “Cebu Project PMIS” in the upper-left corner of the page; yours will show the name of your project title) to return to your home page with the new theme applied. There are several ways to navigate back to your home page: using the home tab, using breadcrumb navigation, and using the Navigate Up button. All three navigation options are located in the upper-left corner of the page and are visible in Figure 2-8. In Figure 2-8, you see the home tab, entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” in the upper left. You may also nav- igate back to your home page using the breadcrumb, which is the click- able link also entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” above the home tab. One additional way to navigate back to home is to click the Navigate Up button (the icon with the up arrow and the folder), which will provide a drop-down box enabling you to navigate to the portion of the site you would like to find. Part 3: Adding an Announcement List In Parts 1 and 2, you created the foundation of a SharePoint 2010 PMIS. You will now add basic site components, which are known as SharePoint lists. Lists are used to store and organize information in SharePoint (for more information, see the section “Using SharePoint Lists” on page 28 in Chapter 3). In this section, you will add an An- nouncements list that can be used to provide relevant project announcements: 1. On the home page, click Lists, and then click Create (Figure 2-8). Figure 2-8. The Site Actions menu 18 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 39. 2. The Create page will be displayed. In the Lists section, click Announcements. 3. Click More Options. 4. In both the Name and Description fields, enter the text Project Announcements, and in the “Display this list on the Quick Launch?” section, select Yes (see Fig- ure 2-9). Yes is the default selection. See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 for more about the Quick Launch. Figure 2-9. Creating an Announcements list 5. Click Create. You have just created a Project Announcements list. The purpose of an Announcements list is to store relevant information that you would like to an- nounce or broadcast to site members. 6. To add an announcement to your Project Announcements list, click “Add new announcement”. Enter the Title, Body, and expiration date (Figure 2-10). Note that there are a number of features available for formatting the text, similar to what you’d find in Microsoft Word. 7. To navigate back to your home page, click the home tab (as in Part 2, Step 4). For additional methods of navigating to your home page, see the note on page 18 or refer to “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 to learn more about SharePoint 2010 navigation. Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 19
  • 40. Figure 2-10. Creating a new announcement 8. After creating the announcement, click Save. You will now see the new announce- ment on the Project Announcements page, but you will not see the announcement on the site’s home page. Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page Now that we have a Project Announcements list in our PMIS, we would like to display the most recent announcements on the home page. This is done by adding the Project Announcements list web part to the home page. Web parts are small programs or widgets that are primarily used to display snippets of information from existing lists (see the section “Using Web Parts for Interactive Reporting” on page 145 in Chap- ter 7). Every time a SharePoint list is created, a corresponding web part is created as well. For now, you will embed the Project Announcements list web part onto the home page to display the latest and greatest project announcements. In a PMIS, web parts can also be used to create project dashboards and provide high-level reporting capabilities: 20 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 41. 1. On the home page, click Site Actions→Edit Page. Your site will now be in Edit mode. Edit mode allows you to add, remove, and update web parts and their settings. 2. In the Main section, click “Add a Web Part”. All available web parts will be dis- played (Figure 2-11). Figure 2-11. Adding web parts 3. Select “Lists and Libraries” from the menu on the left. 4. Select Project Announcements and click Add. The announcement you created ear- lier will be displayed (see Figure 2-12). 5. Click Stop Editing, which is located at the top left of the screen below Site Actions. The announcement you created earlier will now be displayed on the home page. 6. To return to your home page, use the home tab, the Navigate Up button, or nav- igate by breadcrumb. See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 for a refresher on navigation. Congratulations! You have successfully created a SharePoint 2010 PMIS. How did you find the process of creating a SharePoint 2010 site? Quite easy, isn’t it? Did you know that if a similar site was created from scratch (using manual coding), it would take at least two weeks to build? Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation | 21
  • 42. Workshop 2.1 Debriefing In Part 1 of the workshop, you selected a blank template in order to build the PMIS from the ground up. This will allow you to later define each component and feature of the site, as well as its access restrictions and other custom functionalities, helping you to fully experience and work with various aspects of SharePoint 2010. Instead of al- lowingexistingusersfromtheparentsitetoaccessthesite,youselectedthe“Useunique permissions” option under user inheritance. As a result, you are responsible for defining who can access your PMIS. In Part 2, you updated the basic look of the site with a predefined theme. To add a custom theme (to conform to your organization’s branding scheme, for example), you must have the IT/IS department create the theme and make it available as a selection. In Part 3, you added the built-in Announcements list and called it Project Announce- ments. You will use this list later to store and display project announcements. In the section “Creating SharePoint Lists” on page 34 in Chapter 3, you will learn how to create additional lists for your PMIS. Finally, in Part 4, you used Edit mode to add the Project Announcements list web part to your home page so that visitors to your PMIS can see the latest project announce- ments. You will learn more about web parts in the section “Using Web Parts for Inter- active Reporting” on page 145 in Chapter 7. Customizing the PMIS Once you have created your SharePoint 2010 site, the next step is to customize the PMIS. Customization can be done in four key areas: Figure 2-12. Project Announcements web part in Edit mode 22 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 43. Branding It is important to determine whether you have to apply corporate branding stand- ards to your PMIS. You will have to check with IT/IS to see if there are any custom site templates or themes that have your corporate colors and logo. These custom templates or themes must be developed by somebody who is familiar with tools such as SharePoint Designer or, in some cases, Visual Studio .NET. In a project environment, a consistent look and feel throughout various projects will minimize your stakeholders’ learning curve as they start using the PMIS. Wouldn’t it be frustrating to have a PMIS that looks different every time you begin a new project within your organization? Usability Two things come to mind when we look at site usability: • Site navigation: In SharePoint 2010, three mechanisms are used for site naviga- tion: breadcrumb navigation, the top link bar, and the Quick Launch (see Fig- ure 2-13). Figure 2-13. Site navigation options Breadcrumb navigation is used to navigate between top-level sites and subsites. Typically, when you initially create a site, SharePoint 2010 enables the top link bar and Quick Launch, and it is up to you to customize and update them. By default, the top link bar and Quick Launch are prepopulated with links to com- mon site sections. Essentially, you can define which links appear both in the top link bar and the Quick Launch, and you can customize them on the Site Settings page. In a project environment, it is essential to have the most commonly ac- cessed site sections—such as project documents, the calendar, and the risk log—available in your site navigation. • Site access from a mobile device: Will anyone on the project team need access to the PMIS using a portable mobile device, such as a BlackBerry, iPhone, or iPad? Obviously, there are screen limitations with a portable device compared to a PC. You can take advantage of SharePoint’s built-in mobile browsing capability Customizing the PMIS | 23
  • 44. by accessing the mobile version of the PMIS. The mobile version is optimized for mobile devices. It limits unnecessary visuals and, more importantly, it still keeps most of the PMIS functionalities, such as logging in, posting, and updating information, as well as deleting entries from existing sets of project information. The mobile version is available by default. All you have to do is enter /m at the end of the PMIS address (for example, http://sp.sharepointdojo.com/cebu/m), and you’re good to go. Additionally, there are apps available for various mobile devices that provide more features and functionalities to better interact with your SharePoint-based PMIS (for example, http://www.shareplusapp.com/). Compliance Are there any standards or regulatory compliance issues you have to address for your PMIS? For example, if you have to subscribe to Section 508, SOX, PRINCE2, CMMI, ISO, or PMI standards, how long do you have to archive project informa- tion? What are the stipulations on information access or privacy? You should set this up as early as possible. Project-specific needs Do you have a global project team? If so, on which regional setting will your PMIS be based? Will project information be displayed in multiple languages? Is there a need to monitor and audit PMIS usage and traffic? All of this can be configured on the Site Settings page of your PMIS, which we’ll cover next. Dux Quax: How Can I Get There? I always hear complaints that SharePoint is bad. However, if I can rephrase that state- ment, it should be, “The implementation of SharePoint is bad.” You see, nothing is wrong with SharePoint. In fact, I think SharePoint is brilliant for its purpose. It is not fair to compare SharePoint with existing tools and products out there, because most of the time you are comparing apples and oranges. The typical problem people run into is that when SharePoint is being implemented, IT/ IS fails to engage the needs of the greater population. Who are the users? What kind of technical backgrounds do they have? How can they leverage SharePoint? A key area that causes frustration for end users is navigation. Users get confused about what to click; consequently, they fail to get to the information that they are looking for. I live and breathe by the mantra, “Less is more.” Do not overwhelm your users with various navigational options. Keep it simple. Personally, I do not recommend using the top link bar because it can contain only a limited number of links. For a PMIS, I suggest keeping the Quick Launch as the navigational tool. For great insights in usability and navigation, check out http://www.useit.com/. 24 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 45. Workshop 2.2: Updating Your Site’s Regional Settings In this workshop, you will update the regional settings, such as time zone, calendar, and time format, for the SharePoint 2010 PMIS you created in Workshop 2.1. For fields and settings that aren’t mentioned in the workshop steps, accept the default settings. 1. Click Site Actions→Site Settings. 2. In the Site Administration column, click Regional Settings. 3. A page similar to the one shown inFigure 2-14 will be displayed. Update the desired fields, and then click OK. Figure 2-14. The Regional Settings page Congratulations! You have updated the Regional Settings for your SharePoint 2010 PMIS. Workshop 2.2 Debriefing Customizing the navigational mechanism of a PMIS is critical but often overlooked. Remember, most of your PMIS’ users will not be reading a book like this, so you have to make it easy for them to get to the information they need without spending too much time trying to figure out which link to click. Workshop 2.2 Debriefing | 25
  • 46. Best Practices Checklist • Decide how to structure SharePoint 2010 sites. • Make all sites top-level sites or a single site collection with multiple subsites. • Group sites by department, project, or customer product. • Perform necessary customizations early on. Summary • SharePoint 2010 sites are organized in a hierarchy. A site collection is composed of top-level sites that may or may not include subsites. • When creating a PMIS, it is important to know which corporate standards have to be applied for branding, usability, compliance, and any other project-specific requirements. • Be sure to customize the navigational elements of the PMIS effectively to allow stakeholders to easily access project information. 26 | Chapter 2: Setting Up the PMIS
  • 47. CHAPTER 3 Adding PMIS Components Virtually every company will be going out and empow- ering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes. —Bill Gates, philanthropist Now that our SharePoint site has been created and customized, the next step is to decide which features are necessary for our PMIS. At a basic level, PMIS components should allow the project team to: Centralize project information Project information includes project contacts, calendars, documents, templates, forms, and checklists. In addition to storing project information, the PMIS should maintain a history and define who has access to the information. Facilitate project communication and collaboration Collaborative project activities include scheduling meetings, jointly developing proposals, and informally brainstorming project strategies. The PMIS should sup- port all activities of this type. Automate project processes Automating project processes, such as change control, should be available in the PMIS. The PMIS can automate the submission of change request forms by sending the form to the appropriate members of the change control board, recording the decision, and routing to the appropriate stakeholder the necessary actions to be taken. In this chapter, you will use SharePoint lists and libraries to create essential PMIS com- ponents for the case study; see Table 3-1. 27
  • 48. Table 3-1. Essential PMIS components PMIS component Purpose Project Calendar Stores common project events such as meetings, deadlines, and resource availability Project Tasks Stores project task information, assignments, and status Project Risks Stores project risk information, priority, and status Project Contacts Stores common project contacts Project Resources Stores project resource information, skill sets, and rates Project Documents Stores relevant project documents, templates, checklists, and reports Change request system Stores change request information, decisions, and actions Project Announcements Stores relevant project announcements Project Milestones Stores project milestone information with baseline dates and actual dates With a SharePoint PMIS, critical project information is centrally stored in a secured location, where document management features such as version control, check-in/ check-out, and content approval can be enabled. It can be accessed from a web browser and from most Microsoft Office applications. Dux Quax: No More Double Entry One of the goals of using a PMIS is to minimize or completely eradicate the need to enter project information twice. Don’t you love it when you have to enter project mile- stone dates into some system and then have to do it again in your copy of Microsoft Outlook? How about when a resource emails you a timesheet and you have to enter it into some funky timesheet software and then also in your copy of Microsoft Project or Excel? With SharePoint, you can say bye-bye to many of these redundancies through the use of its two fundamental information storage and management capabilities: lists and libraries. Using SharePoint Lists In SharePoint, information is organized and stored in lists. A list is a collection of shared information in a SharePoint site. Anyone who has access to the site will be able to view the lists. However, as you will learn in Chapter 4, you can also limit who can add, edit, and view lists by updating access permissions. Viewing a list is comparable to viewing information in a spreadsheet—the data is dis- played in a tabular format (see Figure 3-1). 28 | Chapter 3: Adding PMIS Components
  • 49. Figure 3-1. A SharePoint list SharePoint comes with ready-made lists, but also allows you to create custom lists. The following are some standard PMIS lists (these standard lists can be renamed to fit your needs; for example, the “Issues” list can be renamed “Project Risks”): Project Calendar list Events associated with meetings, schedules, milestones, and other project activities (Figure 3-2). This information can be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010. Figure 3-2. Project Calendar list Using SharePoint Lists | 29
  • 50. Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
  • 51. My hand tired. My uncle and I were seated at a round table in a celebrated American restaurant, the “Western Sea House.” It was my first occasion to face an orderly heavy Meriken table d’hote. Its fertile taste was oily, the oppressive smell emetic. Must I make friends with it? I am afraid my small stomach is only fitted for a bowl of rice and a few cuts of raw fish. There is nothing more light, more inviting, than Japanese fare. It is like a sweet Summer villa with many a sliding shoji from which you smile into the breeze and sing to the stars. Lightness is my choice. When, I wondered, could I feel at home with American food! My uncle is a Meriken “toow.” He promised to show me a heap of things in America. He is an 1884 Yale graduate. He occupies the marked seat of the chief secretary of the “Nippon Mining Company.” He has procured leave for one year. What were the questionable-looking fragments on the plate? Pieces with pock-marks! Cheese was their honourable name. My uncle scared me by saying that some “charming” worms resided in them. Pooh, pooh! They emitted an annoying smell. You have to empty the choicest box of tooth powder after even the slightest intercourse with them.
  • 52. I dare not make their acquaintance—no, not for a thousand yens. I took a few of them in my pocket papers merely as a curiosity. Shall I hang them on the door, so that the pest may not come near to our house? (Even the pest-devils stay away from it, you see.) 4th—The “Belgic” makes one day’s delay. She will leave on the seventh. “Why not one week?” I cried. I pray that I may sleep a few nights longer in my home. I grow sadder, thinking of my departure. My mother shouldn’t come to the Meriken wharf. Her tears may easily stop my American adventure. I and my maid went to our Buddhist monastery. I offered my good-bye to the graves of my grandparents. I decked them with elegant bunches of chrysanthemums. When we turned our steps homeward the snowy-eyebrowed monk —how unearthly he appeared!—begged me not to forget my family’s church while I am in America. “Christians are barbarians. They eat beef at funerals,” he said. His voice was like a chant. The winds brought a gush of melancholy evening prayer from the temple. The tolling of the monastery bell was tragic. “Goun! Goun! Goun!” 5th—A “chin koro” barked after me.
  • 53. The Japanese little doggie doesn’t know better. He has to encounter many a strange thing. The tap of my shoes was a thrill to him. The rustling of my silk skirt—such a volatile sound—sounded an alarm to him. I was hurrying along the road home from uncle’s in Meriken dress. What a new delight I felt to catch the peeping tips of my shoes from under my trailing koshi goromo. I forced my skirt to wave, coveting a more satisfactory glance. Did I look a suspicious character? I was glad, it amused me to think the dog regarded me as a foreign girl. Oh, how I wished to change me into a different style! Change is so pleasing. My imitation was clever. It succeeded. When I entered my house my maid was dismayed and said: “Bikkuri shita! You terrified me. I took you for an ijin from Meriken country.” “Ho, ho! O ho, ho, ho!” I passed gracefully (like a princess making her triumphant exit in the fifth act) into my chamber, leaving behind my happiest laughter and shut myself up.
  • 55. Drawn by Genjiro Yeto “A new delight to catch the peeping tips of my shoes” I confess that I earned the most delicious moment I have had for a long time. I cannot surrender under the accusation that Japs are only imitators, but I admit that we Nippon daughters are suited to be mimics. Am I not gifted in the adroit art? Where’s Mr. Somebody who made himself useful to warn the musumes? Then I began to rehearse the scene of my first interview with a white lady at San Francisco. I opened Bartlett’s English Conversation Book, and examined it to see if what I spoke was correct. I sat on the writing table. Japanese houses set no chairs. (Goodness, mottainai! I sat on the great book of Confucius.) The mirror opposite me showed that I was a “little dear.” 6th—It rained. Soft, woolen Autumn rain like a gossamer! Its suggestive sound is a far-away song which is half sob, half odor. The October rain is sweet sad poetry. I slid open a paper door. My house sits on the hill commanding a view over half Tokio and the Bay of Yedo. My darling city—with an eternal tea and cake, with lanterns of festival—looked up to me through the gray veil of rain.
  • 56. I felt as if Tokio were bidding me farewell. Sayonara! My dear city!
  • 59. ON THE OCEAN “Belgic,” 7th Good night—native land! Farewell, beloved Empress of Dai Nippon! 12th—The tossing spectacle of the waters (also the hostile smell of the ship) put my head in a whirl before the “Belgic” left the wharf. The last five days have been a continuous nightmare. How many a time would I have preferred death! My little self wholly exhausted by sea-sickness. Have I to drift to America in skin and bone? I felt like a paper flag thrown in a tempest. The human being is a ridiculously small piece. Nature plays with it and kills it when she pleases. I cannot blame Balboa for his fancy, because he caught his first view from the peak in Darien. It’s not the “Pacific Ocean.” The breaker of the world! “Do you feel any better?” inquired my fellow passenger. He is the new minister to the City of Mexico on his way to his post. My uncle is one of his closest friends. What if Meriken ladies should mistake me for the “sweet” wife of such a shabby pock-marked gentleman?
  • 60. It will be all right, I thought, for we shall part at San Francisco. (The pock-mark is rare in America, Uncle said. No country has a special demand for it, I suppose.) His boyish carelessness and samurai-fashioned courtesy are characteristic. His great laugh, “Ha, ha, ha!” echoes on half a mile. He never leaves his wine glass alone. My uncle complains of his empty stomach. The more the minister repeats his cup the more his eloquence rises on the Chinese question. He does not forget to keep up his honourable standard of diplomatist even in drinking, I fancy. I see charm in the eloquence of a drunkard. I exposed myself on deck for the first time. I wasn’t strong enough, alas! to face the threatening grandeur of the ocean. Its divineness struck and wounded me. O such an expanse of oily-looking waters! O such a menacing largeness! One star, just one sad star, shone above. I thought that the little star was trembling alone on a deck of some ship in the sky. Star and I cried. 13th—My first laughter on the ocean burst out while I was peeping at a label, “7 yens,” inside the chimney-pot hat of our respected minister, when he was brushing it. He must have bought that great headgear just on the eve of his appointment. How stupid to leave such a bit of paper! I laughed.
  • 61. He asked what was so irresistibly funny. I laughed more. I hardly repressed “My dear old man.” The “helpless me” clinging on the bed for many a day feels splendid to-day. The ocean grew placid. On the land my eyes meet with a thousand temptations. They are here opened for nothing but the waters or the sun-rays. I don’t gain any lesson, but I have learned to appreciate the demonstrations of light. They were white. O what a heavenly whiteness! The billows sang a grand slow song in blessing of the sun, sparkling their ivory teeth. The voyage isn’t bad, is it? I planted myself on the open deck, facing Japan. I am a mountain-worshipper. Alas! I could not see that imperial dome of snow, Mount Fuji. One dozen fairies—two dozen—roved down from the sky to the ocean. I dreamed. I was so very happy. 14th—What a confusion my hair has suffered! I haven’t put it in order since I left the Orient. Such negligence of toilet would be fined by the police in Japan. I was busy with my hair all the morning. 15th—The Sunday service was held.
  • 62. There’s nothing more natural on a voyage than to pray. We have abandoned the land. The ocean has no bottom. We die any moment “with bubbling groan, without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.” Only prayer makes us firm. I addressed myself to the Great Invisible whose shadow lies across my heart. He may not be the God of Christianity. He is not the Hotoke Sama of Buddhism. Why don’t those red-faced sailors hum heavenly-voiced hymns instead of—“swear?” 16th—Amerikey is away beyond. Not even a speck of San Francisco in sight yet! I amused myself thinking what would happen if I never returned home. Marriage with a ’Merican, wealthy and comely? I had well-nigh decided that I would not cross such an ocean again by ship. I would wait patiently until a trans-Pacific railroad is erected. I was basking in the sun. I fancied the “Belgic” navigating a wrong track. What then? Was I approaching lantern-eyed demons or howling cannibals? “Iya, iya, no! I will proudly land on the historical island of Lotos Eaters.” I said. Why didn’t I take Homer with me? The ocean is just the place for his majestic simplicity and lofty swing.
  • 63. I recalled a few passages of “The Lotos Eaters” by Lord Tennyson —it sounds better than “the poet Tennyson.” I love titles, but they are thought as common as millionaires nowadays. A Jap poet has a different mode of speech. Shall I pose as poet? ’Tis no great crime to do so. I began my “Lotos Eaters” with the following mighty lines: “O dreamy land of stealing shadows! O peace-breathing land of calm afternoon! O languid land of smile and lullaby! O land of fragrant bliss and flower! O eternal land of whispering Lotos Eaters!” Then I feared that some impertinent poet might have said the same thing many a year before. Poem manufacture is a slow job. Modern people slight it, calling it an old fashion. Shall I give it up for some more brilliant up-to-date pose? 17th—I began to knit a gentleman’s stockings in wool. They will be a souvenir of this voyage. (I cannot keep a secret.) I tell you frankly that I designed them to be given to the gentleman who will be my future “beloved.” The wool is red, a symbol of my sanguine attachment. The stockings cannot be much larger than my own feet. I dislike large-footed gentlemen.
  • 64. 18th—My uncle asked if my great work of poetical inspiration was completed. “Uncle, I haven’t written a dozen lines yet. My ‘Lotos Eaters’ is to be equal in length to ‘The Lady of the Lake.’ Now, see, Oji San, mine has to be far superior to the laureate’s, not merely in quality, but in quantity as well. But I thought it was not the way of a sweet Japanese girl to plunder a garland from the old poet by writing in rivalry. Such a nice man Tennyson was!” I said. I smiled and gazed on him slyly. “So! You are very kind!” he jerked. 19th—I don’t think San Francisco is very far off now. Shall I step out of the ship and walk? Has the “Belgic” coal enough? I wonder how the sensible steamer can be so slow! Let the blank pages pass quickly! Let me come face to face with the new chapter—“America!” The gray monotone of life makes me insane. Such an eternal absence of variety on the ocean! 20th—The moon—how large is the ocean moon!—sat above my head. When I thought that that moon must have been visiting in my dearest home of Tokio, the tragic scene of my “Sayonara, mother!” instantly returned. Tears on my cheeks! Morning, 21st—Three P.M. of to-day! At last!
  • 65. Beautiful Miss Morning Glory shall land on her dream-land, Amerikey. That’s my humble name, sir. 18 years old. (Why does the ’Merican lady regard it as an insult to be asked her own age?) My knitting work wasn’t half done. I look upon it as an omen that I shall have no luck in meeting with my husband. Tsumaranai! What a barren life! Our great minister was placing a button on his shirt. His trembling fingers were uncertain. I snatched the shirt from his hand and exhibited my craft with the needle. “I fancied that you modern girls were perfect strangers to the needle,” he said. He is not blockish, I thought, since he permits himself to employ irony. My uncle was lamenting that he had not even one cigar left. Both those gentlemen offered to help me in my dressing at the landing. I declined gracefully. Where is my looking-glass? I must present myself very—very pretty.
  • 68. IN AMERIKEY San Francisco, night, 21st “Good-bye, Mr. Belgic!” I delight in personifying everything as a gentleman. What does it mean under the sun! Kitsune ni tsukamareta wa! Evil fox, I suppose, got hold of me. “Gentlemen, is this real Amerikey?” I exclaimed. Oya, ma, my Meriken dream was a complete failure. Did I ever fancy any sky-invading dragon of smoke in my own America? The smoke stifled me. Why did I lock up my perfume bottle in my trunk? I hardly endured the smell from the wagons at the wharf. Their rattling noise thrust itself into my head. A squad of Chinamen there puffed incessantly the menacing smell of cigars. Were I the mayor of San Francisco—how romantic “the Mayor, Miss Morning Glory” sounds!—I would not pause a moment before erecting free bath-houses around the wharf. I never dreamed that human beings could cast such an insulting smell. The smell of honourable wagon drivers is the smell of a M-O-N-K- E-Y.
  • 69. Their wild faces also prove their likeness to it. They must have furnished all the evidence to Mr. Darwin. “The better part lies some distance from here,” said my uncle. I exclaimed how inhospitable the Americans were to receive visitors from the back door of the city. We are not empty-stomached tramps rapping the kitchen door for a crust of bread. We refused hotel carriage. We walked from the Oriental wharf for the sake of the street sight- seeing. Tamageta wa! A house was whirling along the street. Look at the horseless car! How could it be possible to pull it with a rope under ground! Everything reveals a huge scale of measurement. The continental spectacle is different from that of our islands. We 40,000,000 Japs must raise our heads from wee bits of land. There’s no room to stretch elbows. We have to stay like dwarf trees. I shouldn’t be surprised if the Americans exclaim in Japan, “What a petty show!” Such a riotous rush! What a deafening uproar! The lazy halt of a moment on the street must have been regarded, I fancied, as a violation of the law. I wondered whether one dozen were not slain each hour on Market Street by the cars. Cars! Cars! And cars! It was no use to look beautiful in such a cyclone city. Not even one gentleman moved his admiring eyes to my face. How sad!
  • 70. I thought it must be some festival. “No, the usual Saturday throng!” my uncle said. Then I asked myself whether Tokio streets were only like a midnight of this city. My beloved minister kept his mouth open—what heavy lips he had!—amazed at the high edifices. “O ho, that’s astonishing!” he cried, throwing his sottish eyes on the clock of the Chronicle building. “Boys are commenting on you,” I whispered. I beseeched him not to act so droll. He tossed out in his careless fashion his everlasting heroic laughter, “Ha, ha, ha——” A hawkish lad—I have not seen one sleepy fellow yet—drew near the minister shortly after we left the wharf, and begged to carry his bag. He was only too glad to be assisted. The brown diplomatist thought it a loving deed toward a foreigner. He bowed after some blocks, thanking the boy with a hearty “arigato.” “Sir, you have to pay me two bits!” His hand went to his pocket, when my uncle tapped his stooping back, speaking: “This is the country of eternal ‘pay, pay, pay,’ old man!” “What does a genuine American beggar look like?” was my old question. The Meriken beggar my friend saw at Yokohama park was dressed up in a swallow-tail coat. Emerson’s essays were in his hand. He was such a genteel Mr. Beggar, she said.
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