5 Governance Steps for Distributed Project Team Management

Introduction

The art of leading distributed project team successfully is reliant on principles of good management and establishment of clear goals. Any loophole in communication and difficulty in leveraging strengths in team can negatively impact project execution and results. Hence, project managers must take ideal precautions to keep teams productive online and avoid issues that can lead to project failure. This can be achieved by implementing right policies, processes, tools, and templates in place to normalize project management settings and keep every individual of a team on the same page.

Why governance is critical for project success

As a framework for project management, governance helps establish clear guidelines for project teams to collaborate remotely in a structured environment which resists productivity and regulatory issues. In this blog, we will learn about five key steps essential to good governance for remote team management and project success. Let’s begin –

1. Set expectations for the team

Setting clear expectations for a dispersed team when initiating a project eliminates issues related to misunderstanding which can be a roadblock to team’s performance. In a team, everyone must know what they are accountable for, and the level of professionalism required for the project. Other project priorities include dedicated work hours, expected project deadline, how to keep everyone informed when change occurs, etc., to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

2. Generate team goals and objectives

First create an outline of the big picture of the project. Then determine goals and objectives that will help you to reach to the end of the project. Ensure that the objectives are attainable and clearly defined answering why, what, who, where and when. Set scope, time, quality, and budget standards under which the team will operate.

3. Establish KPIs for monitoring team performance

Setting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are a great way to measure the effectiveness of processes, track project progress and gauge remote team’s productivity over time. It is an ideal measurement system that brings great benefits to both, an organization and its employees. A few instances of KPIs that you can develop are counting billable and non-billable hours, tracking milestones achieved on time, analyzing platform usage for communication via chats, calls, meetings, etc., and evaluating quality of deliverables and rework attended for the project.

4. Create standard policies

Project managers must choose an appropriate communication solution which enhances remote team productivity while offering best in-class security. Microsoft Teams is a popular collaboration tool that comes with abundance of productivity and project management features. Teams ensures flawless communication pivoted on native security capabilities of Microsoft 365.

Additionally, by implementing governance policies in Teams, you can standardize processes as well as workflows, and provide a consistent structure to Teams. This helps to create a disciplined environment for users where they know their roles and access permissions, and how to use resources to minimize confusions. You can also take Teams governance to next level by augmenting automation to it. Using a third-party automation software such as TeamsHub.io, you can streamline governance, automate repetitive tasks, eliminate search related issues, secure data while sharing, improve user efficiency and empower workforce to ensure project success.

5. Collect feedback from employees

Gathering employees’ feedback is vital to know how you can support them and improve work culture to build high performing remote teams. This can be done via conducting surveys or polls on weekly or monthly basis. This way, you can detect how happy or satisfied employees are and what they like or dislike about their work. You can also collect their suggestions on how to improve services to make the workplace more convenient and engaging for them. Last but not the least, you can launch corporate intranet to foster internal communications and socialization to elevate teamwork.

Governance for distributed project team management is easier said than done. But once established, governance mitigates risks and ensures smooth execution of the project. If you are managing a distributed project team and planning governance is too overwhelming for you to do, we at Cyclotron, can help you develop end-to-end governance solution tailored to your organization. For more information, please visit https://teamshub.io or contact sales@cyclotrongroup.com  .