Dana BrownleeCorporate Trainer| Professionalism Matters, Inc.Atlanta, Ga, United States
Collaboration is more difficult for remote teams. What recommendations would you make for a new project manager? I'd love to hear specific suggestions, recommendations, and techniques? Thanks Saving Changes...
Project Communication among stakeholders are fundamental life skills of project platform framework and is very important for project success with involved Communication and Collaboration
Always prefer a online communication platform tool for work-space collaboration like Skype, Live Meeting, video conference platforms with available time zone differences.
Teams Communication and Collaboration with teams Creativity including Critical project Thinking, is always required for project success and operations Saving Changes...
Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
This has spun off a different question and that is if it really is more difficult to collaborate remotely. Thinking about it a bit I came to the realization that there are two 'parts' of collaboration that we need to consider. The first, most obvious one would be that of sharing information and as most have pointed out the market is flooded with tools to facilitate this. The second part is the difficult part, some might not see it as part of collaboration and that is the reaction/action required from information sharing. Sharing information triggers a response from those it is shared with and their actions would obviously depend on the type of information they received. It is this second part of collaboration that becomes difficult in remote teams, communication. It is easy to throw data out there at the team but what happens if it requires that we interact? We've never met or had a chance to get to 'know' each other. So I would say that remote teams do require special attention beyond tools when it comes to collaboration. Saving Changes...
Hugh William GriersonProject Manager | Rapiscan Systems HK LtdTuen Mun, N.T., Hong Kong
I think that remote is, in my experience, a Team that has been put together outside the normal Project Management Office and the many comments of 1 to 1 although admirable does not into account the Team being in another country
Practicable scenario for such a set up is to have a strong person on the ground who is capable of standing in for the remote PM and to communicate face to face with the Team the expectations and requirements of the PM with the PM taking time, budget permitting, to attend the actual team meetings once a month and keep constant communication channels open Saving Changes...
If possible, I would try to allow for more time in your project plan to allow for this situation. For fastest delivery, the ideal project would have everyone you need based in the same room, working the same hours, communicating easily with each other without relying on tech that can be flaky, having the same public holidays, having the same first language, having fast IT all on the same network, and without outside interference from other work that is not visible to you. The more remote your team are, the fewer of these critieria are present, and the more risk there is of slippage of a tight timescale. In my experience, the impacts can easily be up to 50% extra duration overall and much greater than that for some specific tasks. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Krion beat me to it :) Came here to essentially say the same. A grounds and framework for collaboration should come from within the team. Get the team together, brainstorm ideas and put together a working agreement. Leverage the capabilities within the organization to facilitate remote collaboration such as MS Teams, Slack, etc. Use video conferencing (hint, working agreement). If the organization does not have the tools necessary to support this type of work, list as an impediment and make the requests to get the right toolage implemented (its 2019, so all orgs should have something, even Skype will work). Another recommendation is a regular cadence of on-site visits, maybe once a quarter or semi-annually. Good luck! Saving Changes...
Many project managers, myself included, try to get the team pumped for the project during kickoff. I have always tried to create a real team atmosphere by naming all of my teammates and their roles on the project, even if we’ve done 100 projects together already. I look each in the eye, and I can convey that I am welcoming them into the team. This creates a type of ownership, where the team is accepting responsibility for their part of the project. It’s very slight, but I’ve found that it works wonders for keeping teammates engaged. I also recommend you some tips to manage fully remote teams https://www.projectcubicle.com/project-man...rking-remotely/ Saving Changes...
The most crucial task for project managers is to have their communication on point. They should always be in touch with the team members and clients to collect and update the status of the project.
Ultimately the main job is communicating frequently with their remote workforce.
In addition, gather more knowledge in product planning meetings, document the important decisions made, record, and store information for compliance purposes.
We have an arsenal of tools to make the remote working productive, with a simple thought process of selecting the tools according to the problems faced by the remote workers make the working more efficient.
One tip that I would like to suggest here is having a meeting assistant, I’ve recently started using Marsview Notes – Meeting Assistant, which has put most of my remote-communication work at ease. Saving Changes...
