EP81 Remote teams that work: A playbook for Project Managers part 1 of 2

Dante Healy [00:00:02]:

Welcome to Business Breaks, your Project Management Edge. Here to bring you sharp thinking, honest conversation and practical insights to keep you one step ahead. Whether you're leading complex programs or managing day to day delivery, this podcast helps you stay focused, make better calls and lead with purpose. So now let's get into it. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Business Breaks, your Project Management Edge. I'm Dante Healey and together with John Byrne, we are taking on a topic that's at the center of project management right now, and that is remote and hybrid work. This is not remote and hybrid project management, but about where you work.

Dante Healy [00:00:50]:

And most project teams are no longer in a central workplace. Some people are in office, some are at home, or you have a mix of both. And with teams now spread across different countries and time zones, that obviously changes how we lead. So this episode is about giving you some ideas for a playbook, avoiding theory and buzzwords, whilst offering practical steps you can use straight away to keep your projects on track and your teams connected wherever they are. So we'll start with communication, and this is one thing that makes or breaks remote projects. So when people aren't in the same room, information risks getting lost. For example, emails get buried, quick chats by the desk don't happen. So how do we stop silos and make sure everyone has the same access to vital updates? John, how do you manage this in your experience?

John Byrne [00:01:57]:

I think this is one of the key things for project management generally. Even if everybody was in the same office, the communication is key. It's making sure everybody has it for remote working and hybrid, where, you know, half the team is in an office together and the other half is somewhere else. It's modern tools, basically, is what we're using. We use things like, you know, for meetings, for talking zoom or teams or whatever, but also making sure everybody has access to files and the plan and stuff like that. That has been the more difficult thing from my experience, because it's fine when everybody works for the same company, but when you've got external people coming in who aren't given company credentials, it becomes a lot more difficult to set up. I mean, where I am at the moment, we're using teams and it took a lot, a long time to be able to give an external consultant access. And what we have now is a problem where we have the internal project team channel and we have an external one for the external thing, but there's.

John Byrne [00:03:14]:

It's where you're hosting the files. Now, is it in the one you know, for the internal team or is it in the one that the external people can access as well. And that gets confusing trying to keep track of it all. But you know, that's, that's basically the best we could come up with with the tools that we had on offer in that, in this particular organization. How about yourself? With the, the larger organization that you're kind of doing projects, do they have a better system or do they have the same.

Dante Healy [00:03:41]:

Yeah, and just to say I was planning on tackling technology later in the episode, but it is important to communication. It's an enabler. Right. And yeah, the big corporations I work with, they just give people credentials, so essentially allow them access. I mean it goes through a number of permissions, but once you've agreed the people, you get them approved with their own corporate IDs and then they access all the same tools, the same ecosystem and environment and it's all housed within the client's business. So their instance of team, their, their instance of SharePoint, their own email IDs. So I think that's, that's key really. And I guess beyond technology, it's really communication as it stands.

Dante Healy [00:04:36]:

Whereas before you used to be able to tap someone on the shoulder if you wanted something or even overhear conversations like picking up information that you wouldn't directly be privy to. That's hard because sometimes you need visibility and being visibility almost like being in earshot of a conversation, learning through osmosis, overhearing discussions that are project related but might not be directly linked to your work, but understanding what's happening. And I guess sometimes outside of that, you're, you're often really reliant on making sure that the project dashboards and tools are actually showing the latest status. And you're not overly relying on private messages because the public status then becomes your official record. So you have to make sure that teams respect that and ensure that they are updating as often as possible. And then beyond that, it's about really communication speed. If things change, then you need to get alignment quickly. So that means understanding who the stakeholders are and making sure they're understanding where we are in the project and what, I guess what responses we are planning or considering.

Dante Healy [00:06:02]:

Even so, it's not just about activity, it's about the results that the communication facilitates. And I guess you touched upon a very important point. It's having a repository isn't just about an ecosystem, but access to the necessary documentation, because the documentation is your insurance, it's your evidence. And as project managers, you know, we need to make sure everything is documented and updated where relevant. So whether that's meeting notes, decisions, and clear toss. We need to make sure everything is up to date so that whoever's responsible for what is able to explain where we are in the project and also protect progress and outcomes. So I guess, John, any thoughts around how. How that's more difficult because a team.

John Byrne [00:06:57]:

Is remote from the communication point of view? I think one of the big things is you're not dedicated to communications. You know, somebody, when you're in person, somebody comes over, taps you on the shoulder, you will tend to stop what you're doing and talk to them and finish the conversation and then move back to what you're doing. Whereas the way it tends to work when you're remote is it'll be a ping, whether it's teams, whether it's slack, whether it's some other instant messaging thing, and you will be trying to respond to that, then go back to doing what you were doing. Then you hear the ping coming through and you respond to it. And you, you're. You're trying to do two or three things at the same time, which means you're not really fully dedicated to any of them. And it gets distracting and it gets kind of where you're almost getting nowhere. Whereas at least when in person, when you may try to continue walking while somebody's, while talking to somebody, it's different because you are talking while typing, while looking at your screen, or.

John Byrne [00:08:03]:

Whereas when it's instant messaging, you're typing and then having to change type into a different app, then go back and, and you know that, that gets very, it gets very frustrating at times for a lot of people, and it gets very hard to manage everything. And I think that's a key, a key skill there that, that you, you just have to figure out what suits you. But even when you figured out what suits you, that doesn't stop, you know, somebody adding you to a big team chat, and it's just constant pings and then you end up having to mute it, and then you miss something that was actually directed at you or was important to you. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's kind of just that one of the new challenges of, of walking remote, and I think it's gotten worse because nearly every so many more people are remote now. Whereas back, back before when it was only, you know, the odd person who was remote or the team who was remote and most people were in the one place, you just have to make sure that that one person or team knew what they needed to know. Whereas nowadays, with everybody remote it means everybody's getting distracted trying to communicate with each other and they're doing it in bits and bobs.

Dante Healy [00:09:13]:

Yeah, everyone tries to get aligned and communicate in one massive go. I found myself often in meetings with 50 other people and you're just wondering, does everyone really need to be here, especially me, because it could be some random thing where I'd rather almost duck out and just read the minutes afterwards because I have no contribution to make. It's almost like the information is being fed to me and I'm having to filter out how much of it is relevant or not. And it's almost like the decision's been made, so the horse has bolted. So it's just I'm an order taker, so don't worry about it. If, if I can't influence the decision, why am I there?

John Byrne [00:10:01]:

The worst one I've kind of finding lately is, you know, when you're doing documents and that and you're using it and you're letting people review them, at least when you're in person, if you control the documents, you go into the, the meeting, the review and you can control it. You get the person to review the bit of the document that's relevant to them. Whereas now when you have to kind of get people to review the document, you've got people reviewing the whole document when 90% of has nothing to do with them. They've got one thing focus on that instead of commenting on things that have nothing to do with them. You're thinking, you're not adding value here to this. This is outside your area of expertise. Why are you worried about that other person's section? Worry about your own section and it becomes very difficult to control those documents. Then that, you know, something that would take a few days to get everything sorted, aligned and approved.

John Byrne [00:10:53]:

It's taken over a week or two weeks because everybody wants to have a say and everybody wants to review it and everybody's doing it on their own schedule. Even if you give them deadlines, it's, you know, it's almost too, too difficult to control who's sectional. You know, you'd almost have to divide a single document up into several different documents and just give people access to the one document that contains their section.

Dante Healy [00:11:16]:

Exactly. And I guess to wrap up, really, it's about making sure that you can filter the noise and get the signal whilst also simultaneously ensuring that everyone who needs to contribute has a voice, because it's not always the loudest person on the digital platforms who is the most informed. And really it's about as an effective project manager, making sure you have communication systems that ensure that every team member can contribute and put it all in a place where the project manager can go in if need be, see at a high level initially where we are and then drill down into the details as needed. And it might mean a combination of stored information dashboards as well as your group chats to collect ideas, organize ideas and align across the team. So I think good communication is one thing, but moving on, it's also about how do you actually know what's getting done without standing over people's desks? Because you can't do that anymore. So I think accountability in a remote team is another tricky challenge because if you don't get the balance right, too much oversight looks like micromanaging. Whilst on the flip side, if you have too little, you lose control. So how do you find that happy balance? Just getting enough information to be on top of things without putting undue attention.

Dante Healy [00:12:54]:

Micromanaging other people's duties.

John Byrne [00:12:58]:

It'S tough to get the balance right. Kind of for the same reasons as we discussed in the communication piece, it's very difficult to eat or break things down into such small chunks that people can only see their own chunk and can focus on it, but will never see the overall picture, or letting people see the overall picture and then running the risk that they'll start interfering with things that they really shouldn't be interfering with. You know, they're, they're not focused on their own chunks that you actually need them to be part of. And that, that can be, you know, getting that balance right is, is very tough. And, and even with the accountability, what, you know, can happen is people would spend time and do a lot of stuff they shouldn't have been doing, but they didn't get the stuff done that they were supposed to be doing. But their answer is going to be, but I got a lot of other stuff done. And you can get. But that was somebody else's job and what you did didn't really add value to it.

John Byrne [00:13:58]:

But trying to, to control that remotely, I mean, to be honest, you know, you could have the same problem even if everybody's in the same office, but it doesn't usually happen that way, that usually the other person will speak up and say, no, that's my problem. You don't worry about that. I have this, you know, it's more difficult to do though, and it's remotely and you can't stop them, you can't speak up because it's already happened by the time you Realize that it's, it's.

Dante Healy [00:14:25]:

Very easy to have almost a second sense for progress within a team if people are like in desks that are within I shot you can see how well they're working, almost see their reactions on their faces if they are struggling with a piece of work. But it's so much harder to evaluate reliability and competence if you can't observe that person in an office setting. And also, you know, people can easily waffle in virtual meetings just as in physical ones. And so I guess it's really about how do you manage coming back to creating that system to make a person's work, work performance more clearer, faster. You can't just wait to see if someone delivers yet almost have to force clarity to see that progress up until the delivery if it's a medium term task. And also understand what's the competence level. I guess it's really about what's the evidence there rather than just the promises and then taking it on hand that when they say they've done a job, that they have in fact done it. So I guess a well run project usually has documented decisions and responsibilities as well as understanding when people can complete tasks and then also evaluating the quality of the work.

Dante Healy [00:15:55]:

Because some people might meet their deadlines, but they may be cutting corners to do it. And if you're not careful, if they're making decisions on prioritization without aligning with you first, they may have cut the wrong corners, I find.

John Byrne [00:16:10]:

Yeah, I think you have to be kind of, you have to be clearer with your, with the tasks that you're assigning people as well. Like when you were in the one office that, you know, everybody was together, you would be more inclined to go to somebody and say here, this bit here I need you to comment on. So say for example, in a, a document, a, a project plan or a contract or whatever it is, you would actually go and you'd point out the section that they have to review. Whereas the temptation nowadays is kind of more to you put the, the document up for, you know, to be reviewed status in whatever you're hosting it, whether it's SharePoint, teams, channels or any other, you know, slack, whatever, and then send out a message to everybody who needs to put input, review the document and add your comments. That's where then you end up with the problem of people commenting on things that they're not supposed to. That bare section.

Dante Healy [00:17:07]:

You've got 200 people reading a 200 page document from start to finish and that's not efficient.

John Byrne [00:17:14]:

No. And in reality it's like they've got one section, each person has one section for themselves.

Dante Healy [00:17:22]:

Quality check.

John Byrne [00:17:23]:

Yeah, that's it. So you know, like, so say you're, you know, six, six sections in, well, you know, six sections in a particular documents that you're doing and you've got six people each with one section each. What you find is that they're not commenting on their own section, they're commenting on other people's sections. And if you were in person, you wouldn't let that happen because you'd be kind of talking to them and say, no, no, don't worry about that. Focus on this. This is where you're the subject matter expert. I need your detail in this. But when it's being done remotely, it's more difficult, it's very difficult to control that.

John Byrne [00:17:57]:

And that's where I think you do need for accountability. You need to be much more clearer than you would normally have to be to make sure people aren't wasting your time and their time and the actual subject matter experts time by commenting on a section that's not part of what they're doing. And other examples of that, not just contracts, but where people are doing the wrong tasks.

Dante Healy [00:18:18]:

Yeah, it takes a lot of discipline to do the work upfront, to level it, set expectations rather than just assign a high level generic task. Review this 200 page document, for example, as you say, it's best to say you're the expert on this. Can you check these sections? But that doesn't happen in my experience. It's always, you know, it's shared with everyone and they say, here's the document, here's the deadline, review it. And people who are on the two are assumed to be the ones who are owning the review. And it's almost like with any senior manager, they'll, they'll free up time to review it and they'll look for where they can add value and it may not need it. But you'll find invariably there's going to be document bloat with all these recommended changes.

John Byrne [00:19:09]:

Well, that's the thing. I mean you kind of, when you, you, you know, when you're sending this out, you haven't, you're kind of almost subconsciously working off the assumption people will only comment on their area of expertise. And you realize no, people will not comment on their own area of expertise. People suddenly think that they're expert in everything and they'll comment on everything except their own area of expertise. They leave that because, yeah, no mistakes.

Dante Healy [00:19:33]:

Commas in the wrong place. Oh, this wasn't indented properly.

John Byrne [00:19:36]:

You know that if that was all they were commenting on, I wouldn't mind. But no, they actually tried to change content. They actually tried to, you know, things, you know, I' situations where you've asked it to comment on the non functional requirements or something and they start commenting on the functional requirements. What the hell do they know about finance systems? You know, they don't nothing about them. So why are they commenting on the functional requirements? The finance team can comment on the functional requirements. You know, various things like that that you have or the legal people trying to comment on things that aren't really the legal aspects of the contracts there.

Dante Healy [00:20:06]:

They get excited almost like it's a new learning opportunity or a chance to prove that they're more than just their own role.

John Byrne [00:20:14]:

Exactly. That they suddenly think they're experts in other people's roles which means then that you've really. It's not just that they're wasting their time and your time by commenting on stuff they shouldn't be commenting on, but their comments can actually drown out relevant stuff from the subject matter. Experts. Yeah. And it works the other way as well. You know, I kind of picked on there, but other people commenting on stuff like, you know, I picked on it there, you know, commenting on the functional stuff. But other people commenting on their stuff is just.

Dante Healy [00:20:44]:

Yeah, yeah, you get function, you get business commenting on technical aspects. Yeah, it's like they know about APIs or code bases, you know.

John Byrne [00:20:53]:

Exactly. They heard something somewhere or read something somewhere and it's a buzzword. Yeah.

Dante Healy [00:20:58]:

And they're all want to be not just a business person, but a tech person as well.

John Byrne [00:21:04]:

And it's very difficult to control that remotely, you know, in person. You can control it very easily by having the, you know, a quick meeting with somebody and you're just going to show them the few pages of the documents that they need to comment on. They're not getting to see anything else. But when you have to put the document up, everybody can see everything. And it's very difficult to, to, to get, you know, all you can really do is say yeah, but ignore, but ignoring all those comments on the irrelevant stuff that you haven't got. But even then it's, it's very difficult to manage that because you, you need to be able to do it without getting into a political battle or, you know, upsetting somebody or, or whatever that goes. But yet there they. Getting people to be accountable for the right stuff is, is, is a challenge.

John Byrne [00:21:45]:

It plays into the communication as well. It's very Difficult to actually separate all these things out. I think communication will be an underlying thing throughout all the sections because it is done. But it's, it's control and accountability is. It's difficult to pin down as well, because as I said, it's not like they're not doing the walk, it's just they're doing the wrong work.

Dante Healy [00:22:06]:

Yeah. And I think we skipped over the idea that, you know, because it's obvious. Right. If you have a task, you need to make sure there's a clear owner for it beyond a racy matrix. So we're going beyond the racy matrix and really defining what's what. What, what's that? Right. Acceptance criteria or definition of done or whatever you want to call it. But really it's about how does the task link to an outcome and how do you make sure that the person who's assigned the task and owns it understands that you don't want to cut too many corners and skimp on quality, but at the same time, you don't want to gold plate the outcome and create unnecessary administrative burden or effort beyond what's needed to achieve the outcome.

Dante Healy [00:22:54]:

So again, on an individual level, you have to communicate standards and you have to ensure that the person who you've communicated to understands it. So comprehension is key as well. And if they're basically not competent or not motivated, that's a different issue. And we'll probably cover that in another episode if we haven't already. So I guess moving on from the individual aspects, if we talk about team cohesion in a remote setting, because nowadays most teams, especially complex ones, are distributed across locations, which is countries and even continents and time zones. And when work is flowing, that creates. Another risk is that teams can split into multiple camps and the people in the office versus the people at home. If that happens, trust can break down fast.

Dante Healy [00:23:53]:

So if we look at how to keep everyone connected and part of the same culture, no matter where they sit, how do you ensure that there's that all important team alignment and cohesion? John, how do you find that challenge and what are the remedies for that? If teams are distributed.

John Byrne [00:24:16]:

I think that has a bigger impact on inexperienced people. It has an impact on everybody. But somebody who's just starting off really needs more support than somebody who's been there, done that. No. And even somebody who's been there, done that. If they've been there, done that, but with different people.

Dante Healy [00:24:34]:

Yes.

John Byrne [00:24:35]:

The whole thing has to mix again. So I think, you know, if you're, if you were lucky enough to get established with your team in person and then you're distributed out. Things work still very smoothly because everybody knows everybody, how they walk. It's when new people come in or you. Yeah, even if they're experienced people, that can cause problems. But if they're not experienced, if this is like their forced big project or that they really are, you know, they be left almost abandoned or a feeling of abandonment. And then especially if they've come in and they're the odd one out, the rest of the team, we're all work together at some stage and they're all, you know, know each other and how they work and all that. And then somebody else has to come in to try and fit in there because the rest of the team just might not realize, you know, it's human nature.

John Byrne [00:25:24]:

You don't be thinking of those things all the time. So it can be very difficult to make sure everybody has an equal voice in meetings and decisions. You can, in person, you can kind of see somebody wants to say something but maybe is nervous about saying it and you can coax her out. But on a meeting online, that can be very difficult to read even if you, you know, you do want to. I have been in some projects where people never turn on the cameras for certain meetings. You do need to get them to turn on the camera so you at least have some idea is that, you know, are they, are they paying attention at least? But even then it's very difficult of all you're seeing is somebody's head and shoulders.

Dante Healy [00:26:07]:

Guilty is charged though. Sometimes my Internet connection fails so I have to switch off my camera. But if it's really important, I'll have it on. And I have met most of my team in person or even if I don't work in office daily. There are days where I make the effort to actually visit the teams where possible. Obviously I'm not going to fly out to India to visit the teams there.

John Byrne [00:26:34]:

I'm not dedicated enough.

Dante Healy [00:26:36]:

I know I'm not committed, but I can't, I can't, I can't sell either because I can't convince the business case for flying out there for a couple of weeks. I go, I go as long as I'm not paying. But yeah, it's one of those things where you can still build relationships by meeting face to face, even if it's occasionally and I think it's not a one and done. It's not either or. I think hybrid models work, but it's. How often do you have to be in person and as you say, Even switching on the camera, I think it's somewhat limited. It reminds me of something that happened when a security guard in a plant, he was the new head of security and he decided to opt for a technology solution rather than having 24 hour round the clock and then fully cover it. Full coverage of Gods and what happened was we had an incidence of insider theft and because one team who were, who were collaborating with the thieves actually was tipping off the.

Dante Healy [00:27:53]:

And they were security guards, they tipped off the thieves that they were caught on camera. So they all ran away before the, the offici. Well, I guess the non insider guards caught them but they were caught on camera. But because the camera wasn't of a high enough resolution they couldn't get an exact match as evidence to take it further with the authorities, if that makes sense. So I think as you say having having your headshot in a remote meeting is probably better than nothing, but it's not going to give you everything. And there are times when it gets glitchy as well. Like people who have the camera on but their Internet isn't that great. They sometimes freeze or their voice goes funny.

Dante Healy [00:28:43]:

I think sometimes the technology bandwidth is, can be limited especially if you're in a meeting, a virtual meeting with about 50 plus people, maybe even a hundred. So I guess there's those technical challenges as well.

John Byrne [00:29:01]:

Hello. I suppose. And that's a thing as well to bear in mind. Like as you said, because you can do virtual meetings with a hundred plus people and that people do them but you would never have an actual in person meeting with 100 plus people. You would always have much smaller teams. And I think that's where people need to try to remember as well that just because the technology exists to go much bigger you still, you should think more like if we were in person we'd be in a small room that could only host about half a dozen to a dozen people. So let's keep the meetings to half a dozen to a dozen people so it'll be relevant so you can actually see people react to people, talk to people. If you can do it in person at least once at the certain certainly early on in a project.

John Byrne [00:29:45]:

I think it's really, it's just gives a face to. So if somebody is asking you for stuff later on on an email or that it's not just some anonymous nuisance that's annoying you, there's a human being who's asking you and you, you can put a face to it, you've met them, you know what they are. It makes things A little bit easier, I think. And if you can't do it in person, just even the once at the beginning, then just make sure that, you know, maybe have a one to one on a video call. But don't have your meetings with 20, 30 people on a video call just because you can. You wouldn't do that in real life. In a, in a thing you would have much smaller group meetings. Do that on the video calls as well that have smaller groupings where people can actually talk to each other and all participate.

Dante Healy [00:30:33]:

Yeah, I think those large meetings only work if the communication is one way and there's no time for any Q and A, any interruptions. It's just, and usually it's the most senior person because no one dares interrupt them.

John Byrne [00:30:46]:

Well, that's it. It's a webinar. It's, it's like a town hall type meeting. That's all they're before. But you do see that, that people will start. And also because it's just so easy to, you know, you send out an invite and then suddenly invites have been forwarded.

Dante Healy [00:31:03]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They grow, they grow suddenly.

John Byrne [00:31:07]:

Then you're showing up to a meeting that should have been only half a dozen people and there's 20 people on it, you know, and you don't know who half them are.

Dante Healy [00:31:13]:

And it's usually it's big consultancies. They forward it onto everyone almost like as if it's insurance.

John Byrne [00:31:20]:

So yes, you're almost better off at times I think using, you know, we'll probably get to it with the technology, but just in case we don't, you, you know, you can set it so that your meetings cannot be forwarded. Do that. And even if you, if you're not sure who should have gotten it, don't let them forward to tell them come back to you and tell you who, who they should, you should include in the meeting because they're, it's important for them to be. But you know, if you start getting that, you know, not everybody luckily enough where I am at the moment, that doesn't happen too often that things get forward and usually it'll only be one or two people who genuinely are relevant to the, to the or. I have had it in the past where you send out an invite and then suddenly you're getting things that your meeting has been forwarded to 20 other people and you're thinking, who the hell are they?

Dante Healy [00:32:02]:

Yeah, you know what, I can accept if it's forwarded, but it's because the person who's forwarding has declined the meeting and they've sent someone as a, as a designated representative for the, from their team. That can happen, but I guess or.

John Byrne [00:32:18]:

They bring a specialist, you know, that you know, dare to representative from their team and you've invited them. But what's coming up is going to be something very specialist and they have somebody else on their team who's even better than them. Are it? Yeah, that's fine. You know, and it's one or two people that get invited on. It's fine. But so I, I have had, as I said in the past in other places where suddenly, you know, a team that should have meeting, that should have had like five or six people are, has like 15 people and suddenly some 10 extra people were added and you're counting. Hang on a second. Yeah, it's a half hour meeting.

John Byrne [00:32:48]:

How the hell can all these people be relevant to it?

Dante Healy [00:32:51]:

How can they contribute?

John Byrne [00:32:52]:

Yeah.

Dante Healy [00:32:53]:

Then if they're just listening in, they shouldn't be there.

John Byrne [00:32:56]:

No, because that does actually cause problems as well with the meetings. Like you were mentioning before, you know, a few minutes ago, you're saying bandwidth and that at the meetings, you know, where you have too many people at the meeting that can have bigger problems.

Dante Healy [00:33:09]:

You'll get, you'll get pings in the chat, you'll get requests, you get people complaining, either they can't hear or I. I've even had people who had babies crying in the background, you know, and you have to sort of like take the host controls and mute them. Not, not because, you know, I'm not love kids.

John Byrne [00:33:32]:

But it's distracting, especially when it's somebody who's not really got anything else, you know, they haven't got out to contribute. They probably shouldn't be up and eating in the first place. Yeah, yeah, that, you know, and it.

Dante Healy [00:33:46]:

Also distracts because then that starts a side conversation about kids, you know, and you know, it's like the meeting's hijacked and you might as well have not bothered. But I guess going beyond the logistics of remote meetings because we're distributed teams, I think another thing that is important for team cohesion is really rapport. And that's not something you can build up remotely because that's like the relationship, the intangible connections you have with your team that come over a period of informal chats, working in shared spaces, being around each other and creating those bonds. I think it's harder to intentionally create those moments for rapport. And without that teams team members can perhaps feel disconnected and that slows down Trust, communication, et cetera, all of that good stuff that makes your project team work faster and more productively.

John Byrne [00:34:49]:

Yeah, and I don't think that can be, you know, certainly maybe it's just Merson, but I don't think that can be replicated. Nothing more annoying than somebody trying to build rapport on a teams meeting. You know, the, oh, let's play a game or something like that and say, you know, just get on with the bloody meet and like other things to do. Yeah, yeah.

Dante Healy [00:35:06]:

Two truths and a lie is like.

John Byrne [00:35:10]:

I mean, to be honest, even in person, I don't really have time for those. That kind of silliness, you know. But, but in person you will have a chat with somebody, you'll talk about, you know, a movie or something and you'll get to know them. Yeah. Doesn't happen as much online, but it can't be forced, you know, even in person, I don't think it can be forced. People start trying to.

Dante Healy [00:35:27]:

I'm not in a group meeting, I think one on ones. If you have one on ones with your reports or your team members and then you ask them, how's the weekend been exactly? You know, it's one on one, it's private, it's personal, like. But you can get the occasional wherever you've been on holiday. But I find that's usually with teams who have worked together in person, they build that relationship where they feel comfortable almost stepping into personal questions. Whereas if you're remote from the start, it's very hard to dip into that and it takes longer, I think.

John Byrne [00:36:03]:

And it's also more difficult to fit in. I mean, let's be honest, unless you've set up a one to one, which you probably should as a project manager to be your director board set up one to ones, you can have that type of conversation. But if it's a team meeting, you know, you can't have that conversation. There's going to be somebody on the meeting that, look, I actually have a deadline coming on.

Dante Healy [00:36:25]:

Yeah. Why is this relevant? You're just frustrating them.

John Byrne [00:36:28]:

Yeah, exactly.

Dante Healy [00:36:29]:

And not wasting their time.

John Byrne [00:36:30]:

Yeah, exactly. And it's very difficult when they're on the call to then just leave the call. Whereas if it was in person, they could just walk away because they just say, oh, I've just to go and, you know, do it. And it's grand in that. But it's harder for people to do that. I mean, so you do have to be careful with. When do you have those conversations? You know, oftentimes people will have them when they're waiting for more people to come to a meeting. Yeah, but even then it's kind of.

John Byrne [00:36:58]:

Yeah, but sometimes it starts spilling over into the meeting when everybody is there. So you kind of. That's a fine line. And it's hard to get right between frustrating everybody who's on the meeting and actually building rapport.

Dante Healy [00:37:10]:

Exactly. It's harder to focus on intangibles over a digital communication platform and building a culture requires intent. So it's, it's really hard to be inclusive in a community that is virtual unless you're. I guess it's the new normal. But I've, I've been in teams that have been developed. I mean I am showing my age and we are not young. We've been around before the remote working became, shall we say, the new norm, which wasn't that long ago anyway. But again, how that works is that you, you work together as a team, you work in person, you, you get to, you know, in my, in my day it was me and my reports and we were all based in the same office space.

Dante Healy [00:38:02]:

Sometimes I'd have a larger desk, sometimes I'd have my own office. But, but my office door was always open and I could see my team outside working. So you know, how, how you manage that is all dependent on, you know, fostering that, your values and ensuring that everyone feels included. And I guess beyond that, getting to those personal connections, it's, it's not easy and, and that just takes time to build the trust, the relationship, the communication channels. And that can be over time, over coffees, people go away and have chats and I guess you could virtually schedule coffee breaks. I used to do that a lot initially when I first joined a company as a remote project manager. Haven't done it as much as possible. But I think also, you know, nothing beats a face to face.

Dante Healy [00:39:01]:

Even if you can't do it every week, you should at least allow time for it because that does, that does make all the difference in terms of having a relationship with your team members where possible.

John Byrne [00:39:17]:

Yeah, that's, it's a, it's a tough balance to get right. And don't get me wrong, I love working remotely. Even before it became the norm, I did find that a lot of the projects I was working on that people weren't based in Ireland and even the ones that were based in Ireland weren't necessarily based in the same office. They, you know, it was, you know, working remotely was handier and to do it. But yeah, there is a. The personal aspect can go on and project management. It is all down to how you manage people. It's still people management, people change management, you know.

Dante Healy [00:39:55]:

And it's about the collective and the culture is what really drives how the social norms within a group of people will help their output. So this was the first part of a two part discussion on remote project work. So tune in for the next part in two weeks time where we will discuss tools and culture. Until then, thank you. That's it for today's episode. If this sparked something useful, please share it with a fellow professional. And if you're after more edge in your work, stay tuned. New episodes land every two weeks.

Dante Healy [00:40:40]:

Thanks for listening to Business Breaks your project management edge and speak soon.