5 Tips To Manage Remote Project Teams Effectively

According to a workplace study by PwC, over half of the global workforce prefers to work from home and will move on to organizations that resonate with the idea of it. Hence, there is no denying that remote work is here to stay and has become a new normal. Now, in times like these where the job market is volatile and the world is undergoing ‘The Great Resignation’, how you manage a remote team can draw a line between a closed deal or a missed opportunity.

In this post, we will talk about five proven tips that can help you kickstart your remote team management, generate results, and meet business goals like never before.

Provide Your Team a Roadmap:

When it comes to managing a remote team, one of the most important challenges for managers is to foster clear communication and get consensus on the project direction. A roadmap is a document that provides an easy-to-understand & bird’s eye view of important pieces of the project. Without which, it’s easy for teams to lose sight of the big picture and miss out on milestones, goals, and objectives.

Managers can leverage a ready-to-use, professional-looking roadmap template to organize, prioritize and plot tasks such that it provides a detailed visualization to the team. You can also project dependencies, possible risks, and client deliverables, highlight key sprint goals and milestones and bring all stakeholders on the same page. If done right, managers can create an easy-to-follow source of truth for their remote teams that can be a game-changer from a strategic standpoint.

Invest in the Right Technology:

When it comes to ensuring optimum efficiency from your remote teams spread across different time zones, leveraging the right remote working tools can be a game-changer. For instance, a manager could quickly drop by across the team in a standard, in-person office setting. However, now that your team is working remotely, it is essential more than ever to stay in touch with them, constantly align with requirements and ensure the project doesn’t get derailed. Investing in as simple as a chat application or a full-fledged business suite can play a pivotal role in your business goals.

Before you start thinking about software, you have to figure out what hardware to provide your employees. That cost may give you the shivers, as computers suitable for work or business have bank-breaking price tags these days. Fortunately, you can always opt for highly serviceable refurbished computers. Computers that have been refurbished undergo a thorough process of checking, disassembling and assembling, and data wiping. After that, they are as good as new and can last for years. Thus, you don’t have to think about furbishing your employees with new equipment for a while.

Tools such as Slack, Asana, Microsoft Teams, Google Suite, Trello, and several others are used by thousands of companies around the world for efficient project management and communication. It doesn’t matter if you’re an early-age startup or a large enterprise, your remote employees need tools that go beyond traditional emails and provide the ability to interact easily, collaborate in a group, share documents, publish posts, and provide feedback, almost instantly. Therefore, maintain consistent, transparent, and frequent communication, at all times.

Determine, Assign Roles and Responsibilities:

Right from improving your hiring process, making employees realize what is expected from them to boosting operational efficiency, clearly defining roles and responsibilities can help your company in multiple ways. Managers must note that when roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, it just gets easier to hire the right person for the job. Secondly, it improves the new hire’s comprehension of his or her duties while boosting the overall employee experience.

During hiring or project kickoff meetings, managers can provide a clear description of duties, define roles and assign ownership with the help of a PowerPoint Org Chart template. The practice gives your remote team members a defined path right from day one! Not to forget, this point helps the organization churn out redundancies, spend less and avoid interpersonal conflicts at the workplace.

Include Scrum Calls in Workday:

Daily team huddles or scrum calls are imperative for a team’s success, especially in a remote workplace. These meetings help management and fellow employees provide their task-specific communication, identify & mitigate issues, re-adjust priorities, and boost morale and motivation. An ideal scrum involves the team providing an update about:

• What did they do yesterday?
• What are they planning to accomplish today?
• Any contingencies or issues they are facing?

Now, these questions might seem straightforward. However, these play a critical role in providing a clear, real-time snapshot to management, tracking their progress, and ensuring the team is on track for the sprint goal. If done right, daily scrum calls can enable all stakeholders to join hands once a day and establish a much-needed information exchange rhythm for effective project management and execution.

Pay Heed to Employee Engagement:

What sets apart a winning team from an ordinary one is how engaged and motivated the employees are. It is easy for employees to feel left out or out of the loop in a remote work setting. This, in turn, hampers their performance and productivity. As a manager, fostering healthy social interaction between your remote mates should be a top priority. Management can consider including events such as virtual team-building exercises, social hours, one-on-ones, and video calls in their daily work routine.

The goal is to ensure that people stay connected, even though they’re not operating from a traditional office. Talking about their workload, family, hobbies, and mental or emotional health helps them not only avoid burnout but also makes them feel appreciated. Employee engagement also involves feedback. Managers can exchange constructive feedback such that they know they have been heard and their voice is valued in the organization. 

Wrapping It Up:

There is no perfect recipe for managing a remote team. However, the points discussed in this article can provide a robust platform and get you started in no time. Providing your remote employees the right set of tools and personal touch can help them be productive, successfully accomplish business goals and streamline your company’s project execution.