Remote Team management

[agarabo]

Hi all

My question is about managing a remote team, the scenario is as follows

I'm the lead of a team that works for a remote client, there are several projects we attend and therefore many leads on the client side, I need a way to track activities and time spend on this activities to eliminate dead times or to better manage my resources and be more aware on what they´re doing.

Does anyone can give me an advice on how to handle this situation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Welshbird]

I think one of the keys to this has to be trust.

I have been part of remote teams in the past, and we all manually kept an individual record of what we were doing which we emailed in once a week.

But it did involve trust on both sides.

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[SQLSister]

Get a web-based task tracking system (or we used a bug tracker one place). Have each task put into the system. As supervisor you should be able to see what each person is assigned and how much time they have put against it and whether they are meeting their deadlines etc. You can move tasks around as they need to be reassigned because one person is overburdened and another has some time available. People can add notes concerning issues that come up in the tasks so that problems and solutions are documented. Here's an example of one of these types of soeftware

http://www.orbisoft.com/

I know nothing about this particular software I found it in a google search just now but I wanted to show you an example of what I'm talking about. We use a task management system that was develoepd in house so I'm not familiar with which are the better ones to use. Anyway, you will need to get the free trials of several to look at and see what best fits your needs.

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

 

[aarenot]

If you can add some documentation duties to their day that will free up some more time to get things done. Oh, wait a minute, that takes up additional time, and reduces production time.


Foremost, ask them how to accomplish this, they will most certainly know thier jobs better than you will.

 

[brand5880]

I have a little less conventional answer to your question, so I hope it helps.

It is going to depend greatly on what type of project management your company uses, how your staff is setup, and what kind of person you are.

I would recommend the below if your company has no existing process setup, you have a standard is setup, and you are a "Stronger" leader.

1) Have a daily scrum meeting for 15 minutes. In it have all team members in the room or on the phone and cover 3 key points with every team member, What did you finish today, what are you working on tomorrow, and what are you waiting on.

2) Use a web based project management solution. We use MS Project 2003 Pro with Project Server. Every day the team member enters what they worked on and how long they spent on each task.

3) Use a Agile project plan if possible. This will you to check individual deliverables easier. This is more of an option then a fact.

 

[mrdenny]

Be careful when implementing SCRUM (which is what brand5880 described). It can work great with some teams, and horrible with others. Some people just can't adapt to the faster pace of a SCRUM project.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com