What is Remote Project Management?

Many organizations have shifted to remote project management, while others are weighing the benefit of this new reality. In addition, businesses started encouraging remote working due to the COVID-19 epidemic. As a result, remote work has become a new standard these days.

Today’s blog post will look at remote project management, its benefit, and how to manage a virtual project team.

What is Remote Project Management?

Remote project management is about carrying out project activities through team members located at different locations. This may consist of several team members working in multiple shared areas, the team comprising employees working from home or office, or a combination of both. 

Remote project management requires a unique approach to guide team members.

Project managers connect remote and hybrid teams through remote project management to ensure all team members collaborate efficiently and achieve the project objectives. The project management is the same, except you carry it out remotely. 

Project managers use online project management solutions to connect team members electronically. Recent occurrences have shown that remote project management can help businesses survive and grow.

Benefits of Remote Project Management

A few benefits of remote project management are as follows:

1. Lower Operational Costs: Managing a remote workforce reduces office space and rent costs. It reduces bills for other utilities such as electricity, transportation, travel costs, etc.
2. Provides Flexibility: Remote working increases flexibility. For example, employees working from home can improve their workstations for better ergonomics than in an office setting. In addition, it is easier to arrange meetings. 
3. Promoting Work-Life Balance: Providing employees with a work-life balance improves work efficiency. Employees can save time traveling or getting ready and spend more time with their families. It improves employee morale, and they will perform better.
4. Enhanced Focus: Employees working virtually can focus more on the work as they are away from office noise and gossip. Employees will not have coworkers moving around throughout the day at home, causing distractions. As a result, employees will be more focused on work and complete tasks quickly and effectively.
5. More Hiring Options: Remote project team can hire expert team members from any part of the world if they fulfill the requirements. This leads to a larger potential employee pool, allowing to hire of exceptional staff who can offer robust results.
6. Improves Employee Happiness: Working from home can be a happy experience for many employees. Employee and employers both benefits from it. Employees enjoy spending time with family, which is a great motivating factor and improves employee performance.
7. Improves Employee Retention: Retaining valuable staff is helpful for a business. Working from home can improve work-life balance and overall employee happiness; it helps retain valued employees and avoid an expensive hiring process.
8. Raising Productivity: Many employers noticed an increase in productivity when working remotely. As a result, remote work helped increase profitability due to increased productivity and lower operational costs.

Challenges of Remote Project Management

Remote project management has many barriers, some of them are as follows:

#1. Communication Issues

Communication is critical in project management. In virtual project management, communication is not interactive and frequent; it is more formal. In an office workplace, communication is frequent, informal, and interactive, which improves productivity. Team members need help talking with one another in virtual project management.

A manager should encourage communication by creating an open atmosphere and providing necessary communication tools to team members.

#2. Trust Issues

The “trust” forecasts the success of virtual ventures. Better trust and collaboration among team members provide a sense of security, and remote teams work more effectively. So, project managers should trust their staff and allow remote employees to work at any hour as long as they complete the task on time.

#3. The Selection of the Right Structure

The project management framework affects the work environment. Choosing the right team members, methods, and tools takes time and effort. In virtual project management, the project manager must choose the right structure based on team members’ capabilities.

#4. Isolation

Because remote working lacks face-to-face communication, managing a remote project is only possible with the effective participation of team members. Team members often feel isolated due to a lack of interaction, motivation, and feedback.

#5. Transparency Concerns

Remote team members can work from any location to complete their duties. Therefore, some remote workers are hesitant to meet their responsibilities. False task completion reports are a serious obstacle to finishing the virtual project on schedule.

#6. Lack of Proper Collaboration

Remote workers bring diverse project management knowledge and expertise to the table. All remote workers must participate. In true teamwork, they leave no worker behind. Improper collaboration can hinder a project’s progress.

#7. Scheduling Problems

Creating a comprehensive project plan for a virtual team that incorporates project stages, dependencies, and activities become challenging. While working from home provides employee flexibility in accomplishing the job, managing changes are difficult while the project is in progress.

#8. Monitoring and Tracking

Project managers can easily monitor the team members working in the office. However, they rely on online time-tracking software to track and oversee remote team members, which is inefficient. 

Holding team members accountable for their performance is challenging in remote project management.

#9. Time Zone Variations

A remote team always has time zone variation if they are in different geographic areas. For instance, there is a +2-hour gap between a project manager who lives in England and a team member who lives in South Africa. This affects project monitoring and tracking.

Assembling a Remote Project Team

Keep the following in mind while assembling a remote project team:

1. Assemble a Team with the Right Abilities 

Ensure that the team has the required skills and knowledge to complete the job. Nothing slows a project more than the requirement for additional team members halfway through. In addition, involve team members in deciding who should be recruited for the team. Bringing together the right individuals from the start lays the stage for autonomy and self-sufficiency.

2. Allow Team Members Freedom to Complete the Job 

A project manager should ensure that team members can do the job without feeling overwhelmed or discouraged. Assist the team with time management, identifying potential barriers, and assigning achievable deadlines. Then, let them finish their task.

While assembling remote project teams, consider the following attributes:

• Effective remote teams are cross-functional. An ideal remote team includes designers, developers, marketers, and support personnel. Everyone is required to accomplish the project from start to end.
• The best remote teams concentrate on one project at a time. So, ensure team members are assigned one project at a time. This is crucial in a remote team because it is difficult to know if they are overwhelmed.
• Effective remote teams are self-sufficient. The project manager must work and integrate with the team as they are also team members. Developing leaders is a huge motivator for the entire team to work together and be inspired.
• The finest remote teams recognize the need for external help. Using freelancers or contractors to fill the gaps can save money. Instead of treating them as hired guns, treat them as team members.

Types of Remote Project Teams

A remote project team can be of the following types:

1. Fully Remote Team: A team that operates entirely outside an office is a fully remote team. Employees can work anywhere, from home, a coffee shop, or another nation, but they will not enter into physical workplace. Instead, the project team collaborates online using project management and video conferencing technologies.
2. Hybrid Teams: The hybrid team might only work remotely for some time and remaining time in the office. It is common for businesses to have a physical location where most employees work in the office, with a few working remotely.
3. Flexible Teams: Team members can work remotely or in the office, depending on the choice and requirements.

How To Manage a Team in Remote Project Management

The following best practice can help manage the remote team effectively:

1. Invest in the Best Remote Project Management Software

Understand the importance of using the right online tools when working remotely. The team’s efficiency is determined by the tools and how they use them.

You will find many project management collaborative tools, such as monday.com, nTaskManager, Asana, etc.

Remote teams can use project or task management software to break projects into smaller tasks, create milestones, allocate roles, and track progress online.

You can use the following tools for effective remote project management. 

Online Whiteboard/Canvas Tools  

Using graphics, diagrams, and sketches, team members can express their opinions during meetings or planning sessions with an online whiteboard.

This software provides a sophisticated visual environment for remote teams to communicate through in-app video conferencing, real-time mouse tracking, and change preview capabilities that make cooperation even easier.

Document Management Technologies 

These maintain project records in one place, accessible from any device and anywhere. In addition, tools like Google Drive, One Drive, and others make managing permissions and access to all business data easy.

Video Conferencing Solutions

To keep the team linked throughout the project, use a chat platform and a video conferencing solution. Some common solutions for global project teams include Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, and Skype.

Using these technologies to communicate online throughout a project is vital. First, establish ground rules to avoid misunderstanding and increase productivity.

Maintain regular communication with the team.

2. Communication is Essential for Remotely Managing Tasks

In the workplace, communication occurs organically. For example, team members can instantly turn around and ask colleagues for help or clarification.

While this is not the case when working remotely, you can use video conferencing to simulate robust in-person conversation. 

To communicate with the team successfully, use instant messaging for immediate communication requirements and video for more important talks.

3. Keep a Separate Common Channel Open for the Project Team

Use this channel to share project-related issues, information, and documentation and encourage team members to provide input.

To minimize uncertainty and misunderstandings, over-communicate. For example, when it is hard to speak face-to-face, rely on sending longer letters that explain worries to avoid the other person rushing to erroneous assumptions. 

4. Share Daily Task Updates

You may use task management software to keep track of the project’s progress. As team members get busier, they must regularly update their tasks on the tool.

There are simpler methods to know what the team is currently working on.

A pre-scheduled, brief daily meeting in which the team communicates their work, what they have completed, and the roadblocks preventing them from progressing.

A chat platform message thread where the team distributes this information daily. A project timeline or Gantt chart that is updated routinely by a single person or team to provide a high-level picture of progress.

5. Have all Resources in a Shared Location 

While it is essential to have digital versions of all documents, assets, and resources related to the project, have them stored in a cloud-based platform, allowing the team to access everything from anywhere and from any device.   

6. Clarify Roles, Responsibilities, Expectations, and Workflows

Since project managers are not physically available to each team member, make the extra effort to clarify what you expect from each team member. 

• Set clear expectations. Assign each team member objectives and milestones and explain how they should attain them. 
• Have regular check-ins with team members personally. This will allow project managers to learn about their progress and issues. 
• Set clear priorities. To avoid project failure and confusion for the team, prioritize the tasks for team members. For example, in a project management tool, break down the tasks and assign them to team members.  
• Create a product roadmap to help the team see how the work contributes to the organization’s larger objectives.  

Conclusion

Remote project management is reliable and effective because of the flexible schedules and flexibility to work from home. Businesses that accept remote workplaces reported high productivity with efficient time and resource utilization. Although managing virtual projects might be challenging, using the right mindset and the correct tools makes it easy.