5 Steps to Successful Remote Project Management

As the workforce gets more distributed, project management is becoming a major challenge for managers across the world. Managing a group of people sitting in the same office is hard enough; the increasing trend of remote work is making everything even more complicated.

However, with the right skills and techniques, you can do remote project management successfully. Here are five actions you should execute well.

1. Make objectives clear

Does everyone working on the project have the same understanding of the objectives? For a project to succeed, every person working on it needs to be clear on the goal and what’s being done to reach it.

You need to use a strong collaborative method to make sure the whole team understands and agrees with objectives, knows what they are working on, and has a good idea of how the goals of that work apply to the larger picture.

2. Know people as individuals 

When you’re on deadline, it is important to talk about what needs to be done and get back to doing it. But if that’s all you do, you’re not doing it right.

You must build links with your team members so they feel individually valued. Get to know them as complete people by taking time to know what they’re into, about their family, and where they are from. Try to understand what their motivations are.

3. Communicate proactively

For remote project management, success is dependent on proactive communication. And that means more than just conveying status. You should set up periodic voice or video meetings, offer development courses, and do more creative things to inject joy into your company culture.

There are some popular remote work tools for seamless video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaboration. Switch to an effective means of communication with your remote workers to avoid problems that come from details falling through the cracks.

4. Use the right project management tool

Another thing you need in your arsenal is a project management tool. Managing people across the globe without knowing who is working on what and who may have too many tasks can turn everything into chaos.

A project management tool is an efficient way to increase overall productivity and keep your remote workers on the same page. Find a tool that works well for remote teams and let them know how they can use to their advantage.

5. Have frequent feedback sessions 

Feedback is valuable to any project team, and it is even more important when working remotely. But teams and managers can be swayed by the difficulty of giving tough feedback.

Set up a regular time for one-on-one meetings, and use them to give genuine feedback. Being open to feedback creates a healthy team environment that strives toward continuous improvement.

Managing a project can be difficult enough, but having remote teams provides additional hurdles to success. Follow these simple steps and you’ll feel good about your remote project management.

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