SharePoint 2010 For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 32

Ten Ways to Master SharePoint

As a SharePoint consultant, you can add value to projects in two key ways. One way is continually reminding people that most problems aren’t SharePoint problems. Or, as I like to say, if you don’t know how to do it outside SharePoint, what makes you think you can do it inside SharePoint? Help clients figure out what skills they need and what problems to solve that don’t require SharePoint product knowledge.

The second way to add value is with encyclopedic knowledge of SharePoint. By knowing where the bodies are buried in SharePoint, you can help clients get the most out of their SharePoint deployments.

In this chapter, I share with you some of the resources and approaches that I’ve used to master SharePoint. Even if your goal isn’t mastery, these suggestions help you keep your bearings as you get up to speed in SharePoint.

Reading Developer Blogs

Now that SharePoint has been around for a while, you can easily find lots of good resources online. Plenty of websites are dedicated to SharePoint. And the blogosphere is chock-full of people blogging about SharePoint. Generally speaking, most of what you find about SharePoint 2007 still applies to SharePoint 2010. However, I recommend avoiding content related to SharePoint 2003.

Microsoft encourages its product teams and employees to blog about the products they’re working on. These blogs give you an insider’s track on announcements and tutorials that you can’t get anywhere else:

SharePoint ...