Commonsense Advice for Managing Remote Project Teams

Any project, large or small, that involves multiple team members—especially working remotely—can easily run astray without skilled project management to keep communication flowing and everyone working on schedule. Steve Fenton, certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and manager of nSight’s Premium Editorial Services, offers some commonsense advice for keeping projects moving forward when all team members are working remotely.

It’s important for remote team members to feel supported by their Project Manager, and to feel they’re part of a larger team that’s there to support them.

I always have a shared Project Tracker posted in an easily accessible virtual team folder so every member can see where we stand in real time. I also always have a Team Contacts file available for all—so everyone knows who else is on the team, with contact information, time zone (to avoid off-hours calls,) and the times during the week when they typically are working on the project.

Regularly reach out to each team member, whether it’s a simple email, a phone call or a video chat.

Figure out how each team member wants to communicate with you; the easiest way to do this is to just ask! For example, some team members prefer email to phone calls or prefer phone calls to video chats. The most important thing is that you’re communicating on an individual basis with each team member as needed. Also, with the current state we’re in with the pandemic, I’m finding that we’re communicating on a more personal level, checking in on how we’re doing, our families, etc.

I also like to regularly check in with our clients, even when we don’t have current work in progress.

Be strategic with email.

I try to use email blasts to the entire team judiciously. While there are messages that should be sent to everyone on the project, I try not to send too many. Often, reaching out to individual team members to address specific issues is more efficient and beneficial.

And, when you receive a long, rambling email from a team member, schedule a follow-up call or chat ASAP. Long messages are often an indication that the team member is struggling. I find that the busier we are, the more direct phone calls I make to my team. Issues tend to get resolved quickly and accurately during these calls. They tend not to get resolved efficiently via long email chains.

Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.

Finally, I try to apply the tenth principle of the Agile Manifesto to all project work. To me it means working as efficiently as possible, making workflows as lean as they can be, and freeing up the team to focus on the work instead of focusing on work processes that can slow the team down.