BizTech Q&A 10: Project Management with Google Workspace

Answering your questions about business and technology

Question

How can our team effectively use Google Workspace to manage multiple projects? 

~Kara

Answer

Hi Kara,

The good news is that there are a lot of ways that you can use Google Workspace for project management.  That’s also the bad news.  There are a LOT of ways and it can become overwhelming quickly.  

Here are the high-level steps for one way that you can do it -

• Create one project group for each project in Google Groups
• Create one shared calendar for each project
• Create one shared folder or drive for each project
• Create project planning documentation in Google Docs
  • Communication plan, risk management plan, project charter, etc.
• Create a project tracker in Google Sheets for stakeholders to see the high-level status of all projects
• Create project plans (one per project) in Google Sheets for project team members to track their tasks
  • Use the timeline view to create a Gantt chart-style sheet
• Create a Google Site as a project hub for each project
  • Can be a basic site with the project name, team information, stakeholder information, shared drive, and shared calendar
  • Can be published internally or externally
• Use Google Spaces to communicate with the team and stakeholders asynchronously
• Use Google Meet to meet with the team synchronously
  
  There’s a lot to unpack in there, but if you are already familiar with how to use Google Workspace applications, you can implement most of this quickly.  
  
  You can also create templates for any docs and sheets to make things move faster for new projects.
  
  Hope that helps,

Damien