Are You Doing It Right?
Great! You finally hired the right people for your virtual team. You are now ready to manage your project online. The question is: Do You Have What It Takes to Do It Right? Project management is more than your usual brick-and-mortar way of telling people what to do. Although the term ” Project Management ” took its roots with NASA’s legend, Neil Armstrong, managing outsourced workers is a totally new concept evolving on its own. The challenges are simply too many to count.
What Do You Need to Know?
First, you need to define what a project is. In layman’s term, it is a set of work to be done at a certain time and budget. Project management involves a GOAL. Without it, your team will be groping in the dark. The second element of project management involves knowing what human skills and tools are needed to achieve this goal. Lastly, a project is achieved when all the resources gathered produce the desired results. A project can be anything. It can be decorating a home, building a high rise, or getting a million subscribers in YouTube. Managing projects online is working for the same goal, but having remote workers working on tasks at different locations and time zones. At the end of the day, results are made.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Managing Online Projects
For any project to be successful, you need to have some TQC – Time, Quality, and Cost. These are the very blood of any undertaking.
DO’s:
- Always define the scope of the project before your virtual team starts working on it.
- Assign tasks that are suited to your virtual worker’s skills.
- Know what resources are available to your remote workers.
- Have a project matrix or timeline and make sure that each one knows the work progress.
- Try developing your virtual team’s key skills through extra training.
- Control your project’s cost, efficiency, and quality.
- Learn how to solve complex issues that may arise.
- Be an effective leader who listens to the voices of his or her subordinates.
- Evaluate and monitor the progress of the project.
- Be open to new ideas and value your team.
DON’Ts:
- Never underestimate your virtual worker’s capacity based on his language or location.
- Don’t start a project without proper planning and careful research.
- Don’t cut costs dramatically. You will truly get what you have paid for.
- Never disregard the value of team work, even in a virtual office setup.
- Don’t get too much goals that you find hard to achieve.
- Don’t run down your team with long working hours.
- Avoid personality clashes at all costs.
- Never be late in giving team guidelines or team meetings.
- Do not be afraid to ask for help. You don’t know everything.
- Do not assume. Always work on facts.
With too much going on, you can barely get in touch with your virtual workers, specially when you’re not working at the same time and place. If you keep yourself focused with the bigger picture in mind, it can help your team see the vision-mission for the job. Let Your Project Build a Stronger Virtual team!
Something Interesting:
How to Manage the Perfect Project
