Today we talk about Managing Projects across the miles with author and expert Deasun O Conchuir. Continuing the Gaelic state of mind we salute the beleaguered project manager of Hadrian’s Wall and you can avoid some of those problems by taking our How to Create and Manage
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Remote Teams webinar workshop.
Deasun O Conchuir talks to us about managing across distances.
If that’s important to you, check out our How to Create and Manage Remote Teams webinar workshops.
For the September 30th workshop for North America, click here
For the October 1 workshop for India/Asia/Australia click here
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome our guest Deasun O Conchuir of Scatterwork. Since he’s our first Gaelic speaking guest, it seemed an opportune time to dedicate the show to the poor schmuck who had to fight the Scots on behalf of Rome, Aulus Platorius Nepos. His fate as project manager awaits us all if we don’t take care of the details and keep our teams together.
3:18 The quote of the week is from GK Chesterton. How would you define your pet project. Are you constructing or creating?
4:15 Welcome Deasun O Conchuir. Project management is one of the 4 Disciplines of Highly Effective, Leadership Exhibiting, Project Nailing Managers. Managing projects across distance involves language, culture, context and lots of other stuff it’s hard to do. Lots of practical examples today.
6:55 Why does it matter if you can meet face to face since we’re all professionals and such is life? It has to do with brain chemistry as much as anything else. Brain chemistry and project management, you don’t get that connection just anywhere. That’s what this show does best.
9:20 Avoiding chitchat and personal time seems like a good idea but it leads to bad assumptions and miscommunication.
12:30 Sometimes you have to take the time to make concepts clear to a remote team. Roles may differ from place to place even if you don’t know it. Lots of cross cultural examples.Yes, there’s a thin line between stereotype and observation, hopefully we’re on the right side of it.
16:00 When do you check assumptions and when can you assume everything is okay. You want to avoid Wile E Coyote moments. I assume everything is okay unless told differently. Apparently I’m wrong.
Cultural norms create all kinds of unintentional problems.
23:27 Communicating with your own team members is easier than getting them to communicate with each other. Recognition and sharing “wins” is really important.
What’s also important is making sure you share everyone’s objectives so they know who does what with which and to whom. Good specification is important and small teams.
27:00 What tools does Deasun like? Sharepoint is a good one when they use it well, but bits and pieces of different tools work well. Facebook is a simple way to help people get to know each other, IM works and it doesnt’ have to be but it’s quick. Also, Basecamp is a cool tool.
Other Resources
LumoFlow for project managers
Oxygenz
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