When Marilyn heard, "Earth calling Marilyn, come in please," she suddenly realized that she'd been staring blankly at the Gantt chart. The wall-sized Gantt chart. The hopelessly outdated wall-sized Gantt Chart. Her mind had wandered.
"Marilyn here. Over," she replied. "So how do you think it happened?"
Phil was stumped too. "It's a puzzle, isn't it? Project of the Year to red-listed in three months. That chart is just expensive wallpaper now — actually, I kinda like it for the men's room."
"You would. But really…why is this project so different?"
As they talked, they kept returning to their decision not to use local talent. Back when they couldn't even get approval for contractors, they'd decided to use the Wellington people, who were 2000 miles away. And then, three weeks later, they added the two European teams. That made the score: time zones 4, languages 3, continents 2. They had had no choice…after September 11, travel became impractical, even when it was allowed.
Marilyn and Phil are struggling with managing a geographically dispersed team.
If you haven't had that experience, imagine a little four-month experiment.
People work better togetherwhen they know each other
- First month
- Replace all team meetings with teleconferences. Visiting a teammate's office is not permitted. Use the phone or interdepartmental mail instead.
- Second month
- Continue as last month, and eliminate hallway conversation. Use snail mail or overnight delivery instead of interdepartmental mail.
- Third month
- Continue as last month, but limit telephone conferences to three per week, at 7 AM or 11 PM. All other communication is by fax or email. Team members may not lunch together.
- Fourth month
- Continue as last month, but now in-person meetings are permitted — provided they are held at least a full day's journey away by air.
After four months, you'll understand a little of what a dispersed team deals with — if you still have a project left.
Here are some tips for managing dispersed teams:
- People work better when they know each other
- What we don't know, we make up, and what we make up is often scary. When we know each other — even a little — we like each other better.
- Have an in-person kickoff meeting
- An in-person kickoff meeting is essential, because people have to know each other before they can trust each other. Leave plenty of free time for socializing.
- Face-to-face meetings are necessary
- People need to meet face-to-face once in a while. It's the way we're made. Budget for it.
- Count on trouble
- Communications are more problematic the more remote they are. Face-to-face is safer than phone is safer than email is safer than fax is safer than overnight mail is safer than silence.
- Get training in video, email, and phone
- Since we aren't born knowing how to conduct a videoconference, we need training to do it well. Training in email and teleconferencing is also helpful.
Using a dispersed team might be a way around the bureaucratic constraints, but it isn't cheap, because you need budget for travel and training. Most important: go slow. It takes time to prevent (and sort out) communication mix-ups. Top
Next Issue
Is your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Project Management:
The Risky Role of Hands-On Project Manager
- The hands-on project manager manages the project and performs some of the work, too. There are lots
of excellent hands-on project managers, but the job is inherently risky, and it's loaded with potential
conflicts of interest.
Communication Traps for Virtual Teams: I
- Virtual teams encounter difficulties that rarely confront face-to-face teams. What special challenges
do they face, and what can we do about them?
Power Distance and Risk
- Managing or responding to project risks is much easier when team culture encourages people to report
problems and to question any plans they have reason to doubt. Here are five examples that show how such
encouragement helps to manage risk.
The Risk of Astonishing Success
- When we experience success, we're more likely to develop overconfidence. And when the success is so
extreme as to induce astonishment, we become even more vulnerable to overconfidence. It's a real risk
of success that must be managed.
Tuckman's Model and Joint Leadership Teams
- Tuckman's model of the stages of group development, applied to Joint Leadership Teams, reveals characteristics
of these teams that signal performance levels less than we hope for. Knowing what to avoid when we designate
these teams is therefore useful.
See also Project Management and Project Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II
- When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.
And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying
- Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.
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