Friday, February 10, 2012

Info On Project Management of a Global Team

By Zakary Coogan


The world is getting smaller. Well, it isn't really physically getting smaller but that is one way of saying that global communications are getting to be so fast paced that the world is absolutely one community in a lot of ways. While using advent of the internet, email, im and VOIP, it is entirely possible to do business with trading partners worldwide without ever leaving your working environment.

For many businesses who are on the cutting edge of new business paradigms, the very idea of a geographically isolated business is becoming obsolete. It can be entirely possible to put together a business consortium or even a project team made of material experts spread across record zones and from around the world. In reality, this kind of decentralized management of business projects is becoming more of the norm than the exception within the twenty first century business environment.

So in the same way those in marketing, product development and investments previously learned how to maximize a project team that is separated by hundreds or a large number of miles, the project manager must also adapt the project management methodology to allow for a similar approach to getting business done.

Conventional project management is a systematic approach to going for a project from scope to implementation which has proven successful in 1000s of companies. We have no reason to abandon this nicely toned methodology. But as start up business paradigms come to play, we have to adapt a good standard methodology like project management software to fit the way business is completed in this century.

Communications is key to any successful project. This is actually the challenge of utilizing a team from across a great geographical divide. It is possible you may execute the entire project with down line you never see. So to facilitate frequent and up to date communications, we must exploit we have we have at our disposal such as...

Blog sharing working environments. Group sharing environments online are becoming more and more common. By starting a tool set on line through which team members can post status reports, leave emails, update the project management software, file expense reports and turn into in touch with each other, you facilitate the level of communication that keeps the group moving forward successfully. Blogs, private community forums are also excellent means by which an ongoing "conversation" can be carried out between affiliates that anyone can check into and get trapped with the content of what continues to be done and what is being planned for that project.

Controlled email trees. Because project manager, email can be an obvious way to quickly keep active in team members. However, it can get chaotic trying to keep up on fast moving email trees. That may be a good reason to trap all emails trees within your online project management software so the contributions of everyone on the team could be captured for further review.

IM staff meetings. IM might be expanded so it doesn't just attract two participants. You can schedule your weekly staff meetings employing an IM conference room and capture the whole proceedings in the IM log thus assuring yourself that nothing which was said will "fall through the cracks.

By becoming adept at using cyberspace as the primary "location" of one's project team's interaction, you can literally create a team of highly specialized talent that can be located from anywhere in the world. This vastly expands your skill to tap the best minds on your work and to streamline the project management process. It will take time to become accustomed to and there will be some missteps on the way. But if you can conquer global team management using internet tools, it'll be a valuable skill for successfully executing global projects for the business.




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