How To Develop Your Project Management Skills During Pandemic

By Anastasia

The times of offline meetings, drafting plans on paper, and staying late in the office are almost gone.

But do we need to regret them?

Though we got a bonus of working from home, a step toward the digital transformation became a challenge for both employees and their project managers.

Here are 7 tips to help PMs stay effective during lockdowns and keep their teams connected, focused, and updated.

Remote Project Management: 7 Tricks to Be Successful and How a Salesforce Consultant Can Help

1. Keep every team member informed

Since only you see the puzzle from above, tell each little “piece” how vital they are. Explain who is working on what, share recent outcomes and actions taken by the members of your team. Decide how to keep updated those teammates who miss a call or meeting –– whether it’s better to arrange another video conference for everyone related or quickly discuss the news one-on-one.

2.   Don’t overload colleagues with information

Creating one collaborative chat can seem a comfortable option –– but only at first sight. Who has time to read all those messages or scroll back to find some detail? Try separate charts for each team instead –– yes, you’ll have to monitor them all, but the information will be more structured.

3.   Choose an effective schedule

Probably, some of your developers or customers are in other time zones. So shift each member’s working hours, so you all could spend most of them together. However, reserve a couple of hours in the morning and evening for uninterrupted work. And though work from home is all about flexibility, try to start and finish (!) your day on time too.

4.   Motivate your team to be responsive

Setting deadlines for message replies and tracking your team’s activity is okay; still, mind the supervision level. People aren’t robots to sit in front of the monitors for 8 hours and answer within seconds, though you can sometimes need immediate replies. Well, if this is the case –– just call, don’t text. And try to avoid being too official at calls –– side comments and jokes help make the atmosphere less tense.

5.   Approach every teammate individually

If you want to cooperate with each employee effectively, think about personalities and life circumstances. For example, if the guy has a baby or several toddlers, sometimes you can hear their cries during the call. Or, if a person is more like an introvert, calling him every hour may seem intrusive.

6.   Keep yourself physically and mentally healthy

Since you’ll need a lot of energy for cooperation with your team and owners, arrange regular breaks for fitness, yoga, or meditation. Taking a shower or even sleeping for 20 minutes can recharge you before the crucial meeting with the product owners –– luckily, the remote format allows this.

7.   Automate routine tasks

Try to delegate to Artificial Intelligence numerous routine tasks. Thus, you and your team will get more time for prioritized tasks that will eventually boost revenues. Today nearly every company should incorporate an automation platform to track processes, projects and improve communication with clients. And some instruments offer solutions for various business sectors –– like Salesforce Industry Clouds. Whether you provide financial, healthcare, or communication services, a Salesforce Consultant has something to offer.

Should You Hire a Salesforce Consultant?

More personalized relationships with clients and stakeholders, data unification to automate routine tasks, and control over the multi-channel communications in one place are possible in the Salesforce environment. Would you like to get the insights of your customers’ data in a customizable dashboard? Or make your interactions with clients more engaging and have their sensitive information secured? And what about having all meetings scheduled, knowing that all your teams get real-time updates, and having all the analytics at hand? Well, then don’t hesitate to get advice from a Salesforce professional to learn how these benefits can come into your reality.

Or Is It Better to Outsource IT Services?

However, automation is not the only way to help your business stay above in times of digital turbulence. Maybe you never thought of it, but some services (like QA testing) can be outsourced –– to help your company save funds and fulfill the commitments to your customers and shareholders.

Being productive is an advantage that can be reached through, for example, the build-operate-transfer business (BOT) model. And why not combine the opportunities behind both options –– BOT and automation? Learn how to do this from a Salesforce implementation consultant!

Wrapping Up

Working from home requires a transition to digital reality from every business process player. And project managers face even more challenges since leaders have to find new ways to collaborate with their teams, stakeholders, and customers.

However, boosting your productivity is possible –– with new approaches to communication and decent software. Automation platforms offer plenty of fantastic features that can be incorporated into your workflow with the help of a Salesforce senior. So, come into the new world!