There is absolutely no doubt that, during this very difficult season and due to the pandemic outbreak, it is important to have all the valuable information in hand that will help us efficiently manage our EU funded projects remotely.
EU funded projects including Horizon 2020 projects could be quite difficult to implement the normal way. Remote work can be even more complicated. With this article, we will try to attempt to give you some information regarding the process you should follow when it comes to remotely managing your project.
Managing the project efficiently and staying on schedule
The moment you realize that, managing the project remotely is a necessity you are going to have to start with the very basics. First and foremost, you will need to develop an internal team for the project. In other words, you will need to create a team with which you will have a much closer contact as well as a much more frequent social interactions.
It is important to remember that, when assigning the tasks to that team, you will need to distribute them based on expertise. During difficult times like this one, it is important to remember that yes, we do need to work as a team that each person needs to be able to deliver their tasks appropriately. Expertise will play a very important role.
Now, for your EU funded projects, apart from your team you will need to collaborate with a lot of other people from different countries. One of the very first things you will need to remember is that working cultures can be quite different. In the case of remote work, those working cultures are even more important to pay attention to.
Organizing the consortium
The very first thing you will want to do would be to set up organizational rules. Due to the difference of the working culture, organizational rules are usually different. In the case of remote work, this will need to change. You and your partners need to have a meeting and agree upon your collaboration and at the organizational rules of the projects, you’re implementing with them.
You need to remember that, there might be a need for you to access to knowledge and capacities of other partners as well as provide them with access to the knowledge and capacities are you have. The project needs to continue running so, you might not be able to avoid sharing a few of your secrets.
Individual work
Probably one of the most important parts of the entire process. Your very own individual work. Working from home usually means that you will not be spending more than five hours being productive. Especially if you have a family like children banging the doors asking for attention or parents who are going through their daily routine without any change.
You need to manage your own time when it comes to your tasks and the delivery of those tasks. If you are going to be working for only five hours during the day make sure that, during those five hours you will complete more work than what you would if you were in the office. Perhaps, you might even want to consider working late hours when everyone has gone to bed. Whichever the case, you need to be able to deliver your tasks in time and you need to manage your time based on the environment you’re working in.
Some simple must-haves
If you have never had to work remotely before it is completely reasonable to assume that you might not know where to start. Well, there are a few things that every house needs to have if it is to be turned into a working space for a specific amount of time. Here is a list of the five things you must have to work from home.
- Stable Internet connection
- a fully functional personal computer or laptop
- a fully functional headset
- access to the server of your company
- secure connection
Among these things, a secure connection could most likely be the most important one. Nowadays, you never know who might be watching your computer or might be trying to steal your data for any given reason.
It is important that, when you are using tools like for example Dropbox or Google Docs or even your email, you will know exactly who is watching your files. You need to control access rights to your files and make sure that you’re never going to share sensitive online data. In most cases, being at home will give you a sense of security but in the world of the Internet that security might not be realistic. Make sure that you will always know where you store your most important updated documents and never share them with unknown sources.
Your work as a project manager
Your projects remain your projects and you will need to have eyes in pretty much everything. Yes, you are going to need appropriate tools that will be able to support you. The same tools will be able to help your team collaborate much better and easier.
However, it is important for you as the project manager not only to set up your task monitoring and reporting processes that help your consortium do the same. Communication is the key in this particular case. You need to have a meeting and set up task monitoring reporting, deadlines and of course the joint online work.
You and your partners will need to understand that, just because you are working from home does not change the nature of your work. Yes, you will need to have access to all the data needed for you to stay on track meaning that you will need extra access to the company's server and perhaps even access some of the files your partners might have. In such cases, you may need professional PHP development services to ensure the servers are secure and any projecy you've taken on is successful. However, this does not change the fact that specific deadlines will need to be met. Always monitor, report the track all the project's progress and processes
We could suggest that in this case, you could use an Excel sheet or an online tool like an Excel sheet to create your tasks. It could be something simple like the name of the task, the name of the partner, the day the task is supposed to start, the deadline date and the segment for comments and small reports. That alone will be enough to help you keep track of the processes of the project.
Always go for that videoconference
Try to imagine receiving three, four or 10 longtail email threads that you are going to need to go through every single day. How frustrating is that? No one likes to do that. It is much more preferable for you to set up videoconferences with your partners to discuss problems of the day and potential changes as well as the evolution of the project.
This is a good idea even when you return to your office. However, during remote work, you will need to have a specific schedule for it. It is recommended that you do calls twice a week with the coordinator present as well as most if not all the partners.
It is also important for you to speak every week with your partners to inform them about the deadlines of the project's work packages starting with those that have the closest deadlines. Since during remote work you need to constantly be online, even smaller calls that could last a minute or two could save you a lot of time and help you proceed with your work. Last but not least, remember that everything discussed during the call will need to be written down and distributed to everyone. Perhaps, you could appoint one partner during a call that will be responsible to write down all the important matters of the court and then distribute them to the rest of the partners.
Always be clear about what you need
During remote work, you will need to communicate with your partners a lot of times. It is completely reasonable to assume that if you are not completely clear there might be a few misunderstandings. This is why you will need to set up specific goals and be clear about them.
You need to always make sure that all of your communications are going to be kept clear in terms of processes for the project. Every time you need something from a specific team member make sure that you will explain it to them in an analytical way. Do not leave anything out of it.
Perhaps, during remote work, you might want to redistribute certain responsibilities or perhaps even add a few new roles in the project. For example, since more online project meetings are going to become a necessity perhaps, you could appoint a specific partner with the role of moderating those meetings. Another partner could have the role of taking notes during the meeting.
It is also important to utilize all of your software expertise to help your process as well as your partners. For example, if you do have a person in the office that is a software expert you could ask them to set up some tools that will make your communication a lot easier and perhaps even help you increase the productivity of the consortium.
Risk management is important
When you’re working remotely there is always the possibility of things breaking down. There are potential risks that you’re going to have to consider and be one step ahead. Social distancing for example during remote work is a potential risk. As mentioned above, you might be living with your family which means that you’re going to have distractions every single day.
During difficult times like this, the psychological fear is a real possibility and it could affect your mood and the mood of the people you live with. Eventually, that will have a bad effect on your work. By having a bad effect on your work you could delay your tasks which will eventually affect the tasks of the people and end up with a late deadline which could make the delivery of certain tasks impossible.
To avoid all of that you need to not let them happen. To avoid social distancing make sure that you will have regular calls with your colleagues. Create a specific to-do list and make sure that you will apply the list to avoid losing a sense of time. During your working hours trying to ensure that, you will not be disturbed by any family member.
Make sure that you will take your time to analyze those risks and perhaps even ask for feedback from your colleagues. You can make use of the WordPress survey plugin to accomplish that. During one of your meetings, you could address this specific problem and make sure that you are going to figure out ways to solve it together.
Important aspects of the project
The quality of your work, time management, and the weekly structure of your schedule are going to play a very important role in the evolution of the project. You will need to maintain your high quality through reports and processes.
You will need to create your very own time management spreadsheet to make sure that you will meet your deadlines perhaps, even in advance, you will set up your weekly goals and prioritize them and of course, check all of your milestones and your deliverables based on the original schedule and the one you are going to create. You must keep everyone informed and make sure that you are going to stay on track.
Personal time management
We must not forget that, during these difficult times, it is important to maintain our sanity. Unfortunately, when we are forced to spend hours upon hours in the same space it is completely reasonable to assume that we might start losing track of time or the ability to work properly.
You need to manage your time in a way that will help you avoid stress. Make sure that you are going to track the time you spend working every single day. You need to set time limits and stop working when those time limits are met. After that, you should spend time with yourself and your family doing things that will calm you down and ease the stress away.
You could even create some to-do lists for your personal time. For example, you could decide that you want to learn a new language or that you want to acquire a new skill. Small things every single day are going to help you go through this entire process a lot easier. Last but not least, you will want to plan ahead. Even in your personal time, planning ahead could help you a lot when it comes to reducing your stress and make your environment a lot more pleasurable to living and working.
There are advantages
Yes, this might be a very difficult time but we must not forget that there are certain advantages to working from home. It could be a lot quieter compared to the office. Working from home could give you the ability to choose your very own way of working, choose when you’re going to work and use tools that are going to make your work a lot easier compared to the office.
Yes, you have a lot more free time and, during that free time, you could schedule meetings with your colleagues to simply have a joint coffee break or perhaps even lunch. You can apply your office routine to your home retain up to a certain level to maintain your productivity.
Remember that, working remotely might mean that you are working from home that does not excuse late deadlines or missed timelines. The project needs to always go on and yes, during remote work you might even have to devote one extra hour every single day to complete your tasks. In the beginning, this might be a bit difficult but we can guarantee that from a certain point after you will fall into a routine, you will be able to complete your tasks a lot sooner and reduce the time you work from home.
