Virtual project management can sometimes lead to extremely real trouble, which is why your job as “online project manager” even exists. Online collaborations can crash into crisis, and with employees in different cities (or even time zones) there are unique challenges involved with web-based project management. Here we look at ten tips for getting things back under control.
1. Save the Blame
Ever since the caveman first fell behind on his critical “Bashing rocks together” action item, mankind has sought excuses. It’s entirely natural to find out whose fault it all is, but being able to say “It wasn’t me!” doesn’t actually get the project any more done. Besides, as online task manager, it’s your fault in the end - not a fact you necessarily want to advertise. You should track the problem for sure, but only to solve it, not to blame it.
2. Simplify and Stage
As online project manager, it’s your job to tell people what and when - or at crunch time, what and NOW. The vital part is making sure that the “what” can actually be done now, or close to it. This means focusing only on part of the project at a time, defining set “milestones” and “sub-milestones” which can be finished and presented, instead of handing over a flopping chunk of project with loose connections trailing off and running away come delivery day.
3. Identify Key Tasks
The simplest strategy is “Just keep everyone working harder until everything’s done!” It’s also the stupidest, and as an online manager you should be grateful it doesn’t work - otherwise they could replace you with an e-mail auto reply reading “Do more!” You might have one week to deadline, but some of your staff or systems can’t even start until other elements are ready. Various project management software or techniques can help you identifying the key tasks, saving enormous amounts of effort, and getting more people working as effectively as possible.
4. Communicate Key Tasks Clearly
Too often team tasks can get snarled up in side projects and unnecessary details. With employees e-mailing back and forth, goals can evolve out of control until you have twenty things to do - only one of which, if you squint and take a blow to the head, even resembles the original specification sheet. When crisis hits your online project, it’s important to keep cool and step back. Look at all the items asking for attention and decide which actually matter - then let everyone know in a single, clear mass mail so that everyone is on the same page.
5. Set Short Deadlines for Slackers
If someone is dragging their heels on an online project they can create a world wide web of slowdown, holding up everyone awaiting their input - and you can’t just stomp down the corridor to give them a kick. Worse, shouting “Do everything ever!” isn’t the best motivation for a problem person who’s already behind schedule on a million things - your angry e-mail just becomes thing one-million-and-one, and they’ll get to it sometime after the next Ice Age.
To motivate the molasses-mired, start by setting a more easily achievable task - with a clearly defined goal they can’t claim it got lost in the shuffle, and also the feeling of getting something definably DONE can kick start the engine overall. And if that task happened to be the key piece to get other teams at least beginning, all the better.
6. Finish each task
Task management gets harder when there are two hundred tasks. As online project manager the temptation is to spend equal time on everything, dropping each as the next e-mail comes without finishing what you were originally doing. To see how well this works, imagine the fire department answered every call without putting out the previous one. You do have to divide your time, but spending an hour on one element without finishing it only adds to the emergency - you’ve lost an hour, you’re no closer to your goal, and you have one more set of “things you must remember when you get back to it” cluttering up your head.
7. Take a break
Anyone managing anything, ever, will tell you there aren’t enough hours in the day. Crises can cause managers to put in all-nighters trying to get on top of everything, and the thought that maybe sleep-deprived and stressed out isn’t the best way to deal with an emergency doesn’t enter their heads. In fact, after a few solid days at the desk, very little can enter their heads. Never mind the increased risk of actual dementia long work hours entails.
We’re not claiming you should live in a magical unicorn-powered candyland with five hour workdays and breaks for foot rubs. All-nighters happen, more often than you’d like - but don’t treat them casually. They’re an emergency measure only, and if you find yourself burning the midnight oil more than three nights in a week, you need to step back and improve your task management systems before you burn out altogether.
8. Avoid Make-Work
Just because lots of work needs to be done doesn’t mean everyone has to be working. Some of your staff simply won’t be able to start until they get what they need from the others - resist the urge to assuage your own work-conscience by having them grind on unnecessary “feels like work” items. You want them fresh for when their parts of the collaboration come round, so focus on those who need it for now.
9. Amputate
Nobody likes admitting failure - in fact, as project manager it’s kind of the opposite of your job. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and half of everything done is better than everything entirely down the drain. Sometimes you have to get out your project management timeline and the computer equivalent of a great big red pen, then cut until it all fits in the little sliver of the calendar between “today” and “time’s up”. Use your project management software to save the original schedule - you might get back to it later - but for now you have to get on with things.
10. Improve Your Procedures
When the deadline is done, the products are submitted and the dust is settling, everyone can take a well-earned break. Except you. Isn’t it great being a project manager? Surviving a crisis condition isn’t enough - it shouldn’t have happened in the first place! Now you’ve got the time to go through your online collaboration protocols, your task tools, your virtual project management strategies, and find the problem. Maybe your task management tools needs an upgrade, or perhaps better team software are all you need to avoid these incidents, but until you fix the root issues it could happen all over again.
What are your tips for getting a wild and wacky project under control? We would love for you to continue the conversation in the comments. That is, unless you have hair to point.
