What are the best practices for managing non-profit program development projects remotely?

Defining your scope allows an organisation to be focused and become an industry player or leader through consistency. It allows for proper stakeholders mapping and engagement, define organisation's message and channel of communication and it helps set boundaries of engagement.

The need to prioritize regular communication, roles should be assigned with timelines (realistic ones please), and the need to encourage collaboration; this would help with one staff keeping tabs on another. And of course, monitoring the process and evaluating the outcomes.

Remote management usually requires a more experienced team to lead on field. Therefore the program manager will act more as a leader who provides guidance and monitor progress. What will change? The duration of the program will be prolonged to ensure proper monitoring of the achievements. Increase in the monitoring and evaluation budget. Increase in the number of meetings and reports. Increase in the number of tools and systems. Adding additional processes to each phase of the program.

A few approaches I have found useful are: Ensuring that you have Budget versus Actual templates to track expenditure. Also using RACI (Responsibility, Accountability, Concerned and Informed) or Responsibility Matrix is also a plus in assigning roles and responsibilities and works for project initiation and close out, and during implementation

@Kim you are absolutely right, we are social beings. It is important to connect with each other for a productive and efficient workplace.

CONTINUED FROM MY PREVIOUS POST: It's therefore critical for leaders/managers to be intentional about creating space for those informal interactions, trying to provide opportunities to meet in person from time to time, and use technology/digital tools in creative ways that foster learning and collaboration (i.e., breakaway sessions rather than exclusively powerpoint presentations in calls; use of video for certain meetings; creation of Teams chat groups, including channels for "virtual water cooler or coffee talk", designated "office hours" for key staff to be available for one-on-one conversations with interested colleagues, etc.).

Client and donor satisfaction is critically important. Capturing and publishing human interest stories, case studies goes a long way in demonstrating impact of project activities. Also pulling together virtual site visits is an innovative way of sharing best practices and showcasing results.

In my experience human resources & stakeholder engagement or participation on the ground has been the make or break of remote npo projects. Therefore there needs to be investment in time and resources to ensure you hire implements that have the right skillets, access to networks & stakeholders identied as key to the project and also once project commences to continue motivating them, providing capacity development opportunities and ensuring alignment, fidelity to scope. An additional area that often neglected is proactive familiarization by the remote workers to enhance their understanding about the structural and social cultural context of the project and other factors that may affect implementation.

Most of the tips presented here refer to process. I'd say a key cross-cutting factor for success is team-building and relationships -- in other words, the human element between the people who must work together effectively to design, deliver and account for project results. Remote or hybrid working risks to be isolating for staff, can make communication more challenging, and reduces opportunities for informal interactions and getting to know colleagues on a personal level. TO BE CONTINUED IN MY NEXT POST (due to character limits)