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Chapter 2 Collaboration Information Systems
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reviews by three people. Given this definition, when a document is submitted to a library, Share-
Point assigns a task to the first person, Joseph Schumpeter, to approve the document and sends an
email to him to that effect. Once he has completed his review (the green checkmark means that he
has already done so), SharePoint assigns a task for and sends an email to Adam Smith to approve
the document. When all three reviewers have completed their review, SharePoint marks the
document as approved. If any of the reviewers disapprove, the document is marked accordingly
and the workflow is terminated.
Workflows can be defined for complicated, multistage business processes. See SharePoint for
5
Students for more on how to create them.
Numerous version control applications exist. For general business use, SharePoint is the most
popular. Other document control systems include MasterControl (www.mastercontrol.com) and
Document Locator (www.documentlocator.com). Software development teams use applications such
as CVS (www.nongnu.org/cvs) or Subversion (http://subversion.apache.org) to control versions of
software code, test plans, and product documentation.

Q2-7 How Can You Use Collaboration Tools

to Manage Tasks?

As you will learn in project management classes, one of the keys for making team progress is
keeping a current task list. Good project managers make sure that every team meeting ends with
an updated list of tasks, including who is responsible for getting each task done and the date
by which he or she will get it done. We’ve all been to meetings in which many good ideas were
discussed, even agreed upon, but nothing happened after the meeting. When teams create and
manage task lists, the risks of such nonaction diminish. Managing with a task list is critical for
making progress.
Task descriptions need to be specific and worded so it is possible to decide whether the task
was accomplished. “Create a good requirements document” is not an effective, testable task
description, unless all team members already know what is supposed to be in a good require-
ments document. A better task would be “Define the contents of the requirements document for
the XYZ project.”
In general, one person should be made responsible for accomplishing a task. That does not
mean that the assigned person does the task; it means that he or she is responsible for ensuring
that it gets done. Finally, no benefit will come from this list unless every task has a date by which it
is to be completed. Further, team leaders need to follow up on tasks to ensure they are done by that
date. Without accountability and follow-up, there is no task management.
As you’ll learn in your project management classes, you can add other data to the task list.
You might want to add critical resources that are required, and you might want to specify tasks
that need to be finished before a given task can be started. We will discuss such task dependen-
cies further in Chapter 12, when we discuss the management of systems development projects.
For team members to utilize the task list effectively, they need to share it. In this question, we
will consider two options: sharing a task spreadsheet on Google Drive and using the task list feature
in Microsoft SharePoint. Google gmail and Calendar also have a task list feature, but as of this writ-
ing, it is impossible to share it with others, so it is not useful for collaboration.

Sharing a Task List on Google Drive

Sharing a task list on Google Drive is simple. To do so, every team member needs to obtain a Google
account. Then one team member can create a team folder and share it with the rest of the team,
giving everyone edit permission on documents that it contains. One of the team members then
creates a task spreadsheet on that folder.