Project management is no easy feat. From managing budgets and meeting deadlines to ensuring quality and keeping your team motivated, it demands a delicate balancing act—especially when technology comes into play. As businesses increasingly embrace virtual projects, the challenges grow more complex. Leading a virtual team introduces unique hurdles, particularly when it comes to maintaining effective communication and staying organized in a remote environment. With the right approach, however, these challenges can be transformed into opportunities for successful virtual projects and streamlined collaboration and success.
What is Virtual Project Management?
Traditional project management involves planning and overseeing a team working on a project. It normally requires team meetings and lots of in-person collaboration. Virtual project management is the same process but involves managing a virtual team that is not located together. This includes teams who work from home and follow hybrid work models when some staff members are office-based and some are remote.
As you can imagine, virtual project management can be a challenge. Teams can lose that synergy that comes with face-to-face collaboration and it can take longer to ask “quick” questions when you can’t shout across the office or walk over to someone’s desk. It requires key principals in its management and usually requires project management software.
Why use Virtual Projects?
This is a valid question when you consider the difficulties it can bring. But, there are also many benefits of having a virtual project team to work on projects. Here are some key reasons businesses opt to run virtual projects:
- Less office space is required. Having fewer people on-site means you can downsize your office space and save money on rent or commercial real estate.
- Virtual project management tools can make communication, task delegation, and planning easier.
- It gives employees a better work-life balance. In fact, 76% of employees agree. This will lead to happier employees and higher retention.
- Access to a broader talent pool.
- Clearer reporting and project feedback. The tools needed to run a virtual project usually incorporate SaaS reporting tools. This can improve the transparency of project progress.
Tips to Streamline Virtual Project Management
Effective project management requires careful planning and organization when it’s in person. When it’s remote, the strategy can differ. Here are seven tips for effective virtual project management.
1. Organize the Team Structure and Set Clear Expectations
When employees are working remotely, it’s important to have clearly defined expectations just as you would at the office. This includes how the day is structured in terms of start/end times, lunch breaks, and so on as well as having a procedure for how to call in sick or book annual leave. Once you have a plan in place, it should be communicated so staff are aware of what’s expected. This can save project managers a lot of frustration in the long run.
2. Design a Communications Policy
Getting communication channels right is a key element in successful virtual project management. Communication needs to be regular and suited to purpose. Things to consider include:
- When will check-ins be? For example, will there be a morning brief every day? How will virtual meetings work? What collaboration platform will you use?
- How will tasks be reported to virtual project managers?
- How will you measure efficiency? For example, what sort of tracking and monitoring will be in place?
- What updates will you require from staff? Think about the method of and frequency you’d like these updates.
- What should staff use for questions? Instant messaging or email, for example?
- What telephone service should you use? If your remote team is international, what would be the most cost-effective way of calling the UK from the US?
- What tools will be used for various communication? For example, video conferencing tools for virtual meetings, document editing for collaboration, messaging for quick queries, etc.
3. Plan and Schedule the Project with Project Management Tools
Project management tools are a must in virtual project management as they offer numerous benefits. The trick is having an initial plan and finding the right tool for you. Your planning should include phases and project milestones as well as efficient project time management. Project management tools can help you break down the project into smaller work packages and tasks that can be assigned to the right employee.
Using a project management tool means managers can keep on top of projects daily through the built-in tracking tools. This means they can intervene as soon as any problems occur, such as delays impacting deliverables.
4. Keep Resources in a Single Shared Location
To streamline your virtual project, staff need to know how to access resources. Running around trying to find documents that haven’t been shared is frustrating enough in an office environment. When you’re miles away from your colleagues it’s even more so as it can take longer to track documents down. A cloud-based document management platform is a good way of sharing knowledge and documents remotely.
Depending on the nature of your documents, it may be necessary to set access restrictions for certain team members. This means everything can still be stored in one place for simplicity, but not visible to all team members.
5. Implement Collaboration Tools
Effective collaboration is the cornerstone of successful virtual project management. Leveraging real-time collaboration tools can bridge the gap created by the absence of in-person interactions. Tools such as online whiteboards and canvas platforms enable teams to share diagrams, charts, and sketches seamlessly during virtual meetings, fostering creativity and clarity. These tools not only replicate the dynamics of in-person brainstorming sessions but also enhance team engagement and streamline the exchange of ideas in a remote setting.
6. Keep Everyone in the Loop
Any black holes in communication can be problematic for a remote team. It can lead to time misspent, duplications, or confusion in the team. Sharing regular updates is important as it helps keep everyone informed, boosts morale, and is an effective tool for building trust. Even with task management software, if someone forgets to update it, it won’t paint a true picture. This is why it’s important to have daily team updates.
This could be through a scheduled morning brief, a message thread on a chat platform, or a project timeline that’s updated by one person. Having one person responsible for updating the timeline means they can chase updates from team members.
7. To-do Lists
Digital to-do lists can help you share jobs throughout the team and ensure the project’s progress. Most platforms that offer this enable you to group certain types of work together and share them with remote employees who have the right skills.
A good to-do list will show tasks concerning the project goals so the virtual project team can see which tasks should be prioritized. This can save them time trying to figure out what to do next.
Final Thoughts
There are many reasons for businesses to opt for remote and hybrid teamwork. It can reduce overheads, improve staff morale, and even give you access to a broader talent pool. But, as all good things do, it comes with a catch; your current project management skills and strategies won’t be enough.
To make a success of virtual project management, you’ll need to re-design how you collaborate with the team. This may require more planning and scheduling as well as fixing days and times to touch base. You’ll need to ensure staff still receive the relevant training and know exactly what tasks are assigned to them and what the expectations are.