The R in Remote for Project Management
The Art of Managing Remote Workers
The pandemic was the first big opportunity to widespread the use of Remote Working. For this topic, I won’t cover the advantages and intricacies of remote, hybrid, and office work. However, I want to share some ideas that can be used to tackle some challenges with remote working. Some of these tips can also be used with a team spread across multiple locations, which in a way is a form of remote working.
If we look carefully, a lot of companies were doing remote work despite their policies prohibiting the act. The corporations that implemented near and offshoring, utilized a way of remote working. Where an active management decision made a portion of staff working in a different country. In this scenario, it makes little difference between the fact the staff was in an office or at home setting. They are remote.
Nowadays thankfully, we are accepting the work-from-home policy and eventually, it will be considered a normal way of working. The challenges identified during remote work (or work from home in that manner) are the same as maintaining a good work environment and connections as is near and offshoring. But for the latter, no one gave two minutes thought about building a tight team.
What are the main concerns regarding the widespread use of remote working?
Hurts the ideation process for solution-seeking activities
Knowledge transfer is made harder
Team bonding and building a good team environment
Lack of visibility regarding the work progress
Cultural differences
Is interesting to see the list above comprehends the same challenges as handling near and offshore projects. This can make us conclude that we have always known how to work with remote staff for the sake of cost savings or globalization.
But one of the key aspects is technology: Remote working or any type of work in which staff is divided into multiple locations, relies heavily on technology. The correct set of tools needs to be made available for the working framework to function.
Ideation process and Problem-solving
Here the office work is far more effective and if possible, I advise scheduling the possibility to have the team together for project critical phases where ideation is much valuable. Typically, the phase where solutions are researched and discussed. Nevertheless, is not impossible and we can organize workshops online with a set of people and work collaboratively.
An online tool that offers a whiteboard (for example Miro) can be very useful. Typically, a whiteboard is very easy and can be better adapted while online. While some people feel shy to interact and put post-its on the board, the online variation can even provide a more lively experience.
The workshop organization tends to be organized in the same fashion as its physical counterpart: Prepare an introduction of the problem to be analyzed, describe the framework (how is the whiteboard organized, or another tool of your choice), and provide a written minute or recap of what was concluded.
Knowledge Transfer struggles
What if I can propose a solution so awesome that can even challenge the idea of doing knowledge transfer in person?
During the pandemic, one of my teams needed to onboard multiple staff on different dates. One of the challenging aspects was the starting dates of new colleagues were different for a couple of weeks. This means it wouldn’t be possible to schedule the training sessions efficiently, with the consequence of having them repeated over and over again, just because a newcomer is now part of the team.
The solution was to record and save the session in video format going through multiple aspects of the project. This means when a newcomer would arrive, they would go straight for the videos and the only added session was the Q&A. This can be very useful and offers the invaluable possibility to go back to the session to remember or review a particular topic. It’s better than doing the session physically because you will get a video document with the training session.
Another tool for knowledge transfer which is mostly unappreciated is a Wiki. Everything from contacts, procedures, and general knowledge is highly advantageous to have on a team. Typically the One Note can also be useful to achieve this, but be mindful the usage is so easy that can be transformed into a knowledge dumping ground without much organization.
Team spirit and bounding
This was highly disregarded for near and offshoring teams but became a needed feature during the pandemic years. All of a sudden, the “Us and They” mentality wouldn’t make much sense anymore because we were all working from home, we were all remote compared with each other.
For that, a small innovation would be in order. The old gatherings in a bar for a beer or snacks were a challenge but some gamification was made possible. Try to do some games with the camera turned on to increase the bounding. However, a challenge to overcome is that some team members are alien to have a fun time online with co-workers. This is not necessarily a football tournament online. Propose the idea to the team and see what comes out of it.
Or at least try to capitalize on existing hobbies that can be made only and foment some parts of the team to engage with each other.
This part requires some vision and creativity from the Leader or Project Manager. Nothing can beat live human interaction and sharing the same physical space. Any online form is simply an attempt at what can be made possible with the context at hand.
Lack of work visibility
I tend to disagree here. In the old office days, there were clever thought strategies to justify and sometimes overlook work that was sliding. When working remotely, the output of the team becomes cruder. Less time influencing the possibility of a bad outcome, or at least the work is expected to be present and expectations are more difficult to manage otherwise.
The problem on the other hand is when a challenge is seen on the project and the executors seem too passive to tackle them. In the old office days, you could chat with the struggling team member and at least justify the lack of performance. The tolerance for bad performance is significantly smaller on remote setups.
Remote setups require the Team Members to become responsible for their work and trust is deposited by Leadership until shown otherwise. If the Team Member is struggling and if there is bad communication or some passivity, the question almost arises straight to kick the person out of the team. On old fashioned ways there were follow-ups to understand the reason for the struggle, measures that could be put in place, and compliancy was managed by leadership by putting in motion motivational strategies, emotional management, and sometimes tailored action plans. Due to the context of remote working, this follow-up strategy demands even more effort from leadership. Scheduling needed time slots that were before more informal conversations, and acting on alerts that arrived too late for any meaningful countermeasures.
It is important to cultivate a culture of communication and keep the eyes peeled during team meetings to understand who is struggling with what.
In remote working environments is easier to implement a results-oriented mentality and create an atmosphere of empowerment and autonomy inside the team. Unfortunately, not all team members are Rock Stars and some of them can be below mediocre in terms of babysitting requirements. These profiles were better adaptable to office control methodologies.
Remote working is not for everyone. However, it is easier to isolate from the noise and focus on the results. While setting up the team is highly advisable the Remote Workers are the ones you can trust the most and are high-performance. In optimal scenarios, the remote working setup could be a prize.
Cultural differences
How cultural differences are related to remote working?
Because it’s the natural evolution of cost-efficient methodologies to find cheaper alternatives elsewhere. Remote working and hiring people in the same country or area where the project is located is an understandable strategy, but far from what the possibilities of this context have to offer. Having access to talent in any part of the world with highly variable cost profiles can benefit the team with the complication of handling multiple time zones and cultural differences. Something that off and nearshoring already taught us how to do.
Leadership has a significant weight on people management. While setting up the Team, is important for the Project Manager to pay attention to the different personalities that constitute it. Ensuring a good team and work environment is key to the longevity of the team quality of the project.
To conclude
Hope these tips help you manage the team, but mostly, I hope you can take advantage of the remote part of the work. As a personal experience, I have worked on corporations with a very conservative approach to remote working, all for the sake of results and team environment. These tools were key to making the transitions easier, and if you have other tips or tools, feel free to share.