I used SharePoint when it was called OSS; it had so much promise. I'm guessing this was around 1999 or 2000. I was looking for a new way to review technical documentation. The discussions feature looked so cool. Unfortunately, it never really worked. Don't get me wrong, the feature worked in Word and OSS, but no one wanted to use it.

Bummer.

Recently, I tried to use SharePoint 2010 to track task status and report that status to management. It had so much promise. I created a Task List then stood back to watch the magic happen. POOF.

Well nothing happened. I tried to get charts from it. I tried to get historical data from it. Okay I can see what the state of Tasks are right now, but how has that changed since yesterday.

I must have to add more stuff, right? I tried adding a Status list. I tried the Project Web site feature. I tried the Project Task list. All of this is really cool. But still not at all what I was looking for.

Then I realized that this is all my problem, and that it's a matter of perspective. I was expecting SharePoint to DO something. But it doesn't do anything. It is pretty much static data. And why should it? It isn't Share-Tool or Share-Process, or Share-Make-Stuff-Happen.

I heard that familiar voice in my head, which has a Boston accent: It's Share POINT, dummy. It's a point from which to share stuff. The rest is up to you.

All of the stuff I want to do is beyond the raw data. It's creating summary data, reports, charts or automatically updating lists. You can do this with SharePoint; it just doesn't do it for you.

All of the Project stuff and the Access services are great. My guess is that these features help managers use SharePoint, especially if you are, already, a true-believer (or user) of Microsoft Project or Access.

What I want is the tooling that lets me work in the way I already do, but with more automation and reporting. I don't want to have to dump everything to Excel in order to make even a rudimentary chart. In Excel, you get so much bang for the bug with pivot tables but why do I want to slice data every day?

I feel the same way about grinding coffee. I love coffee but grinding it every day does not make it taste that much better to me.  It's too fussy, too time-consuming, for me to be interested.

I love me some Microsoft Project, too. But I have never seen it be the lynchpin in a successful technical project. I have seen well-intentioned people put a lot of up-front effort into into it. I've seen it sustained briefly through even more effort.  And then I've seen it fall into disrepair and be abandoned. This says nothing about the utility of tool. It says a lot about how it isn't the right tool for what I need to run my projects, which is okay.

Oddly, at least to my co-workers, I use project to track my own work schedule across all my responsibilities independent of the specific projects. I see no better tool for guesstimating my overall work schedule and personal load balancing. Plus, people get Gantt charts if you can show them one.

Perhaps, Microsoft Project works best in the waterfall project style. And maybe if you are architect or a contractor this is helpful. I use it mainly to calculate work days between calendar points. I haven't found anything better.  That actually is REALLY important to me.

I'm resetting my expectations. I realize that my sense of disappointment is coming from my expectations not the tools. I'll change my expectations and get back to work.

I'll explore the ways in which I can take the data that I have and manipulate it through "workflows." I think that the ticket for me to make the next step forward with SharePoint.