EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF VIRTUAL TEAMS – THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Keith MacKay, TechnoFactoKeith@KeithJMacKay.com

JUGGLING = PM (METAPHORICALLY) Must keep ALL balls in the air Drop one, derail the works Juggling and PM: disciplines

Learnable techniques May understand theory,

but practice required for success …and, yes, half the people you deal

with as a PM will also think you’re a clown.

WHO IS *THIS* CLOWN? MIT, Brain & Cognitive Sciences Co-founded a team-based robotics

competition at MIT, now a class for credit Over 1000 projects since ‘84

Developer, BA, PM, Managing Director,CTO, Founder, Advisor

Co-author of QUE Office book Past-President – MIT Club of Boston Instructor, Northeastern University

Online MBA Mentor MIT Class “Solving Complex

Problems” Virtual/distributed teams

In-/out-sourced, on-/near-/off-shore Teams (and/or I) have variously been in

Europe, India, China, Japan, Uruguay, Canada, and all over the U.S.

VILLAGE SOFTWARE Outsourced software

design/development Onshore Offshore

Outsourced PM Insourced PM

ON EXPERIENCE

“Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others' experience.”

-attributed to Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

WHAT I’LL COVER Overview plus Tested Tips and

Techniques for: Better Management of Virtual Teams Cultural Differences/Factors to Consider Language Challenges

Tools to facilitate productivity with remote teams (or local ones, for that matter)

PM ABHORS A VACUUM Never enough time Always more to do Project expands to fill available space

A la George Carlin’s “Stuff” By definition, virtual teams mean more to

do…

IS IT WORTH IT? Ideal Case:

Supplemental skills Lower Overall Cost Diversity

Different strengths Different education

Maybe different infrastructure and resources

Round-the-clock 6-heads-are-better-

than-1

“Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly at first” Must Make

Investment Time, energy, systems

Must Pivot as Needed Review Correct

Must Manage and Support your People

MANAGING VIRTUAL TEAMS Peter Drucker:

Managing Professionals = Managing Volunteers

Almost all of the downside of your live teams Conflicts Power struggles Miscommunication Ensuring motivations are aligned [Your favorite challenge here]

ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES: VIRTUAL TEAMS

Less frequent communication Slower team cohesion/longer ramp-up They may have no advocates other than you Harder to monitor Accountability

Microcredit example How do you get it?

Relentless follow-up Daily concalls Test and review

ADD’L CHALLENGES: WORK-FROM-HOME

Do your people work well from home? Professionalism

Separate work space “Uniform”

Distraction

YOU MUST BE A TRANSLATOR/DIPLOMAT PMs/BAs have always had to speak

multiple languages and do translation Originally, between biz wonks and tech

geeks Now, cultural factors added to the equation

Thinking about how to communicate with your *specific* audience matters Message often needs repackaging

depending on the listener

CULTURAL FACTORS Breakfast cereal rollout in India

As of 2007, 30% growth/year And yet, initial rollouts failed

“I have a doubt” Different visual cues “Face” and respect

TRANSLATION FOR “I HAVE A DOUBT”…

You are out of your

mind.

Nuts!

Not possi

ble.

No way!

Are you kidding?

You have flipped.

Your elevator doesn’t

go to the top. You’re not playing

with a full deck.

Lost your marbles!

Not in a million years.

Hahahaha!

PM *IS* COMMUNICATION Every issue I’ve encountered came down to

a people issue or a communications issues Clarity Brevity (Thomas Jefferson quote) Parenting is good prep—establish standards

and rules while remembering to have fun REMEMBER: PM really equals “People

Management” (you manage people, not projects)

LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE FACTORS Multi-cultural teams, variety of languages

An ear for accents helps--exposure Communicate in writing

less pressure = more understanding Multi-modal communication reinforces

Establish language standards Well-commented code--in Vietnamese. Didn’t

help my team of U.S. developers… Code page standardization

TOOLS FOR VIRTUAL TEAMS—START HERE Meticulous Project Documentation

No software will solve existing problems here Complementary Skills Mix on Team

No software will solve existing problems here Diplomacy

No software will solve… You get the picture. Start with solid PM. Having *A* tool is more important than the specific

tool use what works for you—but use SOMETHING A little discipline can save a lot of time and effort

MATURING MARKET FOR TOOLS Scheduling Communications Remote Access/Screen Sharing Document Sharing/Tracking Document Collaboration Tools Bug/Incident Tracking Process/Project Tracking Source Code Control

SCHEDULING Free web apps: Doodle, TimeBridge,

Tungle Pro: simple Pro: free Con: Don’t distinguish live/f2f vs phone Con: Don’t handle physical location (some

meetings need to be in-person, and people are free but not in same location)

Con: Rescheduling is a pain, no automated apologies, etc.

Con: Don’t allow prioritization of conflicts

COMMUNICATIONS Synchronous

Telephone Videoconferencing Web Meeting

Synchronous or Asynchronous IM/Chat (Trillian) Web-Based Phone Services

Asynchronous Email Wiki Facebook Wall Twitter

PHONE & VIDEOCONFERENCING Phone

FreeConferenceCall.com Video—Corporate

Polycom Tandberg

Video—Free or Cheap Skype iChat ooVoo

WEB MEETING Webex GoToMeeting DimDim.com AT&T Web Meeting Service Yugma.com Vyew.com – Free option (advertising

supported)

WEB-BASED PHONE SERVICES Skype.com Fring.com Google Voice Ribbit.com Phonebooth.com Ringio.com

ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATIONS Email – use appropriately! Wiki – for sharing/documenting

SocialText/Microblogging, etc. Facebook Wall – can be useful with Facebook

group to create community Blogs – Useful for team and for outsiders. Am

going to start using this more. Twitter – meh. Has its uses, but it’s a broadcast

mechanism. Command/control doesn’t work well in team-building.

REMOTE ACCESS “Screen Sharing”

LogMeIn.com GoToMyPC

Remote Desktop VPN

DOCUMENT SHARING/COLLABORATION Document Sharing/Tracking

SharePoint SocialText

Document Collaboration Tools Google Docs Wiki

BUG/INCIDENT TRACKING

Mantis RMTrack Bugzilla BugTracker.NET

PROCESS/PROJECT TRACKING

Microsoft Team Foundation Server Project GoPlan Basecamp

SOURCE CODE CONTROL

Subversion (SVN) Microsoft Team Foundation Server Git Perforce CVS

Have a good story or a tool to recommend?

Send me an email!

Keith MacKayKeith@KeithJMacKay.comTwitter: @KeithJMacKay