Manage the Document

Neil Stolovitsky is a Senior Solution Specialist at Genius Inside.

  Communications Management   Stakeholder Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Documents can be a boon or a plague to projects, depending on how they are produced and disseminated. Done right, document management is a huge strategic advantage on projects, fostering visibility, collaboration and shared objectives.

Before the project ever begins, the paperwork starts stacking up. Project managers write feasibility studies and resource, financial and product plans to help executives decide whether to approve projects. Once approved, projects generate more paper in the form of supplier contracts, change request forms, project status reports and post-implementation reviews, all designed to facilitate project planning, tracking and reporting. By the end of a project, the manager can have produced as many as 50 different types of documents.

These documents can be a boon or a plague to a project, depending on how adept the project manager is at using them effectively. When documents help project team members work toward common goals, stay on schedule and within budget, they are valuable tools. If they aren’t achieving those ends, they’re just words to slog through. This article will discuss the power behind an effective document management strategy for project managers and its pragmatic impact on improving your visibility into a project’s status to better respond to the inevitable reality of change occurring in your day-to-day work.

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