Cesar FiestasTechnical Project Leader| Intuitive ProjectsNewport Beach, Ca, United States
Hello Team,
In a world where cost reduction and doing more with less have become the norm. Companies around the world continue to seek ways of increasing employee productivity while sustaining ever-higher standards for customer satisfaction.
In your opinion would you say that
"All projects can be managed remotely"
"Some project can be managed remotely" Or
"All projects should have a project manager onsite"
Do want to thank you in advance for your time Saving Changes...
RAJESH K LProject Manager, PMP| Bharat Electronics, Bengaluru, IndiaBengaluru, Karnataka, India
During project planning, an assessment need to be done to decide on the issue. Stakeholder inputs should be given importance
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 1:38 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Rajesh,
I hope all is well Sir. Please enlighten me on the type of assessment you do during the planning phase of the project to decide as to whether the PM should manage the project remotely or by being onsite. Thanks in advance for your time.
Saving Changes...
Cesar FiestasTechnical Project Leader| Intuitive ProjectsNewport Beach, Ca, United States
Oct 01, 2018 1:28 AM
Replying to RAJESH K L
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During project planning, an assessment need to be done to decide on the issue. Stakeholder inputs should be given importance
Rajesh,
I hope all is well Sir. Please enlighten me on the type of assessment you do during the planning phase of the project to decide as to whether the PM should manage the project remotely or by being onsite. Thanks in advance for your time. Saving Changes...
Alok PriyadarshiProject Manager| Tata Consulting Engineers LimitedJamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Interesting discussion.
Thanks a lot!
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 8:49 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Alok,
I like it too :)
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Sep 30, 2018 9:39 PM
Replying to Cesar Fiestas
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Sergio,
Thanks for your time once again. Can I ask you a question? what type of project do you typically manage? and what are the average budgets? Thanks!
I am Program Manager for Latin America working inside the Enteprise PMO in the division named Innovation and Transformation. Each project that is critical for the organization survival is leading by that division. it does mean program/projects from creating a new manufacturing center to creating a business continuity environment or implementing a new way of doing things like Agile. Because of that I have to work with people belonging to different countries due to the activities distribution between centers. Because that programs/projects are level one (according to our clasification) time frame is no more than one year and budget is important.
I believe most of the projects can be managed remotely, dependent on the nature of the projects. However, face-to-face communication is still vital for many stakeholders, which needs to be accommodated for.
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 9:25 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Liucina,
How do you feel about video conference calls to accommodate for those face-face communications or meetings, do you think is as effective as face-to-face meetings?
Saving Changes...
Joshua RenderProduct Owner| CognizantHarrisville, Ny, United States
I think most projects could be handled remotely.
That being said - I can see the status of software or IT projects remotely fairly easy. No matter where I go it will always have to be viewed on a computer.
Building construction may be another issue. It can certainly be set up to view the building remotely, but it would be much harder to dig in and get the details of how things are from a visual inspection.
Process improvement projects are more abstract. I have done these remotely, but with purely remote teams. I think being remote would be harder if you were working on improving a process that exists solely in the physical world in one building. It could be done, I just think it would be harder. In both cases, you are very reliant on the output of the results being the key to success. You are not always going to be able to "see" the project status - which I think makes it more irrelevant where you are located. In some cases it may be more useful to be present in the building Manufacturing comes to mind and the production process because you can watch the process occurring more easily than some other business type processes.
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 10:05 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Josh,
I hope all is well, you do have a good point. I think that yes, most if not all of the IT projects can be handled remotely. But it when it comes to Construction projects for example, I think this could be a different animal, but what about foreman's on construction sites? In a way I think they sometimes wear the PM hat as well. What do you think?
Many factors are to be considered including the budget :
Organisation / geographical culture
Project's criticality & complexity
Team structure & competency levels
Tolerance & expectations of key stakeholders
For very high critical, complex projects with tough stakeholders and with the challenges of having distributed teams, it is recommended to have the PM at Onsite. Once in a while the PM can travel to meet the distributed teams as well. It actually makes a lot of difference in building good relationship rather than only audio / video calls.
If there are not many challenges then the PM can work remotely and can make customer & team visits once in a month or so.
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 8:54 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Girija,
I hope all is well. I think you are correct also, that it depends on a lot of factors, although having a PM onsite it cost money, unless the PM is wearing several hats then it might be worth to send the PM to the site and even so, perhaps for a day or to at the most. Like Sergio said and most of us agree, the majority of the projects can be handled remotely but you definitely have outlined good points. Thank you indeed for your time.
I'm a pragmatist so I'll always go with - "it depends". Things like urgency, stakeholder perceptions, availability of collaboration technology and many other factors will dictate which approach is best for a given project.
Kiron
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1 reply by Cesar Fiestas
Oct 01, 2018 8:55 AM
Cesar Fiestas
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Kiron,
Thumbs up! to your answer :)
Saving Changes...
Cesar FiestasTechnical Project Leader| Intuitive ProjectsNewport Beach, Ca, United States
Sep 30, 2018 11:45 PM
Replying to Clay Springer
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Cesar,
i think you are absolutely right and it's always good to emphasize the contextual nature of projects. Too often we become fixated on finding the "unified theory" in approaching project management and the idea that one approach will work in every situation.
I believe you have answered your question in a response with which many in our profession feel uncomfortable. "It depends" :)
It's a good lesson for project managers of all levels and maturity. Our greatest value sometimes is our ability to be comfortable (and to help others be comfortable with) levels of ambiguity and shifting context.
A great example of this was a recent hi profile project i managed that had a change in Corporate leadership midway through the effort. Not only did we have to acclimate the incoming leadership to the project benefits and purpose, we had to help the project team adapt to the approaches and "culture" of the incoming management team.
The greatest aspect of our profession is it's infinite capacity for the new and unknown. it makes things dynamic and engaging and a career that has satisfactions unknown to many others.
Thank you for your thought-provoking question and i look forward to seeing all of the different responses.
Clay,
First of all, Appreciate your time taken to respond. and yes you are completely right. This profession is a very dynamic one. Thank you again Sir for your input.
-Cesar Saving Changes...
Cesar FiestasTechnical Project Leader| Intuitive ProjectsNewport Beach, Ca, United States
