Telecommuting

Remote Project Management

Posted on by tom598fall15

“Remote project management and virtual teams can be a great project model if your organization allows it and your staff is focused on productivity.”  – Brad Egeland

Do you agree with the above statement?  Virtual workplace or some might call it telecommuting was instituted in early 1970s when information technology started to play a greater role in daily operations of the companies.  The Internet has had a revolutionary impact on our daily lives as well as our jobs. Today, some of our occupations would not be existent if Internet was not introduced. As internet connections become more common, workers have ample internet speeds to connect to their corporate headquarters through intranet right from their couch, beach or thousands of miles away from the office.  We are starting to see more and more virtual teams as well as projects that are solely managed remotely.  In his article Brad Egeland gives us few arguments why virtual project management is successful.

  • You have access to the best talent in the world.  Essentially you can hire anyone anywhere and communicate with them without any problems.  This would allow your team to complete your projects much faster since you would have the best talent.
  • Your profit margin increases and you can win more projects.  By utilizing less expensive offshore teams you will be cutting some of the costs.  Also, you do not need any extra space if your project would grow since every employee would be telecommuting from their home.
  • Project managers are freed up for real work when it’s needed.  Without actual commuting project managers can spend more time working on the project.  Time is money and telecommuting not only gives you time but also flexibility on your working hours.
  • The overall cost savings and productivity can be high.  If everyone works on their time then we can assume that they will be working at 100% so the productivity will grow.

Since the invention of the internet, flexible work arrangements have increased and they are still on the move.  With introduction of smart phones, virtual workplace and project management is gaining even more consideration.  Today we can manage our projects from anywhere in the world, while eating dinner, at the gym or even while driving a car which I strongly do not recommend.

Have you ever experienced a project where you never faced other team members?  Do you think there are many cost savings to having remote project management?  Do you feel that you would perform better if you didn’t have set work hours?  How does remote project management software help you do your job better as a project manager?

If you would like to read  more about remote project management I strongly recommend Brads article that can be found here Remote Project Management

 

Best Buy, Yahoo and Telecommuting: The Problem Isn’t Distance-It’s Management

Posted on by spr1331acortez
Distance isn’t the problem-management is.

Is telecommuting a privilege or a right? Telecommuting has become one of the most recent and effective ways of doing business. However, many people have debated weather it is a privilege or a right.

Telecommuting can be more efficient at times, however that depends on management. Recently, Marissa Mayers (Yahoo CEO) added a new policy against telecommuting. Best Buy has also brought about talks regarding banning telecommuting.

Telecommuting can be environmentally friendly and preferred by employees, especially those that have a long distance for commute. Telecommuting can motivate employees to work from where they want to work. It can also be very inefficient if those that telecommute are not paying attention to the work they have to get done.

Management really needs to take more action especially since Telecommuting is fairly new. I am not saying management needs to be micro managing, but they do need to step it up if they see that those telecommuting are taking advantage.  It seems that in order for a company to be successful if they want to telecommute, they need to set of training on how to effectively improve communication/management.

Operation can take a huge toll in the way things are being ran especially if not much attention is put. Those that telecommute may find it distracting to work effectively once they are sitting at home with a laptop surfing the web, eating dinner, listening to music ect. However, operation can increase if those that work at home find those distractions to be necessary for their production. If they feel that at work they are being pressured and constantly watched on.  We discussed how managers should develop pride and joy in work and how that effects production. If managers effectively carry out with that, employees may feel better about doing their job wherever they are.

In today’s tech world, it almost feels that telecommuting is almost essential rather than being a privilege. For example, I have worked in a company where we telecommute and we do this because everyone is doing a marketing project where they feel that are more concentrated at home, or other employees commute is so long that if they worked from home they could get a lot more done during the time spent on the commute. Management is on a 24/7 contact basis and we have employees that work great communicating effectively and production is great. However, we also have some employees that do not communicate all the time and we find ourselves slowing down on production. I think that it depends on the type of company and task, in order to determine if  telecommuting is a privilege or a right.

Overall,  management is extremely important if companies do chose to allow employees to telecommute. Management really plays a huge roll because they have to effectively communicate with employees and allow them to do their work without making them feel they are being hounded to deliver work on time.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/03/07/best-buy-yahoo-and-telecommuting-the-problem-isnt-distance-its-management/