10 Tips to Better Remote Project Team Management

#RemoteWork is here to stay. And not only is it going to stay, but it’s also going to be the go-to for most companies that can enable a remote workforce. Of course, there will always be industries that require on-site workers, but office work as a whole can almost complete go #virtual or adapt into a combination of on-site and work-from-home (#WFH). Remote options not only alleviate overhead costs, but it also eases the recruitment of top talent from just about anywhere in the world. You are no longer locked in by state or city borders. And that opens up a whole new world of possibilities not only for you as a company but for you as an employee. Remote work has fundamentally changed everything. 

But not all virtual teams actually work without some education on how to make them work. And that’s mostly due to the lack of training users on how to manage a remote team, most especially project management. If your management team doesn’t know how to best manage their remote teams, the blame is often put on the method (remote work) rather than the people (team managers). And that’s simply not fair. It’s not fair to the methodology nor to the people. It’s not even management’s fault either, it’s the lack of provisioning tools that enable and enhance remote work and educating managers on how to use said tools. In essence, it’s about Adoption and Change Management (#ACM).  

When it comes to remote teams, I speak from experience. I have managed virtual teams from very small, a team of two literally, to teams of over a hundred in my long career in Information Technology, where I have served as Director, Principal, Team Leader, etc. etc. And to be frank, I’ve had to adopt remote work into my everyday out of necessity. See, I have #CysticFibrosis which is an invisible illness that leaves me #immunocompromised — bacterial infections colonize and stay inside my very weak lungs. Going into an office, especially one that is rather old and accumulates a lot of dust, just isn’t an option for me every day. I could get easily get sick, and that often leads to a multi-week stay at the hospital due to such a weak immune system. Because of this situation, I have been touting the benefits of remote work for over a decade, way before it was ever cool to be remote. 

So, what did I learn all this time as both a manager and a remote worker? I am going to share that here with you and obviously a lot of the tools that I use are all part of the Microsoft 365 stack of applications and some are also part of the Microsoft Viva platform. I am after all a Microsoft 365 Evangelist. However, I can and often do recommend tools outside of Microsoft (Ssshhh! Don’t tell ’em!). In addition, you could certainly sift through the multitude of tools out there and pick ones that align or do similar things as those that I recommend here. Let’s dive in!


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