At BrightWork we’ve encountered many organizations that have what we call “accidental” project managers. Many companies operate in loose project management environments, and as such have limited project management knowledge and few established project management protocols or procedures. In this type of environment it is not uncommon for someone to be thrust into the role of project manager when they are a) not qualified to do so, or b) do not want to do so. Either way, it happens time and time again in many organizations. Since I would definitely fall into the PMBA category, I started this exercise a few weeks ago to become a project management on SharePoint expert, and blog about it starting at the beginning.

As a project management on SharePoint rookie, I realized the first step for me was to learn what project management is and what it means to be a project manager. And that is really about getting down to the basics and learning an approach. There are several approaches and methodologies for project management, but I chose to review this Collaborative Project Management Guide because of its simple, high-level approach that can be adapted to different types of projects. I learned the typical phases of a project from initiation to closure and an approach to managing collaboratively with a team.

I also looked at why project managers are necessary. People know their jobs, they do their work and eventually projects will get done, right? So why is a project manager necessary? I conducted two interviews with some project managers here at BrightWork to find the answers. The common theme that came out of those discussions was that no project will ever go according to plan and a project manager is necessary when, not if, the project goes off course and needs to be managed. I got some really great insight into what project management is and what role a project manager is expected to perform.

To me, it all makes sense and the interviews back up the idea – project management is necessary and if approached the right way wouldn’t really be all that hard. One way to enable collaborative project management in an organization is through Microsoft SharePoint. Now I will be putting the ideas to the test in SharePoint to see if it really is that easy.