Mobile Management 101: What to Do Before You Delegate to Remote Team Members
You know how difficult it can be to manage a team when everyone is there every day and you can visit their desks to discuss performance improvement. Imagine doing the same thing for a team that you have never met and is located all over the world. You may feel overwhelmed if you don’t have any experience with managing remote workers. This article will show you how to navigate the technology, team building, and communications in a mobile workplace so that you can delegate to your team.
Technology
As a mobile manager, you must look out for the company’s interests by protecting systems and focusing on key performance indicator. It also means that your job is to remove all distractions from your team’s way so they can concentrate on their work. Remote workers will need a computer, and most likely, a smartphone. There are trade-offs to be made when company-supplied hardware gets replaced by employee-owned parts. There may be security concerns with certain industry regulations and government contracts depending on the project you are working on. Although ‘Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), policies may seem simple at first, they become more complex when you need to maintain strict controls. It is essential to establish BYOD policies and a strong mobile devices management strategy. BlackBerry MDM can now be used to support multiple Android and iOS devices. Mobile device management programs make it easier for mobile managers to do their jobs well. This will lead to increased productivity and a better working environment.
Team Building
Global Knowledge’s white paper reveals that while technology will only account for 10% of your problems, 90% of your problems will be related to people. Once you have your device security in place, it is time to help your team work together. Now that you have the right people on your team, and you have defined your purpose, you can build strong team dynamics. This can be especially difficult if the team members have never met. It is important to have open communication with your team to discuss what is working well and what needs to be improved. You should also make sure you give feedback and praise each member of the team.
Communications
The team meeting is one of the most important elements of offline management. These are possible online, but they are more difficult when team members live in different time zones. It’s not something that people like to do. It’s better to use intranet blogs, message boards, email, and other forms asynchronous communication whenever you can. If planned and executed well, a face to face video conference can be a great way for team bonding. These are some guidelines for team meetings:
Take into account the different time zones within the team. If someone must be online at an unreasonable hour, it should be the person who schedules the meeting.
Keep the meeting brief and to the point. Don’t waste time with the team discussing something via video conference when it could be done via email.
Make and share the agenda. Make sure that there is a logical order for the meeting. Also, don’t get off-topic.
Make sure everyone understands the main points of the meeting. You should never leave the meeting with unanswered queries.
Software for Project Management
If you’re interested in learning more about top rated project management software, the editors at Project-Management.com actively recommend the following: