Our clients and prospects located in other countries and cities often wonder if they can acquire our services remotely. Indeed, remote engagements could save significant travel and accommodation costs. In addition, today’s reality offers new challenges linked to threats of virus transition and possible pandemic preparations. So the answer everyone would like to hear is “yes, remote project management can be as efficient as onsite project management”. Is this true? – Well, as they like to say in radio commercials, “conditions apply”.
In this article, I would like to elaborate on some conditions that must be met in order for remote project management to be as efficient as it would be if the project manager were actually working onsite.
By the way, remote engagement has its own advantages that can be leveraged. For example, some people tend to be more respectful and tolerant with colleagues that reside somewhere in the virtual space. Remote engagement can also hide some unwanted body language.
Clearly, the disadvantages of remote engagement are much more obvious. Many books were written about the value of on-site communication, co-location, osmotic communication (when the useful knowledge is shared due to co-location and people hearing each other’s conversations), information radiators and other face-to-face collaboration benefits. In order to maximize the outcome of remote project management engagement, we analyze each particular project environment to see how each of these positive conditions can be created given the lack of co-location.
First of all, I agree with the recommendation given by multiple PM experts, that where possible, a project manager should meet with the team and other stakeholders at least once at the beginning of the engagement – typically, this builds the communication particles that will be missing down the road, when the communication is remote.
Now let us analyze the gaps between remote and local arrangement. Written communication seems to remain the same: it does not really matter if you are sending an email to a person sitting next to you or someone located in another city. Same applies for text messages, files and fax documents.
The verbal communication changes when the team members are remote. They hear each other over the phone, they can even see each other through video conference, but they cannot sit at the same table or draw on the same whiteboard. They cannot shake hands or keep an eye focused on a particular meeting attendee (if the camera in the meeting room only shows the general view). As such, people typically choose their words more carefully to compensate for limited body language.
Co-location helps build trust, and strengthens the feeling of support and the recognition of authority.
Face-to-face communication is fairly considered to be the most efficient form of communication. Its channels have higher “bandwidth”. They include body language, tone, mimics that cannot always be perceived the same way through video chats. As such, this type of communication is most efficient for the transfer of information.
How does all this impact project management tasks?
It really depends on the project phase and the project condition. For example, when it comes to project planning (whether we are talking Waterfall or Agile), it is very important for the project manager to speak to all project stakeholders, to ask the right questions and to obtain the critical project information that will help set the project up for success. To make sure that this happens, the project manager may setup more “one-on-one” conversations in the remote environment than they would if all the meetings were local to ensure that everyone’s voices are heard.
Another example: if the project is going through a crunch period and the tension is high, it is very important for the project manager to prevent conflicts from occurring and to mitigate risks – not only to act when issues have already happened. In order to do that, a project manager needs to come up with more enhanced monitoring and controlling mechanisms than they would apply in a co-located environment. This can be achieved through more frequent status meetings and project health checks.
Some other great tools for remote collaboration are virtual boards and task management tools. Collaboration environments enable brainstorming sessions in real time and work in cooperative spaces through task assignments, Kanban boards and status notifications.
In an Agile environment, where knowledge sharing is even more critical, the use of collaboration software becomes very handy. Virtual daily scrums and information radiators are easy to implement, and can be very efficient if the right software is selected and its use is encouraged by management.
In addition, the good news is that there is a fair amount of “stand-alone” project management work that does not involve communication and can be done remotely (estimates, status reports, project plans and other documentation updates).
Communication is always multi-directional, so as long as you are ready to set the environment up for efficient remote communication, we are here to help.
So, in conclusion, “Yes, remote project management can be as efficient as onsite project management”.
Dmitry Tsitrinel, PMP®, PMI-ACP®