Remote project management tool during coronavirus pandemic

2020-04-08

In the past, the enterprises that had remote project management competence are more capable of extending their business and operations across geographical locations.  But after the coronavirus pandemic occurred, the enterprises that have remote project management competence not only have significantly competitive advantages over their opponents who don’t have that competence in the global market, but in the local markets as well since the coronavirus pandemic has increased the demand of remote project management tool even for local projects.  

What is the key difference between managing a remote project from a daily face-to-face meeting project?

Meeting face-to-face frequently is easier to detect lies and keep people honest than not seeing the people.  On the other hand, if the project is to manage a number of robots and machines that don’t lie, it won’t make much difference to manage the project in the face-to-face or remote manner.

What is the typical consequence of a remote project if it isn’t managed properly?

Productivity degradation. Even the most dedicated project managers and team members can at times lack focus and have trouble staying on task, despite their dedication to the project. For the non-dedicated project managers and team members, the project can be a disaster. 

What are the solutions?

The most important thing is to get a project management SaaS that supports project integrity management.  A project management tool of such nature (e.g., 8Manage PPM) would have the following characteristics:

Project plan and execution are linked

If project plan and execution do not go hand in hand, unnecessary complications, such as the following, will need to be managed manually to maintain a valid plan to guide the team:
● Checks will be necessary to ensure that no one forgets to update the changed dates and dependencies of his deliverables
● Checks will be necessary to ensure that no one forgets to submit his deliverables for review as required
● Checks will be necessary to ensure that no one forgets to review the deliverables that they are supposed to review

When there is only one mishap, it can be tracked down easily. When there are undependable dependencies built on top on undependable dependencies, chaos will happen. Another symptom of disconnect between plan and execution is multiple versions of the “supposed to be the same plan”.  The multiple copies of the truth (current plan) cause confusion and accountability issues. Each team member would follow the version of plan that is closest to her own deliverable status; but that does not help the team to meet the project goals as a whole.

8Manage PPM is a good project management tool that is capable managing project integrity will have its plan and execution always go hand in hand.  One can always go back to the baseline of the plan or a previous snapshot. The current plan always reflects the latest status of the project team’s
deliverables and accomplishments. There is always one and only one copy of the truth (current plan) that everyone can share in real-time.

Accountability and result are both crystal clear

Having the name of a person next to a deliverable with a due date in a project plan does not equate to a firm commitment from the person. 8Manage project management is capable managing project integrity can make accountability and commitment clear and explicit. When a commitment or the result of a commitment that affects the work or deliverables of other parties has been changed, then the project management tool will notify all the parties that are affected in real-time. 

Clear results (whether a deliverable is accepted or not) is very important for enforcing proper accountability.  Poor end results are often caused by the unclear measure of immediate results. A project management tool that is capable managing project integrity would enforce maker-checker 4-eye principle throughout the project plan and execution. 

8Manage PPM helps to structure work in a natural manner where proper accountability and commitment will be enforced. When someone changes his commitment, 8Manage PPM will notify the affect parties.

Resource needs and dependencies are clear and explicit

8Manage PPM is also a project management tool that is capable managing project integrity would help project team members to manage this complexity by:
a) Making the resource and deliverable dependencies as explicit as possible
b) Automatically tracking indirect dependencies
c) Automatically detecting undependable dependencies and warning people as needed (i.e., a deliverable being late that will cause other deliverables to be late)

Resource sharing and dependencies can increase the complexity of managing a remote project tremendously.  But for economical reasons and because of the scarcity of expertise, resources are often shared.  Also, work breakdowns make dependencies unavoidable in almost any project.  Therefore, a more powerful project management tool such as 8Manage PPM is needed to manage such complexity.Try for free Now!