Jack Wallen shows you how to use Google Drive to help with your project management efforts.
Imagine where your teams and business would be without project management. Go ahead, consider the possibilities. The future would look rather bleak, wouldn’t it? If it weren’t for excellent project management tools, I know of a number of companies that would have succumbed to the pressure to keep up with the competition.
TO SEE: Hiring kit: Project manager (Tech Republic Premium)
But not every project management solution is 100% foolproof or offers all the features you need. In some cases, those platforms need a little help. But how? What are you doing? What other tools do you add to the mix to boost those project management efforts?
A tool that you probably already use regularly is Google Drive. Whether it’s a free or paid Google Workspaces account, Drive can help your project management a little. “How”, you ask? Let me help you with that.
Using Google Drive for project management
Step One: Create a Directory Tree
The first thing to do is create a directory structure for your projects. For example, let’s say you have a Project X, Project Y, and Project Z all running at the same time. Here’s how I’d organize that folder hierarchy in Google Drive:
- PROJECTS
- Project X
- Part 1
- part 2
- part 3
- Project Y
- Part 1
- part 2
- part 3
- Project Z
- Part 1
- part 2
- part 3
- Project X
What’s crucial here is that you create a subfolder for each project. You don’t want to have a single folder to house all those project files without any semblance of organization – otherwise everything will fall into chaos. Breaking it down this way gives you better control over which teams or team members have access to which files and folders. This is essential to maintain control over the project.
Step Two: Manage Access
As I mentioned, if you split the root folder into several project folders, you can control access to those folders. For example, you might have Team A that needs edit access to the Project X folder, as well as read access to both Project Y and Project Z. Breaking things down like this can help you make that happen. You can also assign users as commenters without the ability to make changes to the actual contents of the files, and you can easily revoke access to specific folders.
Step Three: Using the Version Control System
While this is really a part of Google Docs, it can be accessed through the files you store in Google Drive. The version control system allows you to view various snapshots of documents. By using this tool, you can always revert a document to its previous state. This can be important when a stakeholder either makes a mistake in a document or something else happens in the process.
You can access version history from a file by going to File | . to go Version history. This feature has saved my skin on several occasions, so I highly recommend using it regularly in your project management efforts.
Step Four: Keep It Clean
Be careful not to just dump anything and everything into your project folders. If you find that you need to keep more in those folders than just, say, code, you can create folders for documentation and other bits. If you allow things to get chaotic in your folders, the project itself can fall under the weight of that chaos.
Keep your project folders and files clean. Do not allow outside information or files to be collected or you will find that Drive can become more of a problem than a solution. At the same time, be diligent about user access. If a user is removed from the project, ensure that access is removed immediately. You don’t want stray users to have persistent access to the project, or things could get confusing – or worse, they could run away from the precious cargo that is your project.
Step Five: Integrate, Integrate, Integrate
Chances are, the project management platform you use has integration solutions for Google Drive. For example, Trello has a Google Drive Power-Up with features such as built-in file search, file and folder attachments from Google Drive to Trello cards, exporting the Trello board to a Google Slides presentation with a single click.
Each project management and Google Drive integration offers a different set of features, but they all do a great job of combining the services into a powerful project management solution. Since some project management platforms don’t have cloud storage, this is as “no-brainer” as it comes.
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