Management of Virtual Projects

Virtual Project Management between Business Partners

The article Key People Skills for Virtual Project Managers makes many excellent points on the people skills necessary to manage virtual projects to which I agree. Instead of reiterating what can be read in the article I have highlighted some points that different when virtual teams are formed between business partners.  First the article states that virtual project “purpose is not longevity”.  It has been my experience with my existing clients that the opposite is true.  Virtual Teams are formed to work through on-going business issues between the two organizations and continue in some form for several years.  The second point regards the article statements regarding the role of the project manager.  There usually is not one project manager but a project manager from each organization involved in the virtual team.  This can mean there are two or more project managers depending on how many business partners are collaborating for the benefit of mutual clients.  In order for this type of a virtual team to be successful there has to a heightened sense of “Collaborative Leadership” between the project managers.  Due to the complex and political atmosphere between the companies, diplomacy is an essential skill set not cited in the article.  According to Webster Dictionary diplomacy is the “skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility”.  I have recently witness a situation where the project managers from both business partners sought to control the situation instead of collaborating with each other.  This established a hostile, accusatory atmosphere between the team members.  The result was almost total collapse of the project and lost of the client.  Fortunately upper management from both corporations removed their respective project manager and replaced them with project managers who established an atmosphere of collaboration resulting in successful completion of the project.

          

The one point stated within the article that I will reiterate because it is the most critical regards the establishment of the process of mutual escalation of conflicts to higher-level managers.  The emphasis is on the “mutual escalation” up through both business partners organization simultaneously.  If this is not done properly it results in disastrous consequences.  Ironically the establishment of the escalation process is rarely done at the onset of the virtual team but only after some major conflict occurs.

PalBee

First I brought you bubbles, now I bring you bees... PalBee is another free tool which can bring value to a vast array of customers, and can be adopted for use in virtual projects.  With the help of a webcam and a decent internet connection, PalBee allows a team to have a virtual video conference, complete with whiteboarding and chat features.  Meetings can be recorded, again allowing for the sharing, embedding, saving, etc. of the video file.  Looks like some refinement might still be needed, but it's free and quick to setup, so for small teams, this might be a great option.

Bubbly...

A major part of any project is brainstorming.  Some groups do it well, some not so much.  When it comes to virtual project teams, though, the process can be extremely difficult using traditional methods of brainstorming.  Enter bubbl.us, brainstorming made simple.  It's a free online tool that allows you to create a bubbly mind map entirely online.  Collaborate with your team to create a mind map that can be shared, embedded, printed, whatever.  Since it's online, it doesn't matter whether your team is collocated or entirely virtual - everyone gets to participate in the same big, bubbly, innovative brainstorming session.

[UPDATE] MindMeister looks like it's very similar to bubbl.us, although maybe a little more refined and less bubbly. Free for basic, $4/month for premium subscription, business subscriptions also available.