Why you should use a Shared Drive!
a couple of weeks ago I called a colleague and requested a file. He promised to send it out by the end of the day. On Monday I was really happy that I received a mail from him with the attachment. I open it up right away just to discover that this is the wrong file.
I call him but he is not picking up the phone. I went to his teammate. Apparently my colleague is gone for his summer-holidays, so I ask his teammate for support. After half an hour he comes back to me: ”the files are stored on a personal drive. I can’t access it!”
did this ever happen to you? Let me show you what you and your team can do about it!
Shared Drive
yes, shared drives. it sounds kind of obvious, but believe me, people tend to store their files on their personal drive.
Why you should use a Shared Drive
a shared drive gives you the opportunity to collect and share information with the team without giving them partial access to your personal drive and share single files or folders.
you don’t have to share files actively anymore. Everyone who has access to the shared drive can have a look.
the only thing you need, is a structure that everyone understands. One example which I use can be found here:
Additional Benefits
your daily routine work should also be on a shared drive cause in case you are sick, colleagues can access files without any trouble. Even better, when you are overwhelmed for some reason they can support you right away.
there is also the opportunity to create pools within the shared drive. One good example can be invoice checking:
all the invoices are stored in an folder. They need to be checked if they are correct. Every time someone finishes an invoice the next one in line gets picked no matter who ordered the products on them. It’s kind of a self organizing workplace where the responsibility lays on the whole team.
if you want to know more about these folders, let me know by sending an email. I am happy to support!
Different levels of access within a shared drive
you are probably aware of the different levels of access you can give to a person when sharing:
Vieweris only allowed to look at content. No moving or editing is possible.
Commentercan view files and also leave a comment. Also no moving or editing.
Editor can do everything with a file.
however for a shared drive there are a few access levels in addition. In total there are 5:
Manager
Content-Manager
Contributor (Editor)
Commenter
Viewer
I created a table which gives you an overview on the most important tasks (for more check out Google):
resource: Google
Personal Drive
as mentioned above, I only store information on my personal drive that is relevant to me, not for others. Here are some examples:
certificates of training's
personal notes
files which are not relevant for any project but contain interesting information
calculations/ information for new projects which are not finished yet
that’s it!
Shared Drive or Personal Drive - How to choose?
just simply answer the following question:
is the information relevant to more people within your projects?
if the answer is “yes”, the information should go on a shared drive.
practicing this during the last months, I found that most of the information goes onto a shared drive!
How to set up a Shared Drive
here are the three steps you have to do:
usually you have to contact your IT-Department so they create a shared drive for you in the google workspace (or whatever service you use)
create a structure that everyone understands (as I work in a manufacturing plant I use the value stream* as folder structure)
set up a document with an overview of the structure (this is like a table of contents so you can access a folder by clicking, compared to navigating trough the folder tree)
changing the way you store and share information will speed up working with your team. Because once you established a structure within the shared drive that everyone understands your team won’t do much searching and can focus on getting thins done!
thank you for your time,
daniel
*Value Stream: is the way a product moves within a facility until it is finally completed.
