Getting organized using lists

One of my very favorite things about SharePoint is lists. I don't know about you, but, I am a list person. I have them everywhere, little post-it's on my monitor to a quick to-do in the margin of my notebook. I love lists so much I was even an avid user of Excel for helping me track information that was too complicated to keep on paper.

See if this is a familiar scenario for you. I used to have an Excel workbook (that's a spreadsheet with multiple tabs) that I would keep track of team issues with. Each week I would print one of the spreadsheet pages with the open issues and meet with my team, where I handed out the paper and we went through all of the items on the list. Each team member would provide an update and I would take notes, usually on the paper or in my notebook. At the end of the meeting I would go back to my workbook and retype all that goodness from my notes and move rows from one spreadsheet to another as issues were resolved or the urgency of the issue changed. I would spend hours a week in some cases making sure my workbook was up to date. Frequently during the week a team member would drop by and in chatting they would provide an update of one of the issues discussed in the meeting. If I was really disciplined I would open my workbook and go update it, but most of the time… I didn't and things would start to fall behind. Before I knew it my beautiful workbook was out of date and we would stop using it. What a waste!

Sound familiar? 

Of course it does, why? Because we've all been there, we start the Excel workbook with the very best of intentions but over time the data becomes old or cumbersome to manage, we have to rely on one maybe two people to keep all the updates in order, and it turns into more of a hassle than a help. So now what?

Now let's talk about making your information work you instead of you working for your information.

SharePoint lists are very similar to Excel in the fact that they use columns and rows and they have the ability to sort and filter just like Excel. In addition they also have VIEWS, a feature that I think many people neglect. Another significant advantage of a list is… it's online! No more passing around a spreadsheet or having one/two people try and keep up with all the changes that need to happen. In a SharePoint list multiple people can update information at the same time without worrying about errors or corruption. SharePoint lists can also do things that excel just pain can't. Let's say you need some information updated and you have to wait that that update before you can do your piece of work, in Excel it would still need someone to tell you an update has happened SharePoint can do it automatically. The Alert Me function in all SharePoint list and libraries let's you control how you want to be updated.

In another situation similar to the first scenario I use SharePoint instead of a spreadsheet and things went something like this.

The afternoon before our weekly team meeting the team got an email from SharePoint reminding them to update progress on their issues and provided a link the team issues list on SharePoint. The next day I'm getting ready for my teams weekly meeting and I quickly run through the issues that been updated. When the team assembled in the meeting room we didn't talk about the issues list, we talked about how to resolve the issues. No going around the table for updates, instead it became a working session where the team talked about where they were having problems and shared their latest breakthroughs. As we left the room I, being the control freak I am, reminded the team to remember to update the issues list as things change. Later that day I report our issues status by going to a custom view of our issues list tailored to meet the needs of our management team.

That's it… no running around getting updates, no boring meetings, just work… and getting work done.

Don't get me wrong SharePoint can't solve every problem; I haven't found a "world peace" function in there yet. It certainly can, when used properly, streamline processes and reduce the drama of working in a team. It might even make workday a little easier.

Want to learn more about lists? Check out these great resources:

SharePoint Server 2010 Help and How-to 

SharePoint lists I: An introduction

SharePoint lists II: Create and work with different lists

SharePoint lists III: Create a list based on a spreadsheet

SharePoint lists IV: Create a custom list