Working remotely is more common than ever, which means virtual project management is becoming
more of a norm. So if you want to know how to manage your virtual teams on your virtual
projects, then I'm going to give you all the tips you need to be successful with your virtual teams.
And if you stick around to the end of this video, I'm going to share with you how to
get your hands on a free guide that's going to ensure that your virtual projects are successful.
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if you're excited on how to really learn about virtual project management, then let's get to it.
Show appreciation. If project management is all about teams executing tasks, then a connected
team is going to ensure a successful execution. So this is where appreciation comes into play.
And as a virtual project and a manager, a project manager, who's doing things virtually this becomes
even more critical. We don't have the luxury of being in a single room or a single location
with all the people we can just feel things out or drop by their desk. We really need to ensure our
time together is one of appreciation so that we feel connected and we feel safe with each other.
Now, how can you do this virtually? You can totally do this as a project manager you need
to be attuned to what's going on. You can send out messages of encouragement. You can send a
little inspiration videos or quotes, anything to show your appreciation for what the team is doing.
Always tell them what a great job they're doing, particularly when they're doing a good job.
Okay. But even more so you've probably seen in my other videos, I talk about appreciation cards.
And in a live setting, right there, I hope that you can see that,
this appreciation card is huge in connecting people. Now, when you're live it's really easy
because I just take one of these cards, pass it around to everybody and I say on your left
write an appreciation about that person. This is not just you as a project manager connecting with
your team, it's each other as a team connecting with themselves and each other together.
So how do you do this on a virtual note? You have to do a little bit of work in advance,
because sometimes when the videos on the screens don't show everybody what you see in the orders
may be different from someone else. So you just need to create a little table, put a table of
everybody's names, and then you pick who they're going to write an appreciation for. And when you
do that, you say, guys we have a little bit of an exercise. I want to show some gratitude and
appreciation and I would like for all of us to do one for each other but I'm going to help you out.
And on your PowerPoint, you can bring up your little table, which says that John is going
to do an appreciation for Jim. Jim's going to do an appreciation for Sarah, et cetera. And
instead of these cards, what you're going to do is you say send them an email right
now. Let's take out three minutes and send your appreciation to that particular person.
When you're done, look at me so know you're done and then we're all going to go to our email and
quietly read them. It's a beautiful technique of getting everyone together, particularly virtually
when we don't have that luxury of getting to know people outside of our meetings.
Be alert to conflict via body language. All right, you have a virtual team, you're running your
virtual project. Look, I've been on projects where team dynamics particularly in that storming stage
can be very tricky. Now, if you're live it's really easy, you can sometimes feel the energy
in the room and be able to bring things out to the open. But virtually it's a much different world.
I can't necessarily feel the vibe of the room because everyone's in their own room.
And hopefully, as I said earlier on, your cameras on. This is even worse
when the camera's not on, because how can you see if people are connecting or not?
And sometimes it's really difficult to hear it. So that's why my rule, particularly for project
teams, video has to be on when we're meeting. But you really need to take note of the body
language, that's going to tell you everything. So if people are focused, looking at the camera,
really seeming engaged. Excellent. If anyone is not, and you can see that they're paying attention
to other things, worst yet their phone, you need to call them out on it. You need to resolve these
conflicts immediately. You don't have the luxury of being able to talk to someone in a hallway,
you have to do it there and then because you're also setting the tone and expectation of everybody
else. So the first time you do this, it may be a little bit tricky, but I promise you nip it in
the bud, it makes a world of a difference. Be disciplined and follow your rules of
engagement. With virtual projects you really need to have that discipline locked down,
expectations amongst the team locked down and everyone in agreement to it. Now, if you're going,
what are rules of engagement? Oh my goodness. All right. You totally need to check out my
Slay PM course I have the link below because it goes into depth about all of this. But rules
of engagement are just how are people going to behave in the expectations around it? You would
have laid that out in your charter as well as you would have kicked it off at your kickoff meeting
explaining and getting everyone to sign off on it. So that all being said, you need to ensure you
have that because when you're virtual with your projects, you only have a couple of touch points
with your team, virtual team meetings, maybe with your documentation and then emails. Really,
you don't have the luxury of bumping into them in the hallway, seeing them at another meeting,
joining them at the cafeteria and then maybe asking them a question. So the discipline is
really important in ensuring that everyone follows the rules expected of their behavior within your
project. It's just going to make some things smoother from a virtual project perspective.
Run effective virtual meetings. This may seem like a no brainer, but I'm sometimes surprised
at the things that seem like a no brainer, the ones that people don't do. I don't know why. But
meetings are your lifeline along with your WBS action plan as well, which is your action item
that guides everything and your communication tool. Again, Slay project management, check it
out. But that all being said, it becomes really important that you're running meetings really
well. You have to put more thought into them with virtual meetings. You just can't show up,
you're wasting people's time. You have very short windows as well because people tend to
have another meeting that they have to go to right after yours. So ensuring that they're effective,
please do not do update meetings. You have other tools and techniques to use that are
going to help you with that. Use your meetings for brainstorming, issue resolution, approval
of major concepts that are going to ensure that you can move on to the next requirements that
you have to deliver. It becomes really important, as a virtual project manager you need to provide
everything for your team to be successful. And that's not just at the beginning of your project
plan it's throughout the project, particularly at your meeting. So please run effective meetings.
Make video on a must. All right, you've already heard me talk about this. I said it in the first
couple of tips too. That video needs to be on. It is critical for you from a project perspective,
virtually to be able to read body language and know what's going on. You see each other,
this is the only interaction you really have that you can see people's face and connect,
because you're people, you're a team. Look, you can have the best laid out plans,
but if you're not somehow connected as a team, and that really is with the individual
by seeing them and establishing that trust and feeling safe that you can really share what
you need to share. Then it doesn't matter what great plans you have there's still going to be
this missing element and things are going to fall through the cracks. So it becomes
really important, have that video on just make it a rule, it's going to make your life really easy.
Communicate like crazy. All right, you've heard me talk about communication in my many other videos.
I'm going to repeat it here because I cannot tell you how important communication is particularly
with virtual teams and with your virtual projects. You are relying on a lot of people to do things
on their own and you need to over-communicate. So I'm not just talking about picking up the phone
and calling someone or doing an email. That's extremely important with the communication,
having really well-run meetings as a part of that communication. You also want to have a central
location for all your documentation. You also want to have something set up where people know
they can go to that central location to find the latest news and updates of what's happening based
on conversation. And even more importantly, you want to schedule one-on-ones with every individual
within your project team, you need to connect. You need to ensure that you're communicating. And
the best way to do that is sometimes privately one-on-one just to check in and see how they
are doing. It's going to help you tremendously to ensure your virtual project is successful.
Now that you know how to manage virtual projects, it's now time for you to go under this YouTube
video and grab this, why projects fail. Whether live, virtual, this is a must. Things in here that
are just going to ensure your success. So please check it out. It's yours free. Don't forget to
subscribe to this channel, like this video and share it with all the professionals that you
know. It really helps us out to grow our channel and to provide you with some awesome content.
On that note, let me know if these tips helped you on you running more and better virtual teams
and on those virtual projects, I'd love to hear from you talk to you later until the next video.