Does remote project management really work?

Tyler Antosh

3/1/16

MIS 441

Tech Musing 2

Article: http://www.cio.com/article/3013956/project-management/does-remote-project-management-really-work.html

Summary:

This article describes the potential restrictions to remote Project Management and some possible solutions to remedy the setbacks that these restrictions impose.  The article indicates the advantages a company might have in establishing virtual project teams. These benefits include lower costs, and an increase in work/life balance, talent acquisition, and efficiency. While these benefits are likely to improve employee morale and lower company costs, there are also various disadvantages to implementing virtual teams in a project environment.

The article describes these disadvantages to be productivity degradation, distance and time zone issues, cultural and legal differences, communication barriers, as well as data access and security issues.  The article goes into further depth as to properly describe what these scenarios might look like in the workplace. The article also provides a list of possible solutions to fix each disadvantage that a Project Manager might face while working with a virtual team.  While there are various situations that might impede remote project management, the article encourages a project manager to assess their company’s structure and capabilities in order to decide if virtual team projects are a possibility to promote their company’s success.

Relevance to MIS 441:

This article is highly relevant to what we have been learning about project management techniques. While there were no explicit statements regarding project management methodologies, the concept of remote project management is highly interesting. Remote project management contains all the struggles that in-person project management faces, such as which methodology to adopt and how meetings need to be conducted in order to remain on schedule, but also the struggles of virtual communication across time zones and software platforms. In class, we have learned some effective ways to properly maintain in-person projects with agile methodologies. However, we have not been alerted to the possibilities of trying to effectively translate what we have learned into a virtual platform. This article is able to bridge that gap.

Importance to an MIS student:
This article is important to MIS students because they will not always be working on projects with their team in an in-person setting. As technology and software capabilities advance, the possibility of virtual team projects continues to increase. Some students have experience with working on teams that have virtually communicated on various projects. These same students can also relate to the struggles that the article has mentioned. This is a beneficial article for MIS students to read, because it will prepare them for the struggles that they will face both in person and on virtual teams. It will also provide them with ways to resolve the struggles that they are likely to run into.