Team Collaboration and Project Management for Virtual Teams

An increasing trend in modern offices is the idea of a virtual office. Working remotely as a team is gaining popularity because of the many benefits it can provide businesses, including reduced overhead costs, less environmental impact and happier employees.

But when it comes to getting work done in a virtual office, you will have to find the right processes and solutions for keeping your team connected and working together. You’ll also have a few new business challenges ahead of you, but the end result can be well worth it.

Here are a few items to keep in mind when moving to a virtual office. Read more »

What to Manage Within The Project

When it comes to project management, there are a lot of courses, training, tips, processes and tools available to help you along the way. These are all fantastic resources to utilize, especially for those just learning about project management who are unsure of what needs to be managed effectively within their business.

In any business setting, there is a lot of information to manage. The best way to tackle this is to identify what you need to manage in your business projects, and find the solution to managing all of them in one place.

So, what needs to be managed within the project? Read more »

What Effective Collaboration Is Not…

Within a good project management system and process, you and your business should have outlined a team collaboration plan and seen collaboration tools and features to bring you closer together. These collaboration features can include anything from wikis for internal collaborative work development to online discussions and forums to hold and save on-going conversations around a specific topic.

But there are practices that are either confused with good team collaboration or reverted back to when collaboration proves “too difficult”. These just aren’t effective at bringing a team together to produce a quality outcome. Read more »

Accept Project Management and Collaboration Into Your Corporate Culture

Personal story alert: I used to work in a company that vehemently objected to implementing an online project management and collaboration system in their business. Their excuses were the same that we hear from many other businesses: It takes too long to implement. We would waste time. We don’t know how to research a solution. We don’t think anyone would use the solution we choose.

And eventually, the decision was made to overcome all those objections and just move forward with a project management solution, come hell or high water. And the results are were the same that we hear from many other businesses: Projects were managed better. Team members communicated more. Collaboration took place around business plans and documents. Supervisors were able to oversee all projects easily.

By now, we all know the benefits that effective project management and team collaboration can offer the modern business. But there are still the objections, the wariness, the suspicions of moving forward with accepting project management and collaboration practices into the business. And perhaps it’s because business owners just don’t know how to takes those first few steps toward improved business organization and communication.

So, here are tips for accepting project management and team collaboration into your corporate culture.

Test Solutions Together

Your team may resent a mandated change in which they have no say. Allow them the opportunity to test out project management and collaboration solutions before you select the final product for your business. They will be the ones using it most often, and their opinions will shape the way the projects are managed in the future.

Start With One Project At A Time

Don’t dive in head first with this new process. Pick and choose one or a couple projects to start out with to get everyone used to the new system. This way, your team will learn the new processes, iron out the wrinkles in the system and discover more efficient ways of managing their work before all the projects are there.

Create A Timeline

Even though you are starting out slow, you need to have an end in sight. Set a timeline indicating when all projects, work and communications will need to be 100% inside your new system. This will give everyone a goal to shoot for, and will ensure you don’t fall back into your old habits.

Offer Encouragement

Everyone likes a little encouragement, right? When you see a teammate fully accepting and adapting to the new project management and collaboration system, let them know they are doing a good job! Encourage them to continue with their new productivity skills, and to help others if needed as well.

Make It Fun!

When first encouraging your team to get involved in their new project management system, make sure they have fun when they are there. Don’t just work on and collaborate around business stuff – play games and hold exciting discussions to keep people coming back. Offer a prize for the most creative project title. Collaborate together on editing photos of your teammates. Discuss what the mother-to-be should name her new baby. All of these fun little games can encourage people to enjoy using the new project management and team collaboration solution while also learning more about it in the process.

Once you’ve taken the first big step to deciding to move forward with a project management and team collaboration solution, you need to encourage the rest of the team to step along with you. By following the steps above, you’ll be working more efficiently and effectively in no time, and collaborating on improved outcomes together.

June PM Survey: Managing the Project – Part 2

Part 2 of the June PM survey is now available.  This 2^nd part of the monthly survey again deals with concepts associated with the ongoing management of the project.

The survey is now active and ready for your participation at:

http://www.bradegeland.com/june-survey-part-2.html

In this 2^nd part of the survey, we’ll be looking at the following topics:

Definition of project success

For this question, I’m looking for how either you or your organization primarily defines project success.  Is it on time project delivery, on budget project delivery, or customer satisfaction?  And for those of you who feel it’s something other than those three options, there is a write-in ‘other’ response area available.

Percentage of successful projects delivered

This one will definitely a best-guess scenario because I doubt that anyone has compiled hard numbers on this plus it’s somewhat subjective as to what one would call a ‘successful’ project.  I’m trying to get an idea of where our readership stands in regards to successful vs. failed projects.  Recent studies – as I’ve reported here in recent articles – place the percentage of failed projects between 62% and 75%.  It will be interesting to see where PM Tips readers fall in that spectrum.

Percentage of project revenue from change orders

Change orders are always a love – hate thing.  For the PM and team, they are a great way to increase project revenue and executive management loves them.  However, it’s often difficult and even uncomfortable for the project manager to present the customer with change orders – unless they are the result of direct customer requests.  Also, change orders are a necessary tool to bridge the gap between the originally defined requirements and what reality fleshes out over the course of the engagement.

Read more »