MyProjectAdvisor Newsletter

September, 2008

MyProjectAdvisor^®  News, Contact hour and PDU Opportunities

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MyProjectAdvisor^®  September 2008 Newsletter

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Telecommuting, Alternative Workplaces, and Project Communication

As we grow ever more tech-savvy, the cost of commuting continues to sky-rocket and employees are expected to be reachable on evenings and weekends anyway, telecommuting is becoming more and more popular with corporations of all kinds. And it seems like a clearly win-win situation: The company saves money on running their building, and employees get more flexibility and save time on commuting, hopefully leading to greater job satisfaction and productivity. Hopefully.

But as Regina Fazio Maruca points out in her Businessweek article “How Do You Manage an Off-site Team?”[1], tensions can quickly escalate into bitter email wars that face-to-face contact could dispel. Instead, they grow unabated in digital form. She writes, “Alternative workplaces are not just a matter of ‘give ‘em a laptop and a cell phone.’ If anything, the new virtual organization calls for more thoughtful planning and attentive management than traditional workplaces do.”

The fact is, all of these new toys that make relaying information so cheap and fast can generate communication problems bigger than the ones they solve when they make certain boundaries look irrelevant. Just think about how easy it is to go behind someone’s back, or thoughtlessly lay on the criticisms in an email, saying things you’d never say to someone’s face. Then think about how easy it is to hit ‘forward’ and ‘reply all.’ And ‘recall’ can’t keep people from reading all those nasty comments.

Another issue that telecommuting raises is how easy it becomes to let people fall through the cracks. This is especially true of mixed environments, when some people are working on-site and others off-site. If you have regular personal contact with someone, and only email and phone contact with another, whose side of the story is usually more credible?

But while the communication challenges facing the digital workplace are indeed unique, the basics of good communication on projects remain the same; as managers we still need to make everyone on the team feel connected, committed and actively involved. Nevertheless, It’s just that now, with face-to-face contact becoming a special occasion rather than the norm, we have to a) work harder at communication while b) adapting to new communication tools.

The tools themselves are not the problem, but when they are not used properly, they get in the way of the very thing they were designed to help – communication. When there are problems, it is easy to use the mediated nature of internet communication as a screen to hide behind until the storm has blown over. But these are exactly the times that project managers are called upon to take direct action, bringing themselves and everyone involved out into the light, acknowledging the problem directly, and facing it together. Through this teamwork emerges a kind of connectedness which resonates positive energy through the project’s entire structure, creating an environment in which “team members feel free to push beyond their comfort zones, because failure is not feared.”[2] This kind of connectedness goes beyond rooms and wires, because “people, whether collocated or across the world from each other, can stay connected when certain conditions exist.”[3]

In the end, the tools do not make communication – from the very beginning communication has always been about people. A service-based project leader ensures that project team members working from diverse locations need not suffocate in a digital communication bog. It is a primary service to ensure that even those who are out of sight are not out of mind.  

Links of Interest

Interview with the Project Management Podcast (TM) on what it takes to be a successful project leader - give it a listen!

http://www.thepmpodcast.com/

Jack's popular presentation on the 3 leadership competencies needed for project success, now available on pay-per-view: 

http://www.itmpi.org/webinars/default.aspx?pageid=841

Jack's one day seminar on the Strategic Project Leader, worth 7 PDUs

http://www.pmi-lospadres.org/index.phtml?menu=side_button&menu2=29

Catch my webinar on September 17^th Mastering Service-based Project Leadership

http://www.itmpi.org/webinars/

Great things come to those who serve!

Sincerely

Jack Ferraro PMP

President MyProjectAdvisor

Order Now,"The Strategic Project Leader:  Mastering Service-based Project Leadership"