The votes are in, the results are tallied and the winners of the SharePoint for Project Management by Dux Raymond Sy are:

Joy (50%)
“My biggest project management problem is I have guys with 20-30 years of experience and they are used to doing things in a folder directory structure on a file share and they are unwilling to give that up.

They have dragged 10 nested folders into a document library and of course the URL is broken to the lower level files because the URL would need to be longer than 255 characters. They are not buying into the metadata idea to replace some of their precious folders. They also have other bad habits of having multiple copies of the same file, just renaming it and adding a date or a version number.

I know if I do not get the top management to buy into the paradigm shift that needs to be made if we are going to use SharePoint; the project is not going to run very smoothly.”

Suzanne (39%)
“Building a single place (one-stop shopping/PMO Toolkit) to deliver templates, tools and training, then giving users a single SP site for each project which uses web part links to web-based tools (bug tracking, etc.) used in delivery is a great and lofty goal, one which senior management often thinks should be a quick and easy fix. Tips on how to set these up with usability in mind are needed for all successful project management efforts!”

Scott M (35%)
“I would like to develop a systematic template which ALL departments could use, manage, and roll up to appropriate managers as summary data, contain workflows for approvals, contain common easy to use forms, tie into Exchange to track resources, and alerts for approaching deadlines.

Adding in a component at the BA level to ‘translate’ from user requirements to functional specs is also greatly needed. It’s the missing piece in most project plans. Time is money, and I believe the MS Project Suite is capable but too robust for most users.”

Joy (33%)“Our company just started using SharePoint 2007 in the last year and, because our customer highly recommended that we use it, management has decided to use it as a way to collaborate with and deliver all our documentation to our customer on the current project I am working on. My job is to design and architect the SharePoint sites for the project.”

Scott G (31%)
“We use SharePoint as our staff portal and would like to use the SharePoint Project Management solutions that are part of the system – sadly there is no ability
for nested tasks, making real project management a bit of problem.”

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Thanks for everyone’s participation. We’ll see what Dux’ team can come up with as far as real world solutions for these problems. I will try and get these in the mail this week, but the lines at the Post Office in New York City are horrendous at this time of year.

Mark