Virtual Teams: Key Success Factors – Part 1

The business justification for virtual teams is strong. They increase speed and agility and leverage expertise and vertical integration between organizations to make resources readily available. Virtual teams also lessen the disruption of people’s lives because the people do not have to travel to meet. And in today’s business world that’s big.  That’s green.  Team members can also broaden their careers and perspectives by working across organizations and cultures and on a variety of projects and tasks.

Although the effective use of electronic communication and collaboration technologies is fundamental to the success of a virtual team, virtual teams entail much more than technology and computers. When virtual teams and their leaders are asked about successes and failures, they rarely mention technology as a primary reason for either.  While it’s important that software packages such as Seavus’ Project Planner or Project Viewer are used to keep virtual teams informed and in sync, it’s not all about technology.

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Ten Characteristics of Successful Project Teams – Part 1

Have you ever been a member of a high-performing, smoothly running team? If you have been, it’s an experience that you are not likely to forget. On this type of team there is usually a strong trust bond, people work cooperatively together to reach the common project goals, and often the project is even more successful than the project manager and customer could have imagined. These types of teams generally have some key characteristics in common that help make them the effective, high-performing teams that they are.  In this series, we’ll examine ten key characteristics of these types of teams.

These ten main characteristics of successful project teams are:

• Clearly defined goals
• Clearly defined roles
• Open and clear communication
• Effective decision making
• Balanced participation
• Valued diversity
• Managed conflict
• Positive atmosphere
• Cooperative relationships
• Participative leadership

For Part 1 of this series, we’ll examine the first two in more detail: clearly defined goals and clearly defined roles.

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Project Manager Needed

Location: Malaysia
Salary: £80000 per annum
Company: Leap 29 Ltd
Sector: Oil / Gas / Power
Job role: Civil engineer
Job type: Permanent

The client is one of the largest oil and gas production companies based in the Asian Pacific region and due to the increase development of one the key sites they are now looking to bring on board a project manager.

The appropriate candidate will be based in the region located close to Malaysia and this will be based on a rotation basis of denominations yet to be decided. A suitable candidate must be degree qualified and it would be advantageous if the candidate was a member of an engineering professional body.

The candidate must also have 10 years experience working within a project management position and this must be supported by experience of working within the oil and gas industry also. The candidate must exhibit and posses all the soft skills required of a senior program/ project manager, this included good analytical skills.

Due to the location of this project the client is only looking to bring on board a candidates that is of an Malaysian or Thai nationality and there is no room for movement on this prerequisite.
If you feel you are an eligible candidate for the above position, send a copy of your resume to the contact details below and I will be in contact in due course
Apply here.

The Best Project Manager in the World

Just for fun, I did a search on this phrase to see what would pop up.  My name didn’t pop up, nor did I expect it to.  But there were a couple of interesting findings.

First, there was a posting from October 2007 by Social Media Group stating that they wanted to hire the “Best Project Manager in the World.”  “Is this you?”, the post asks.  Someone whittingly responded with the question, “are you ready to pay the Best Salary in the World?”

Second, there seems to be a line of products for the World’s Best Project Manager including a round ornament, a long-sleeved sweatshirt and a hooded sweatshirt.  Interesting…apparently they are reserved for whoever SMG ended up hiring back in 2007 since they were out to hire that “Best” PM in the World…and there can be only one “Best.”

The Best Coder?

This concept makes me think back to my first manager.  He was a great manager, a good friend and still a friend to this day.  He’s currently a CTO in Minnesota and he’s also the individual who mentored me on becoming a Project Manager.  When I first started working for him as a COBOL application developer back in the mid-80’s he liked to tell me how the first program he ever wrote compiled the first time with no errors.  That just doesn’t happen – especially to a newbie.  I was a good developer and COBOL is fairly easy to learn and write….but I still never wrote a program in college or in my professional career that compiled the first time with no errors.  So to me, this was kind of like the concept of saying he was the Best Developer in the World.  Of course, he didn’t say that, but he did set the expectation bar high – which is a good challenge anyway.  Whether or not his story is true, I don’t know…but he’s still sticking to it.

An Attempt to Define

Back to Project Management.  How would you identify the best project manager to ever exist?  Here’s a few possibilities that come to mind for me…

• All projects successfully deployed
• All projects on time
• All projects on budget
• No customer complaints
• Tracks everything
• No complaints and only praise from team members
• Highly sought out for new projects
• Etc., etc.

The list could go on forever.  Does such a person exist?  All good PMs meet some of these bullets, but I don’t know of any project manager with significant experience that can honestly say that they’ve delivered every single project on-time and on-budget with no customer complaints ever.  And who hasn’t had a project canceled or without some significant issues?  It just doesn’t happen that way. 

The Characteristics List…so far

In past articles I’ve looked at the characteristics of a good project manager.  Since there’s never going to be a ‘perfect’ or ‘best-ever’ PM, I think the best we can all aspire to is something on the lines of the list I was compiling (plus anything else you can think of).  Here’s where that list stands today (and it’s growing):

• Good organizer
• Excellent communicator
• Experienced negotiator
• Confident leader
• Good listener
• Well connected in the organization
• Problem solver
• Do what you say and say what you do
• Passionate about the task
• Stubborn
• Honest

Summary

This list is a good start toward building the solid character of a project manager.  If you have all of these…and more…you won’t be the best ever – but you may be the best your organization or customer has ever encountered.

Kamov Turns to Dassault Systemes PLM Solutions

LE BOURGET, France, Jun 15, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — SRTMF | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating — Dassault Systemes (DS) (Paris:DSY) (NASDAQ:DASTY), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced that Kamov Corporation, a world leader in helicopter engineering, is starting the deployment of CATIA, Dassault Systemes’ industry-leading virtual design solution, and ENOVIA SmarTeam, Dassault Systemes’ project management and collaboration solution. Kamov is transforming its business with PLM, moving from 2D drawings to a 3D virtual modeling paradigm. Its use of CATIA PLM Express – the Dassault Systemes’ solution combining the power of CATIA’s design excellence with ENOVIA SmarTeam’s collaborative virtual product information management – will optimize the work of Kamov engineers and designers and speed time to market. It is the largest implementation of Dassault Systemes PLM in Russian helicopter industry history.

Prior to purchasing CATIA, Kamov designers worked on drawing boards in 2D. Typically, designers involved in one project worked independently and had no connection with each other. The company lacked a unified, collaborative design process, which resulted in excessive interactions among designers and a lengthy documentation approval period. Taking into consideration the growing competition in the market and the need to establish efficient design processes with new helicopter models, Kamov decided to switch to more innovative and collaborative digital design methods.

During the first phase of implementation, nearing completion now, Kamov implemented the CATIA PLM Express module for mechanical product creation. This module provides extended functions for large and complex product design, surface modeling and design of castings parts and is a core component of Kamov’s move to a PLM design authoring strategy. The company also plans to benefit from the implementation of additional dedicated modules for the design and manufacturing preparation of helicopter’ individual parts and components, including composites, sheetmetal, and electrical wire harness. In addition, Kamov deployed the Microsoft(R) SQL Server 2005 database management system – a productive and intelligent data platform that helps companies reduce time and costs for development and maintenance of applications, and to deliver applicable information to the entire organization. By implementing on Microsoft Windows Server, customers open up possibilities for creating a unified operating environment that is easier and less costly to maintain, providing enterprise performance and scalability with lower deployment and maintenance investments. Dassault Systemes ENOVIA uses the full potential of the Microsoft Application Platform in order to enable customers to reduce costs and free up resources by optimizing business processes

Read the entire story here.