It’s amazing how the whole project management process can be baked right into SharePoint, making the whole process so easy for the project manager and  the project team. Even out of the box, SharePoint can be used for simple project management, such as collaboration, assigning tasks, marking issues, etc. This basic approach is good for small, less complex projects, but as projects move along the project management spectrum they become more complex and require more structure.

A project is much more than a collection of tasks. It includes other artifacts that help deliver a successful project. Normally it is easy to determine what work needs to be done, break it down into tasks and assign that work (and then actually do the work!). But many projects, however, can also have a common set of default tasks and phases, such as project initiation tasks or project closure tasks. Using a default plan will take a lot of work out of the initial planning process. That doesn’t mean you won’t have to do any work to plan the project, but using a default plan means you might have to add, delete or update some data, but you will not have to start from scratch. Using SharePoint templates, your plan can easily be stored and reused, creating a proven and repeatable model for project management on SharePoint. And since you are using SharePoint, once the project site is set up, team members can easily manage their work items and keep the site up-to-date.

By having all project information stored in SharePoint, it becomes so easy for the project manager to track and re-plan the project – which is of course their primary responsibility! A tool like BrightWork provides the views and reports that enable the project manager to track the health of the project in real time. Reporting allows the project manager to understand the status of the project (actual versus planned dates, issues, risks, etc.) and begin to re-plan.

BrightWork on SharePoint comes with several templates that provide flexible project management structure, and they can be customized to meet exact level of project management you want and need. BrightWork allows you to develop a repeatable plan that works for that works for the type of projects your organization works on.