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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required reading for anyone collaborating with SharePoint, January 18, 2009
This review is from: Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft® SharePoint® Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways (Bp-Other) (Paperback)
This book is everything that I hoped SharePoint for Project Management: How to Create a Project Management Information System (PMIS) with SharePoint would be. While "SharePoint for Project Management" is rather simplistic and aimed at someone who has never used SharePoint before, Seamless Teamwork really has some great ideas on how to use SharePoint to collaborate on projects. Even while going deep into the capabilities of SharePoint, the book and recommendations are very readable and easy to follow. Beyond even the amazing capabilities of SharePoint, the author discusses considerations for virtual teams, working offline, and how to convince teams to work on SharePoint instead of falling back on e-mail. I have been using SharePoint heavily for the last year and still got some great ideas on ways I could use SharePoint to better manage ongoing projects. This book is HIGHLY recommended for anyone that uses SharePoint to collaborate on projects.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should be required reading for organizations implementing SharePoint..., December 20, 2008
This review is from: Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft® SharePoint® Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways (Bp-Other) (Paperback)
It was interesting how this book has shifted on my radar... Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft SharePoint Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways by Michael Sampson. Michael is a virtual colleague of mine in the collaboration space, and asked me if I would be interested in reviewing his book on SharePoint. I told him yes, although at the time I was not doing much of anything with Microsoft's collaboration offering. But by the time the book was published, my technical world had shifted towards a heavy emphasis on SharePoint. Therefore, the "courtesy review" became a "necessary read." And in terms of framing the use of a software package within the context of a real world scenario, few have done it this well.
Contents:
The New Project; Managing the Project and Finding a Team; Setting Up SharePoint; Team, Meet SharePoint; Creating a Shared Vision; Understanding the Options; Analyzing the Options; Making a Decision; Concluding the Project; Winning in the Market; Index
Rather than write the normal "here's feature x, and here's how you use it" book, Michael presents the material within the context of a story about a project. Roger Lengel has been asked to take on "Project Delta" for the Fourth Coffee company. It's a project to expand the business internationally, and Roger will have a team of geographically dispersed individuals. Furthermore, he's been asked to use SharePoint to manage the project, a software package he's not familiar with. He knows this project is important and will have an impact on his future with the company, so he needs to take advantage of all the tools at his disposal to make the project a success. As he sets up each part of the team, he learns about a new feature of SharePoint that can help him manage the work. This starts at welcome pages for the project, to wikis for storing project information, to announcement lists, shared calendars, blogs, and numerous other things. By the time the story finishes, he (and you) has explored most all of the significant SharePoint functionality that is offered by default, and done so within the context of a real world application of that knowledge.
The first thing to know and understand about the book is that it's not targeted primarily at IT professionals. If you're looking for information on how to set up and administer a SharePoint environment, you won't find it here. The target is for business professionals who will be using SharePoint to get something done. All too often, that real-life application of technology is lacking, and business users will not plow through a 500 page book of detailed setup information. They need to be able to see a business scenario that they can identify with, and then see how the tool would help them. Michael does an excellent job of that. In addition, he also includes a lot of valuable information on how best to run projects with teams that can't meet face-to-face. He is well-known in the collaboration community for his expertise in virtual teams, and Seamless Teamwork covers that topic very well. In fact, you could almost recommend the book on that angle aside from SharePoint.
If you're ramping up a SharePoint environment in your organization and need material to help the business get a handle on why they need yet another piece of technology, Seamless Teamwork should be required reading. The business users will thank you because they'll "get it" when it comes to using SharePoint, and the IT area will thank you because they won't have to spend as much time "selling" the business benefits.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent how-to guide to unlock SharePoint's collaboration capabilities, December 10, 2008
This review is from: Seamless Teamwork: Using Microsoft® SharePoint® Technologies to Collaborate, Innovate, and Drive Business in New Ways (Bp-Other) (Paperback)
I find "Seamless Teamwork" to be very well written, easy to follow and overall a very usable introduction to anyone who is using SharePoint out of the box and wants to set up SharePoint sites for projects, team collaboration and meetings. It helps you navigate the complex environment of SharePoint, to find the essential features and how to set up SharePoint sites for team collaboration.
In fact, the book would have been very helpful for me when I first started using SharePoint for the purpose of team collaboration. Now I can simply recommend colleagues and others who seek my help for setting up SharePoint for project and team collaboration to buy and read "Seamless Teamwork" instead of consulting me. ;-)
The book also does a good job at explaining how to use new tools and technologies such as wikis, blogs and RSS. In this way, it also serves as a good introduction to these tools and technologies for those who are not familiar with them or don't yet understand the business value of a technology such as RSS.
Furthermore, the book touches on some of the things that are really essential for making collaboration work, such as creating a shared vision. These kind of "collaboration essentials" are well integrated with the more practical hands-on instructions throughout the book.
From a personal point of view, it would have been great if the book also had touched upon situations where team members might not be using computers with Office 2007 installed, when accessing SharePoint from outside the corporate firewalls or when you need to collaborate with partners and customers.
To sum up - I find "Seamless Teamwork" to be a very valuable resource that I would (and do) recommend to anyone who is interested in how SharePoint can be used for team collaboration.
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