Discussion on:

SharePoint keeps project teams connected

This is all very helpful, but could somebody point out the differences to Groove ? (I know there's some articles about integration between the two - Sharepoint for internals, Groove for contact with externals - but I frankly don't see a big reason for considering Sharepoint so far)

TIA
Frankie

Sharepoint Team Services is free - Groove is not.

Check this link: http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/server/howtobuy/production.asp

J. Garrido linked to the SharePoint Portal Server page, which is fairly expensive. SharePoint Team Services apparently are included with a FrontPage 2002 server license.
See a comparison here:
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/server/evaluation/overview/technologies.asp

To me, Risk Management is one of the fundamental building blocks of project management; in fact I don't understand how one can have project management without it.

Risk management helps predict and prevent problems with sub-contractor stability and reliability, vendor stability and reliability, skills gaps, equipment procurement, etc. It allows the project team to plan ahead, setting up key metrics to track and triggers for ameliorative actions. In other words, it helps structure a project that is proactive rather than reactive.

I think it would be a bit healthier to view it as an additional page in a standard project plan, rather than as an added layer of paperwork.

I've implemented STS into our departmental development efforts and have enjoyed my experience using the product.

The most valuable asset of STS is it's ease of use. So, definitely keep this in mind if your users are less than thechies.

Customization is kinda of a tricky thing in some regards. I have been tinkering around with altering list views, in particular for surveys, and have found it to be less than intuitive. The SDK does have some decent documentation, however.

There are quite a few open source solutions out there, but the user-friendly nature and the immediate OOTB userfulness of the product was hard to beat.

I've implemented STS into our departmental development efforts and have enjoyed my experience using the product.

The most valuable asset of STS is it's ease of use. So, definitely keep this in mind if your users are less than thechies.

Customization is kinda of a tricky thing in some regards. I have been tinkering around with altering list views, in particular for surveys, and have found it to be less than intuitive. The SDK does have some decent documentation, however.

There are quite a few open source solutions out there, but the user-friendly nature and the immediate OOTB userfulness of the product was hard to beat.

I have used SharePoint for over a year for managing projects and it has been a great benefit. We used it as a Project portal, where the client was given a login - we uploaded technical specifications, design documents etc to the portal and let the client know they were available. This saved lots of time and ensured that we were all looking at the same versions. Clients could also login to see the status of any issues and log new issues. In my opinion, SharePoint is ideal for Project management. One thing we should have done sooner, was to brand the project portal with our company branding. This can be really time consuming - but there are now great 3rd party themes such as notebook Styles (www.notebookStyles.co.uk). This gave our portals instant recognition by our clients which was a great result.

Having used Groove for the last three years and found it very useful we are finding it difficult to know what to choose to install on new computers.

Do you need SharePoint Workspace 2010 to use Microsoft Groove Server 2010 or can you install it on it's own? Is there any specific benefit of having SharePoint as opposed to Groove?

Do we purchase Office 2010 Professional or Professional Plus which comes with SharePoint Workspace or just get the basic package and purchase Groove seperately?