Janeiro in the southeast. The team members located
in the northeast would usually lunch at home for a
couple of hours in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the other
team members scheduled meetings during those hours
because in Rio, people go for lunch later or in smaller
chunks of time.
We had to discuss this as a team and establish new
rules that would work for everyone.”
—Alexandre Maiotto, PMP, head of information and
communication technology, ENEL/Endesa Brasil, Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil
Promote Ownership
With a geographically dispersed team, it’s
essential for members to unite around
a common purpose. Creating a project
charter is an excellent way to do this. It ensures that all
resources are focused on the right goals from the start.
I also like to start any virtual project by asking each
member to prepare a ‘communications service level
agreement.’ This document lists their contact information, typical availability for a given mode of communication, best times to reach them, as well as promised
response times.
During the project, I discuss assigned tasks with the
virtual team member and we agree on when the deliv-
erable will be completed. Ownership of a deliverable
is a powerful thing.
When a deliverable
is owned, it can be
reported on and
tracked, making
it visible to other
project stakeholders
and team members.
In my experience,
this approach pro-
duces a high-quality
deliverable that is
typically submit-
ted on or ahead of
schedule.”
—Kristopher Sprague,
PMP, PgMP, associate
director, OpEx PMO,
Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Syracuse, New
York, USA
Screen-sharing is another effective technique for
meetings. During the meeting, pull up the tracking
files and update them in real time as you review the
items that are due or outstanding. This way, your team
members will correct you right away if you didn’t capture
something accurately, and your after-meeting time to
review the updates (check for typos, complete sentences,
etc.) is significantly reduced. As an added benefit, screen-
sharing gives your team members something to look at,
which helps minimize multitasking and distractions.”
—Nikki B. Stein, PMP, senior project manager, Arizona
State Credit Union, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Respect Cultural Differences
Cultural differences can be an issue even
when everyone is in the same country.
I once worked on a project team that Virtual
Reality
According to a
2014 survey by
Staples, 71 percent
of telecommuters
say the ability to
work remotely is an
important benefit
when considering a
new job.
71%
