Due to the exceptional situation we are going through, many projects have been interrupted or canceled. If they require face to face communication, they must be stopped. This is the case for many engineering and construction projects, professional on-site services, etc.
However, many other projects must go on: Think of projects not requiring essential contact between people nor products manipulation; those involving knowledge workers on research or creative activities, consulting, marketing, software programming, etc. These projects keep on running, and project managers must keep on managing.
Constraints are serious. We can no longer have daily standups, on-site follow-up meetings, demonstrations in front of stakeholders, etc. We cannot lead team members face to face, our door closed, sharing a lunch or a coffee together. We can no longer go to John’s place, sit with him for a while, tell him about some customer issue and let him help us decide the best answer…
Fortunately, internet is still working and there are quite good options to work remotely using great collaborative tools. Many professionals are already proficient working effectively from home, interacting with stakeholders and teams not just by email: Online document editing and sharing with Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, etc. Instant messaging with Slack or Microsoft Teams. Managing tasks with Jira, Asana, Trello, etc. Web conferencing with Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. All these tools, most of them available for free, allow teams collaborate nearly so effectively as collocated.
Besides, professional project management demands other so called PPM tools (Project Portfolio Management tools), to get organizations meet project goals. Thanks to these tools, any project managers can plan their projects, invite stakeholders, control team members work, update project performance at each review date about schedule, procurement, expenses, risks, issues, cost, funding, etc. One single project manager can manage projects in different organizations. Stakeholders can access relevant information via web or mobile application, so they can provide timely feedback to take decisions. Program managers, portfolio managers and functional managers can aggregate data to decide reactive and proactively…