Is anyone noticing a reduction in productivity from suppliers and colleagues elsewhere in their organisation who are working from home? With some notable exceptions, there seem to be some project workstreams that are struggling to make progress despite all the tools etc being in place otherwise.
Naturally I have tried some polite escalations, but the managers are working from home and not answering the phone either!
Maybe if it rains things will improve.... Saving Changes...
Jason OrloskeProject & Portfolio Management Consultant, CEO| Bridge the Gap Consulting, LLCFargo, Nd, United States
There was a noticeable dip initially as employees and vendors moved from in-office to remote. We still see pockets of productivity disruptions, but they seem to fewer and fewer. I've also been asked to schedule meetings around school from home sessions also.
There will be another disruption in the future as people move back to their offices once this is all done. However, I anticipate this will be less than before as it can be phased vs. getting everyone out nearly all at once. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The key is define what productivity means for your organizations and projects. In my case there is not reduction in productivity. We are progressing into all our programs/projects as planned. Just to comment, they are including multiple providers and they are including people distributed around the globe. Saving Changes...
Product Operations Program ManagerBarcelona, Cataluña, Spain
I have not recorded a decrease in output from the teams. Actually, I have the feeling that working from home has favoured the team performance (at home the number of interruptions decrease notably).
If the immediate escalation route does not have an effect, I suggest to take it to the next level. At the end, PMs are accountable for the team. Saving Changes...
This is one of the reasons to revisit the team's working agreements to take into account the different way of working. It is also a good opportunity to ask a sponsor or senior stakeholder to review the purpose behind the project and for a PM to help team members connect their own objectives to that of the project. Saving Changes...
its a bit of a challenge alligning the suppliers in particular and in order to address that we are scheduling weekly meetings to ensure that the supplier is adhering to all deadlines. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Work from home has the potential to increase productivity and staff satisfaction significantly.
If you observe differently, there may be several reasons, e.g. - you had a command and control system which now is defunct, but continue to behave like it is still there - virtually servant leadership is more effective and it is done by the project manager not by people managers - there are infrastructure issues, e.g. people do not have a separate room at home, are permanently interrupted, bad connectivity etc. (make sure they have good equipment and connectivity, create a guideline to avoid home disruption, but overall: make sure you understand their problems, each single one) - there is a lack of virtual group cohesiveness (establish daily short video sessions, without business topics, establish a virtual team charter/behaviors, have daily 1:1 video session with each)
Kahneman describes a research with 45000 people, what they NOT enjoy with work: commuting, seeing the boss, noise in the office - this all vanishes with WFH, so people should be enjoying it Saving Changes...
Raphael RodriguesManufacturing Engineer - Team Leader| EmbraerSão José Dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil
The lack of productivity that I am noticing is not because of the people but because of the systems.
I am seeing a lot of companies that was not ready to execute remote working, there was no infrastructure readness to do such a movent in few days. Saving Changes...
There are a number of issues that can reduce productivity. There are more meetings because it's harder to have quick hallway conversations. IT systems are maxed out (and we have the worlds largest IT department). When in meetings, there are long pauses waiting to see if people are on mute. Suppliers and partners may be shut down. People who aren't good at returning messages can't be tracked down that their desks. People try to multitask during meetings, ending up doing multiple things poorly.
Lots of little things.
There is a great webinar I watched last week that describes how some of these issue happen, related to human behavior. (Virtual Teams - Real Problems - Possible Solutions) Virtual communication can lack some aspects of communication that we take for granted when face-to-face. There are tools that can improve personal interactions, but they're not perfect, and some might not be allowed in some business environments. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Tim
This is a significant change and shift for so many and it will take sometime for the learning curve to stabilizes be it for organization or suppliers so it's normal to see a dip in productivity in the beginning.
It will take lots of inspection and adaption.
RK Saving Changes...
Jennifer ClarkePDP Quality Engineer| John DeereDubuque, Ia, United States
I think there is an impact due to having both working parents and kids at home. Parents are trying to do their best to accomplish work for their employer, but also trying to function as parents for their children. The kids do not have daycare or school, so they are in the same house, needing attention and/or supervision. You cannot be everything to everyone, so you just do the best you can, which is less than 100%, for sure. Saving Changes...
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