Businesses are always looking for a way to make their projects more successful. While many organizations have found success by integrating Microsoft SharePoint project collaboration software, some have found it to be a giant headache to manage, or even completely unnecessary. No matter where your business falls on this spectrum, there are some best practices in utilizing SharePoint to get the most out of the platform. Here are three considerations your team should make when you settle on SharePoint for project collaboration.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with SharePoint, it is Microsoft’s browser-based collaboration and document management platform. It can be hosted both on-premise and in the cloud and is currently offered with the enterprise-level Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite. It provides project teams a central hub in which to share and collaborate on documents; and, because it has Office 365 integration, can be set up to deploy Office 2016 applications for easy document access.

Detail Your View of Success
In any project, there is a definite goal. Since SharePoint deployments are designed to help organizations run large projects, it can sometimes seem as if you are constantly altering the measure of success. The more people who are working on a project, the more places inefficiency can rear its head. Since SharePoint’s main benefit is building efficiency, defining the measure of success when you begin a project and sticking to it can go a long way towards establishing the actual value the project has to your company once completed.

Does Your Project Team Really Need SharePoint?
Many organizations that roll out a SharePoint platform don’t consider what the platform will be used for beforehand. Since the content management aspect is at the core of what SharePoint is all about, if you have a project that has limited content, is the SharePoint deployment necessary? Knowing what your team needs before having your IT provider integrate SharePoint can go a long way toward determining the success your SharePoint deployment will have, if any.

SharePoint Training Is Important
SharePoint is extraordinarily useful as a central hub to a project. Since it can store content, allow for the deployment of applications, and provide custom access to each, it can give each team member exactly what they need to complete their part of the project. The problem begins when new users are asked to begin using SharePoint without any training whatsoever. As with any other software, the more end-users know about the functionality of the software they are using, the more efficient and productive they can be. Ensuring that your team is trained on how to at least navigate around your SharePoint platform can go a long way toward keeping a project on-budget and a team member on-task.

SharePoint can be beneficial for most organizations that need a dedicated collaboration solution, but if it isn't leveraged correctly, it can be a major time sink. To learn more about Microsoft SharePoint, contact 415 IT today at (415) 295-4898.