Sometimes over the course of your career you will be asked to take unofficial management of a project. While at first you might get excited that you were entrusted with this new responsibility, quite quickly it becomes apparent that you are in a sticky situation.

You have responsibility but no authority. It’s totally on you to make sure this project gets completed on-time and on-budget. But since you were handed over project leadership unofficially it’s difficult to get everyone on your side to listen to your instruction.

Now in the old days, mentors might advise you to read some good leadership books, in hopes that you could improve your communication skills, thus increase your likeability and then credibility to your team.

However, I know for myself, I buy books way more than I read them. If your attention span is also of the 21^st century variety: impatient even waiting for YouTube to load, thankfully, you’re in luck. Project management is a lot like navigating the fast and furious world of social media.

Your Problem: Brilliant Content, no Traffic

As an unofficial, or newly assigned, project manager, you’ve got the answers, but no one sees them. Your genius is getting filtered down the search list with Honey Boo Boo and Marissa Mayer articles getting top spot. Despite having the know-how, you have no support.

You’re kinda like the awesome little project management blog (www.easyprojects.net/blog) with great posts that only the PMP’s mom reads.

Your Solution: Respect and Buy-in

You need buy-in: from your team and your boss, in order to really shine.  You need respect. You need SEO because what you’re really lacking is effective communication. Remember the rules of social media: managing, like Twitter, should be a conversation.

1. Get your followers, or coworkers, to respect you by sharing their success stories. How many times have you automatically followed someone just because they retweeted one of your statuses? We like those who like us. Use the concept of reciprocal liking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_liking), to get your new team on your side.  Remember the quote, I think Oprah said it: “We get the respect we think we deserve.” Give respect and accolades to your team and they will be more inclined to give them right back and think highly of you (and your profession) the whole way through.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet. Think of task delegations through the lens of Twitter. Express requests in 140 characters or less. Don’t overwhelm your team with blocks  of unnecessary instructions.

3. Organize Your Projects. You know you’ve come across a Twitter veteran when their tweets are spiced with relevant subject hashtags that categorize everything to its proper Twitter repository. The organizational zest must be done as a project manager. Having project information organized at your fingerprints is a quick way to let people know everything is organized and under control.

4. Regularly Update your stakeholders. 9 times out of 10, hostility towards a project manager can be attributed to the other person’s frustrations with their own job. A lot of job stress for members of a project team comes from feeling in the dark about their own progress,  and the status, health, and scheduling of the project overall. You can remove this stress, and likewise their negativity by taking every measure to make sure all involved stakeholders are fully up-to-date with project news and developments. These updates can be automated with some types of project management software.

5. But…Don’t trash your colleagues newsfeed with pointless info—they have enough already! The final tip lesson learnt from Twitter warns to take advice #5 in moderation. It is always good to keep people informed, but there is such thing as being over-informed. For sure keep your team in the light about what’s going on with the project, and after that abide by the one YouTube a day rule. We all love the boss who occasionally sends a fun Harlem Shake video, but just like the videos in question, they can get old fast.

About Our Guest Contributor

Vanessa Fiorido is a Marketing Specialist at Easy Projects, a project management software tool used in over 50 countries around the world. You can find her blogging and tweeting about project management and Easy Projects Version 9 release.

Twitter // Website

With the average cost of a four-year college degree now hovering around $20,000 per year, students of all ages are electing to enroll in online classes that are specifically targeted toward their current career goals. While choosing a blend of online and traditional, campus-based classes may save a student thousands of dollars, the fact remains that education is a major investment and students need to squeeze as much out of their tuition dollars as possible.

Consider the following tips to get the most out of your professional development and higher education courses.

1. Invest in a quality program from a reputable school.

Many schools cater to professional development and offer perks like a career development office, alumni events organized by major, and other long-term networking opportunities. While professionals want to make sure the course is taught by an industry leader, they also need to think of the other perks that are possible when comparing online, traditional or blended degree programs.

Many reputable degrees are now also offered 100% online which can save substantial amounts of money and time over the duration of the degree program. All of these factors should be weighed carefully when investing in any school.

2. Download and store course materials for future use.

Many professors upload exceptional data and resources into their companion websites which can be a great resource for years to come, but you may not have access to the professor’s pages after the course is completed. Taking the time to download the material and properly label it on a USB drive can make it easier to refer to the information in the future.

After the course is over, students who have lost their access to such materials may wish they had done a better job of organizing and saving the materials while the course was active. In addition, networking with like-minded professionals in the course and acquiring contact information may help open other lucrative opportunities later.

3. Understand your commitment.

To get the best investment out of any higher education course, a student has to be thoroughly committed. Planning ahead to schedule time into a work week and family responsibility calendar is important to help you keep up with the course. Likewise, before signing up for a course through a present employer, professionals need to be 100% clear about what the expectations for commitment will be in exchange for the course. Knowing whether the employer will require more hours, months or years of continued involvement, or other commitments of time and energy is important in the decision of whether or not to fund the course individually or not. If there is a hint of a promotion upon completion of the course, it is a good idea to get that commitment in writing in case a manager leaves or changes positions within the company while you are taking the course.

4. Be active in the process.

Joining the local chapter of a professional organization and pursuing the degree with other professionals at the same time can help build positive momentum and help build a local network for career development. This can be beneficial for all parties involved.

Meeting face to face with a seasoned mentor while pursuing additional training could also add a bit of turbo-boost to the course materials. A more senior mentor can help a student drive lines of inquiry that could catapult a professional into a whole new realm of growth potential.

5. Explore your options.

While a career-changer may be seeking courses to bridge the gap between an old set of skills and a newly desired career, others may seek online education solely for the purpose of completing a certification requirement. In recent years, many programs have evolved to meet a multi-faceted set of student needs. While brushing up for a certification test, a student may also find a course or two that may open them up to a niche market or may provide a second set of related skills that could leverage the competitive edge in a job search or promotion scenario.

Education is an investment and there are many excellent choices available for busy professionals and career-changers looking to augment their current career skills. Spending time building an organized strategy for success and being clear about all course and job commitment details is important for saving money and time. While education can be a sizeable investment up front, if done right, the benefits can pay off for decades and provide a richer, more rewarding set of options for professionals dedicated to the process.

About Our Guest Contributor

Ryan Sauer is an innovation and Six Sigma enthusiast. He writes on topics  project management, business analysis, and Six Sigma. Through University Alliance, he strives to help professionals achieve their goals such as obtaining a business analyst certification; and provides access to the information and resources they need to achieve them.

Email // Website

It’s a Monday afternoon, and you’re getting ready to leave the office after a typical day in your project management world. The elevator door opens up, and standing right in front of you is your project’s sponsor.

You walk in with a smug smile on your face, feeling comfortable and confident, knowing that you are prepared to answer any question your project sponsor could possibly come up with.

Then, the unexpected happens.

“You’re the project manager on my critical-and-high-profile project ABC, right?”

“Yep.”

“So tell me, who are you? What is it that you do?”

The elevator doors slide closed, and you realize:
Your project sponsor has just asked you for your personal elevator pitch, and you have no idea where to start.
Let’s take a step back.

An elevator pitch is: A one to two sentence description of your unique promise of value that can be delivered in the span of an elevator ride.

Not long ago, I thought elevator pitches were only for startup businesses courting investors, hoping for a piece of the venture capital pie.

Then one day, I discovered the power and necessity of personal branding, and I was a changed woman.

I immersed myself in reading and learning about the importance of knowing, strengthening, and communicating my values, passion, and ultimately my purpose in life.

What I discovered was so powerful that I feel the need to continuously share it with others:

In order to succeed and achieve your personal goals, you must know what your unique qualities are that differentiate you from everyone else.

You must know this so well that you can summarize it in (preferably) one sentence. Capturing what makes you YOU in this way allows you to take the first steps toward owning and taking control of your brand in the eyes of the world.

As project managers, we sometimes fall into the trap of not wanting to toot our own horns, and we shy away from attributing project success to our own efforts as well as the team’s.
This is honorable and selfless, and it’s part of what makes a project manager great.

However, if we completely neglect to focus on and reinforce the things that make each of us unique, we become seen as coordinators and task trackers, rather than the leaders and success enablers we truly are.

As project managers, it’s not enough to be “good enough” at what we do. Anyone can read a book on the fundamentals of project management, go through the motions, and get the work done.

NOT anyone, however, can do what you do, exactly the way you do it. Only you can deliver project communications in that magical diplomatic way that you do. Only you can walk into a meeting and change the tone and attitude from negative to positive within seconds of arriving.  Only you can bring that unique, unexpected perspective and get your team to think outside the box.

Personally, I believe project managers are leaders, each possessing a certain magical skill that adds unique value to every project.

Figure out what your project management specialty (magic) is, and own it.

Create your elevator pitch, review it, and rehearse it until it rolls off your tongue with ease and authenticity.

What are you waiting for? Start now!

Do you have an elevator pitch?

About Our Guest Contributor

Hala Saleh, CSM, PMP is a project excellence passionista with experience working on and managing projects in the software development, consumer electronics, and financial services fields.

An Agile enthusiast, Hala has implemented a range of project management methodologies, including Agile as well as traditional waterfall frameworks.

Having traveled and worked with teams both in the U.S. as well as abroad, she has developed an open‐minded approach to managing projects and leading people.

Hala possesses a passion for entrepreneurship, innovation, continuous improvement, and maximizing the potential of teams and individuals.

Website // LinkedIn

For a very long time people have argued over what defines project success. An answer is simple – success like beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Analysis of some beholder’s viewpoints show there are 5 themes in the key contenders for ‘the’ definition of a measure of success:

1. the investor wants a return on their investment within the constraints that are their commercial reality – right thing done
2. the PM’s boss wants the thing done right and to promises of time cost scope and quality – a quiet life
3. the technicians in the team want an interesting challenge that grows their skill base – a better resume/cv
4. the recipients of the project’s results don’t want change and disruption to comfortable day-to-day routine – most specifically negative effect on any bonuses or incentives
5. the PM wants everyone else to be happy for as much of the time as possible, and hopefully everyone simultaneously when the project moves through implementation, closure and final payments (even for in-house notional-payment projects)

Step 1:
Establish in the heads of the technicians a shared understanding of what is wanted and what constraints really exist. This requires the investor’s presence to express what they want: What PRINCE2® calls a product breakdown structure and PMBoK Guide® calls a work breakdown is really useful here. What Dimension4 calls a Recognition Event® is even more useful.

Encourage the debate about how to deliver within as many simultaneous real-world constraint as possible – this does not need the investor’s presence: what most of use think of as a work breakdown structure is useful here, so is a precedence diagram then a resource levelled Gantt or flow-chart or Kanban board are all useful here.

Step 2:
Take the trade-offs between concurrent, contradictory constraints back to the investor to arbitrate between choices. Repeats steps 1 and 2 as needed for your product life-cycle either ‘traditional’ or ‘agile’ or ‘lean’ or any hybrid. Move on whenever everyone is content with the level of uncertainty they are signing up to, pause when they are not.

Step 3:
Send the technical folk off to do the ‘how’ stuff and take the investor to discuss with the recipients how new bonus and incentive arrangements will work and raise the topic of how current working patterns will be transitioned. Repeat 1 & 2 as opportunity, threat or issue arise.

Voilà

Three steps to Project Management heaven.

Ok so I cheated a bit because we also need to:

1. access to relevant decision makers (financial or technical) at decision times or they must have explicitly delegated authority,
2. estimate if we are to forecast otherwise we have to accept uncertainty and do lots more monitoring and rerouting and
3. determine what is truly achieved,
4. done, finished and judged fit-for-purpose by the recipient’s.

About Our Guest Contributor

Simon Harris is the principal of Logical Model. We strive to develop Benefits Realization capabilities by transfer of skills aligned to needs that vary by level in the management hierarchy. Our guiding principle is that usable solutions are logical, common sense even though the real-world context often seems irrational. Our observation is that “Common Sense” feels right and natural once you’ve heard it; it is not necessarily what is already obvious.

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As you might have known, the draft of the fifth edition of the famous PMBOK Guide standard has introduced a new knowledge area, the Project Stakeholder Management Knowledge Area. So, where did it come from? What does it offer?

I’ll try to explain it in detail in this article.

The History of the Knowledge Areas

The main content of the standard is processes. The fourth edition of the standard contains 42 processes, which cover every aspect of the project management and are supposed to help you become more successful in your projects as long as you do not forget to tailor the standard to your needs.

The processes are different activities you should do. The standard provides you with a number of sample techniques for some processes (technics like the CPM, the EVM, etc.), but providing the techniques is not the main purpose of the standard. The main purpose is to present you a list of high-level activities you should do, and more important, providing you with a model which explains the minimum relationships you should have between them.

Anyway, it is not easy to understand a large number of things (processes in this topic), without grouping and organizing them. That’s why the PMBOK Guide has provided you with two methods of organizing and grouping for the processes:

• The process groups
• The knowledge areas

Either of them is using a specific basis for grouping and you gain a better understanding of the processes through each of them.

There are five process groups. It has always been the same, since the first edition, and it is unlikely to increase or decrease in number in the future.

There were always nine knowledge areas in the standard, and it’s the first time we are facing a change in this grouping/organization concept: the introduction of a new one, called the Project Stakeholder Management Knowledge Area.

The Building Blocks

Let’s take a look at the organization and the number of the processes in different editions of the standard:

The number of the processes has changed in every edition; some processes might have been deleted and some new ones added to each new edition. This number is not a good measure of the maturity of the standard, as you can see a reduction from 44 processes into 42 processes in the fourth edition.

So, what happens here? Did PMI realize that a task should not be included in the project management profession and deleted it? Or did they realize that they have missed some tasks and added them to the standard? The answer is usually no to both questions.

Processes seem like the quantum elements of the PMBOK Guide, but the truth is that they are collections of tasks; the project management tasks. Underlying tasks of each process are usually a number of tasks that are similar in nature, are usually done by a single group of professionals, done in more or less the same time(s), and have almost similar predecessors and successors. They are combined and presented as a “process”.

Thinking of processes as an organizing concept is the key to understand the changes in the number of the processes in the PMBOK Guide. We have a large collection of project management tasks that do not change so much, and are the main source of creating the processes (as the first organizing concept), and then the knowledge areas and process groups (as the second organizing concept).

What has happened in the draft of the fifth edition of the PMBOK Guide is that the same old tasks are organized in a new way, creating new processes, and the processes are also organized in a new way, creating a new knowledge area.

Tasks Included in the New Knowledge Area

So, we can review the processes in the new knowledge area, determine the embedded tasks and determine where they come from; in other words, where they were in the fourth edition.

To make a long story short, the old Communications knowledge area is divided into two knowledge areas: the new Communications knowledge area and the Stakeholder knowledge area.

If you are interested in knowing about the details, a quick look at the following diagram will reveal it all.

The following are the processes in the Stakeholder Management of the draft of the fifth edition, a little description, and the mention of their counterparts in the previous edition:

• Identify Stakeholders, also belongs to Initiating process group

This process is dedicated to identifying the people and organizations that have some level of interest in the project and have the potential to influence it.

The same process existed in the fourth edition, under the communications knowledge area; it has just moved from there to here; to the new knowledge area.

• Plan Stakeholder Management, also belongs to Planning process group

How are we going to plan for, execute, monitor and control the stakeholder management area? These questions are answered in this process by creating a document named “Stakeholder Management Plan”.

There was no such process in the previous edition, but the tasks underlying this process were all included in the Plan Communications process of the fourth edition.

• Manage Stakeholder Engagement, also belongs to Executing process group

So, we have planned how to manage the knowledge area; now it’s time to do it! Manage Stakeholder Engagement does most of the work, by communicating with them, addressing their issues, and meeting their needs and expectations by directing our decisions and activities.

This process is almost the same thing we used to call “Manage Stakeholder Expectations” in the previous edition. The title has changed a little to better reflect the real nature of the process.

• Control Stakeholder Engagement, also belongs to Monitoring And Controlling process group

We are managing the stakeholder engagement, but are we gaining the results we expected? We should evaluate our efforts and improve our actions according to the plans or even improve our plans if they are not as effective as they are supposed to be. These will be done in the Control Stakeholder Engagement process.

This new process is a set of tasks that were previously organized under the Report Performance process.

What Happens with Different Ways of Organizing?

So, if the tasks do not change that much, what difference does it make to change the organization?

It is similar to questioning the difference of two valid work breakdown structures. When we change the organization, we are changing the way we see the same thing (tasks in this topic), or the way we want to treat them.

The PMBOK Guide says that project managers should spend most of their time communicating. Some PMP exam questions direct you to choose the “90% of time” as the correct answer. Dividing this area into two new areas will automatically attract more attention to the underlying tasks. It is also a good way of simplifying the matter. We are supposed to spend most of our time on a knowledge area which had 5 processes; is it clear enough what to do? Well, it’s now clearer how to spend that 90% by organizing those tasks into 7 processes (instead of 5) which are grouped under two titles.

The last word is that some people wonder why we have to worry about the other knowledge areas when we are expected to spend 90% of our time on one of them. The answer is simple: the processes in the PMBOK Guide are interlocked in a way that you cannot have a certain one in an effective way, unless you pay enough attention to all of them. The other knowledge areas are important as well; they are necessary tasks and the communications area is their fruit. This fruit in the draft of the fifth edition is divided between two knowledge areas.

Summary

This article tried to explain the structure of the PMBOK Guide in a concise and a minimal way, needed for understanding the new knowledge area better. The aim is understanding the real change behind this. You always need this kind of understanding in order to be able to tailor the standard to your needs, which is indispensable for success in implementing the standard.

About Our Guest Contributor

Nader Khorrami Rad is a project management expert with 12 years of experience. A PMP, CSM, and PSM I certified civil engineer with a Philosophy of Science master’s degree. He is the author of 38 books in Persian and 3 ebooks in English.

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As anyone who watches The Apprentice will tell you, one of the first questions that the teams are asked after each grueling challenge is, ‘How good was your project manager?’  If the team members are not full of praise at this point, the project managers should be feeling worried!  The Apprentice’s candidates are sometimes reluctant to accept project leadership responsibilities, not least because a project manager who performs poorly is likely to be shown the door by Lord Sugar and his advisors.  Nobody wants to exit the boardroom with ‘you’re fired!’ ringing in their ears.

The overall responsibility for the day-to-day running of a project sits squarely on the project manager’s shoulders.  If the project fails to achieve its objectives, the project manager is the most obvious target for blame.  Even away from the bright lights and high drama of television programmes, managing a project is challenging.  Members of the project team look to the project manager for leadership and guidance; he or she must plan and delegate work, monitor progress, respond to risks and problems, and regularly analyse and review factors affecting the project.

As a project manager, your ability to co-ordinate and control your project will be enhanced if you can demonstrate excellent leadership and interpersonal skills.  The relationship between the management of projects and the management of people sheds light on some of the key skills used by effective project managers, as outlined below.

1. Communicating clearly

Being an effective communicator is paramount for any project manager.  In many respects, you are the project’s figurehead.  You must be able to talk persuasively about your project as a viable business endeavour, liaise with a wide variety of stakeholders, write concise progress reports, etc. Most importantly, you must ensure that you communicate with project staff and stakeholders using the most appropriate method and level of detail in each case.  As the leader of the project, you need to encourage everyone involved with it to share both your commitment to it and confidence about its chances of success.

2. Exercising foresight

All projects are unique, subject to risks, and different to ‘business-as-usual’ activities.  As a result, project management can be very unpredictable.  While not even the best project manager is equipped with a crystal ball to see the future, making sure that you have the information required to make sensible predictions about the outcome of events is important.  Things will go wrong on your project; but spotting problems as soon as possible, and having a clear understanding of how they may affect the project’s progress, can be invaluable in your work as a project manager.

3. Delegating tasks

While good project managers will never shirk their responsibilities, they must be comfortable delegating work to others when necessary.  Project managers perform a varied range of activities, but they can’t do everything by themselves!  The ability to organise project work, and then assign various aspects of it to the appropriate parties, is crucial.  Effective delegation helps to ensure that each task is performed by the most suitable person at the most suitable time.  If you find it hard to tell others what they need to do in a way that inspires co-operation, project management is not for you.

4. Organising work efficiently

Project managers are likely to nod in agreement when they hear the saying, ‘Nothing beats the satisfaction of crossing things off a list’!  If you find yourself drawing up plans of action and writing lists at work, the chances are that you possess the excellent organisational skills required for project management.  Your role as a project manager is to organise and co-ordinate activities in such a way as to ensure that everyone involved with the project understands what is expected of them.
Various kinds of project management software (e.g. Microsoft Project) are available to help project managers organise, schedule, and plan tasks in a clear, logical way.  If you are worried that your organisational skills are not quite up-to-scratch, attending Microsoft Project training (or a similar course) could help you to improve your approach to organising project work.  Remember that members of the project team will also need to understand the use and purpose of the software.

5. Thinking analytically

As a project manager, you will often be confronted by large quantities of data and complicated issues.  You will therefore need to draw on strong analytical skills in order to make sense of the information and find solutions.  When contingency planning is required, for example, the Project Board members have the final say in most important matters, but they normally expect the project manager to carefully analyse the situation.  For example, if the project’s progress is impeded by a supplier going out of business, the project manager will need to put his or her analytical thinking to the test, and then suggest possible courses of action.  Maintaining a good relationship with Project Board members at such times is vital.

Conclusion

Project managers should not lose sight of the importance of interpersonal skills and strong leadership when trying to deliver projects on time, on scope, and on budget.  In particular, being able to convey clearly to others what is happening and why, as well as exercising control over the project’s progress, is essential if you aim to be a good project manager.

About Our Guest Contributor

Simon Buehring is an experienced project manager, consultant and trainer. He is the Managing Director for KnowledgeTrain which offers PRINCE2 online courses and project management training worldwide. Simon has extensive experience within the IT industry in the UK and Asia.

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Okay, so there isn’t a single blog post out there that can actually tell you how to be a leader, but I’ve been listening to people and reading up on it and have come to a conclusion. You CAN read a blog and get an idea of where to start. You have to decide to pursue the path and then take the initiative to actually start your journey.

Don’t let this blog post confuse you in regards to being a manager versus being a leader. These two roles are totally independent of each other. It is somewhat unfortunate that all managers are not leaders; being in a management role is the perfect place for leadership to come out. Leadership, however, can start at any level. In fact, I once heard the phrase “lead from the bottom up.”  That phrase really made me decide that leadership is something that I have a passion for and not something I would take lightly. You can lead from any position, from a file clerk all the way to the C-wing. Don’t let your current position or lack of direct reports dissuade you from choosing to lead. Even if you simply like working “behind the scenes” you can be in a position for leadership.

Despite what some people say, leadership skills can be taught. Sure, some people have the “leadership aura” around them, but leadership is about relationships. It is also about making good decisions. The following traits that were discussed in a seminar I attended recently are a great place to start practicing leadership skills.

During that seminar, an open poll was conducted on what qualities or traits were needed in order to be a leader. Not surprising, many of the items revolved around actual management duties, but the number one item did not: Integrity. It is such an important word, and one that can be and should be practiced at every level. Integrity is a lifestyle of commitment, a constant decision to do the right thing, regardless of whether or not someone is watching us. Integrity, as the root of your leadership style, will define how you interact with everyone you come into contact with and will be remembered.

Feedback was the second most often repeated trait. Feedback should be honest and balanced. If it is always positive, the team will not learn anything. They will go through their career believing they are a better performer than they actually are. On the other hand, if it is always negative, chances are they will quit and find someone who is balanced and will at least provide them a little positive reinforcement.

The third trait I’ll discuss here is trust. It is essential for a leader to have confidence in the people they are leading. Trust can encompass a number of other items on the list but for the purpose of a shorter blog post, I will simply leave it at the fact that trust is empowering to your team and can actually help them grow rather than “managing” their every move to make sure they make the right ones.

Making the choice is the first step to actually becoming a leader. Once you take the bull by the horns and commit, miraculous things can and will happen. Trust, give good, honest, and balanced feedback, and above all, have integrity in everything you do. Once you have begun to master these traits, your teams will notice and follow your lead.

About Our Guest Contributor

Jim Shaffer, PMP is a project manager and is also a part-time story teller to my amazing children. He has extensive experience in IT projects (web and infrastructure), large documentation projects for industrial equipment, and Integrated Logistics Support and Total Life cycle Management (ILS-TLCM), as well as familiarity in management of the production of industrial equipment programs. He enjoys project communications, process creation, documentation, and streamlining.

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That’s not a secret that at present our life is undergoing a hasty growth of visualization, simple users of the Internet are getting more and more opportunities, they are given practically everything so as not to leave their computers, from ordering take-away food to seeking for a partner. Since the demand is growing, the list of web services is growing, as well.

Thanks to the new Web 2.0 technology, information resources, files, and corporate software can be moved to powerful servers with a possibility of corporate access to them. In other words, it’s like a virtual office when employees are at home but can manage their own clients, goods or services. In fact, such type of work organization is much more profitable because the company bears no expenses on renting premises, transport, utilities, etc.

The virtual office is a specially customized server where you can install the software that corresponds to your sphere of activity. If your sphere of business is sales or online stores, it can be a customer relation management (CRM) system with a client and partner database, an organizer, a mail, online services, and, of course, a file database.  Moreover, the most important function of the CRM system is a set of marketing tools and tools for analysis, the so-called business intelligence system which helps to choose the most optimal variant out of possible ones.

For performing joint creative work on developing business projects and software, there’s another specialized virtual office – the online project management system where all the specialists related to the development of the project (software, mobile application, a website) have an access to the ‘working place’.

The virtual project management office consists of some main elements: a status panel, a task panel, a system of communication between participants (chat, forum), a program of tracking employees’ contribution to the project, time and task tracking (such as, for example, Comindware Tracker), a file database, etc.

Virtual Management Office Advantages

• A virtual management office significantly reduces the company’s expenses on renting premises and business communication between people living in different cities and countries.
• While recruiting employees for the project, managers may attract experts from all over the world. This system can also be suitable for organizations that have traditional offices but hire remote specialists for performing individual tasks or projects.
• Managers can provide the access to the general information environment to all the employees involved in the project.
• Managers can discuss the problems of the project, come to agreement on some points and deadlines.
• Managers can inform the team members on the changes in the documents, news, new tasks, and events concerning the project.

But, according to some people, the virtual management office has some disadvantages, such as:

• If a company is small with a high level of self-organization, it can work virtually. But if a company is big, it can’t do without a traditional office since, first of all, a traditional office plays a ‘representative’ function. Some clients don’t trust virtual offices.
• Some employees have problems in organizing their time properly, which can negatively influence the performance and the work on the project.
• No project management system can replace the ‘team spirit’. No time tracking system or task tracking software system can substitute the real communication between the manager and employees.

Despite these disadvantages, in my opinion, the virtual project management office is a simple and convenient tool for managing online projects and has more advantages than disadvantages.

About Our Guest Contributor

Jannet Sparts is an online editor and writes for several blogs. She previously worked as a project manager for several companies. Currently, she is conducting research on the the best PM software.

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