How to Manage a Virtual Project Team

Last Updated October 24, 2019

Every week, 70% of global employees work remotely at least once a week, according to a 2018 survey of more than 18,000 professionals from the International Workplace Group (IWG). Of that amount, 53% work remotely for half the week or more, and one in 10 employees (11%) work remotely five times a week.

The number of employees who work from home has increased by 140% since 2005, almost 10 times faster than the rest of the workforce or the self-employed, according to 2018 data on telecommunication from GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics. Approximately 4.3 million employees worldwide (3.2% of the workforce) work from home at least half of the time.

By understanding how to properly manage a remote team and provide employees with the right tools and technology, company leaders can take action to avoid potential telecommunication challenges and create a successful remote working environment.

Are Virtual Project Teams More Productive?

In 2013, Yahoo Inc. announced they would be ending their remote working program, which ignited the debate whether virtual teams are more productive than employees working in a standard office environment.

You can make the case that teams who sit together in an office may have increased collaboration and productivity than teams communicating through a computer screen or working on a project in different time zones. However, a generational workforce shift may cause companies to abandon the traditional work model.

Speaking to CNBC, Upwork CEO Shephane Kasriel said he believes remote working will be commonplace within the next decade as younger generations move into leadership roles.

“Millennials will be the next CEOs and CXOs. As younger generations take management reins, remote-work and flexible-work models will just be the norm to them. They’ll hire more remote people and empower their teams to work that way”, Kasriel said.

According to Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workplace report, remote employees log an average of four more hours per week than employees who work on-site, while virtual teams are generally more engaged (32%) than their on-site counterparts (28%). A two-year study from Stanford also found that employee attrition decreased by 50% among remote workers, employees were less distracted at home than the office, and they took shorter breaks, and asked for fewer sick days and vacation days.

Depending on the business and industry, remote working has the potential to be as successful as in-office work for companies. The challenges of fully implementing remote working typically depends on the virtual team in question and whether they can meet the needs of the business working outside the office. This responsibility often falls on team leaders to encourage frequent communication and set clear expectations among remote employees.

How to Keep Your Virtual Team on Track

Project management best practices can apply to virtual project teams. In the case of managing a virtual team, there may be slight modifications project leaders should adopt in order to best manage the team and keep team confusion to a minimum. Project team members could be dispersed across the world, especially since the demand for talent continues to rapidly increase in developing countries such as China and India, according to the Project Management Institute’s 2017-2027 Job Growth and Talent Gap report.

Exemplifying strong communication habits, understanding team dynamics and knowing how to keep your virtual team on track during a project’s lifecycle is essential for project managers. The tips below can help managers build team cohesiveness and promote a collaborative work environment.

Choose a Method of Communication

In the virtual world, with team members potentially located in different time zones, deciding how and when you communicate is important. One of the first steps project managers should do, especially in large teams, is select a communication platform that everyone can easily use to stay informed on project timelines and collaborate.

A large team without a consistent communication tool could cause employees to miss important project updates or limit their ability to work together and share ideas. Some popular communication tools include: Zoom, Skype for Business, Microsoft’s Office 365, Slack, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Google Hangouts, Atlassian and Basecamp.

Define Roles and Responsibilities

Each project team member should understand their role and what they are responsible for on a daily basis. It may help to track everyone’s roles and responsibilities in a central document, which can visibly show what tasks are not yet assigned to team members.

Assigning roles and responsibilities can also help employees understand project expectations. One way to level-set expectations is to ask everyone on the project team to summarize what they believe their roles and responsibilities are, regarding the specific project they are working with. This can help project managers determine whether their expectations match that of their employees.

Implement Routine Meetings

Gathering together as a group at a specific time each week is imperative for virtual project teams. Whether it be through a chat app or a video conferencing tool, setting a daily or weekly meeting cadence can help keep everyone informed of what’s going on during a project’s lifecycle, and can be used to communicate client or stakeholder feedback.

It can also create a sense of community – a feeling that remote workers may miss (compared to their in-office counterparts). Routine meetings, such as daily 15-minute standups, can help team members communicate project deliverables and inform key stakeholders of risks or obstacles in the way of completing the project on time or to the expectations of the customer.

Make Good Use of Project Management Tools

Project management tools like network diagrams, project evaluation and review techniques, Gantt Charts and work breakdown structures are essential for virtual teams to function effectively. These tools can help managers and their teams monitor the progress of projects by sending reminders about essential tasks to specific team members and tracking time to ensure each remote employee spends an adequate amount of their workday on completing project deliverables.