Project data needs to be electronically stored in a simple way to ensure easy access for members of the project team and encourage ownership and good housekeeping of the data
Most Clients have a secure electronic documentation storage system. For example network shared drives, cloud storage, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Teams which can have access limited to team members. This should be used if possible
Most projects have a Client project team responsible for delivery of the new asset. The team is usually led by a project manager with nominated representatives of departments involved eg project management, process engineering, operations, engineering, safety and possibly R&D, marketing and finance
I found the simplest structure of electronic storage was to set up a folder for each project and then give each department its own subfolder to use as departmental members so wished for documents they originate. Some would use it better than others but that was a risk I was prepared to take. A good system would only contain completed deliverables but human nature tends to leave in all working copies
All project team members had access to all the folders. This involved an element of trust to not go into another department’s subfolder and change a file
The overall data (if using a network) was stored under the project manager’s name rather than project name so giving responsibility for overall content/structure to the project manager
3rd party documents eg design drawings, vendor data, manuals, certification would be added by the department representative managing the 3rd party (usually project management)
Although all project team members will be bound by confidentiality, more sensitive confidential data unsuitable for the whole team should be stored elsewhere independently by the staff involved eg business case, steering meetings
Project team members will also, during the project, amass email correspondence on a separate email system. These emails should be kept to the end of the project. Important correspondence (eg commercial) can then be exported into their departmental project folder
Most project data is transient and not needed at the end of the project. A suitable handover, archiving and eventually deletion policy should be agreed
I once considered an even simpler system. That of everything goes into one single “dustbin” and team members use a search facility to locate documents. However this would require some form of discipline to include likely search words in filenames
