Working from Home - the Challenges for Projects to Move Ahead

Introduction

This is not a note on now you will manage and experience effective productivity with the working from home aspect, it is a treatise on how it affects you as a person! So, this is not an approach on how to manage this scenario - rather it might give you pointers how not to manage this process!

First of all, a warm thank you and appreciation - from the bottom of my heart to those who are fighting for the rest of us in dealing with the aftermath of this pandemic! And, heartfelt condolences to those who have lost a near and dear one due to this medical calamity.

Working from Home (or WFH in common parlance) has been something employees have been doing for much longer than we can imagine; in this current scenario everyone has to be in that position. Enviable or not is a matter of perspective.

Working from Home is different from offsite work, remote work, or other derivatives of this kind of support/mechanism to get work done.

WFH as it is commonly referred to (and also how it is most often displayed on your calendar for reference) - is a completely different mindset and requires a different set of rules - both from you and your colleagues, collaborators and team!

As the current medical crisis deepens and this method of work is being forced upon all of us it is imperative that we understand how to navigate this new mode of work and how it will impact our project(s).

Traditional Project Practices

In most cases teams (project and work teams) would rather not deal with an ask for WFH and would insist on having the full team in one place - the office or work environment. Commonly, also known as co-locating, traditionally has been viewed as the best way to manage and promote efficient team communication. It is not a choice for many.

Having a common location has its advantages and gives (in most cases) the manager/team lead a sense that they are in control of the team and what they are doing. The project managers and leads can walk around and visit with the team, often in an unstructured manner, apart from project track and team reviews. And at times gain valuable project insights and get faster knowledge of project issues and concerns. However, regardless of location, in most projects the project manager (or team lead) is managing deliverables when requiring the team members to work towards a time bound deliverable that needs to be gauged easily for success and tracked.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily commonplace, and many project managers do not follow this goal. Don't get me wrong; all project managers are interested in deliverables! But tracking a project with relation to deliverables only without regard to the methodology, is a difficult task and requires practice and experience with appropriately identified milestones. Especially as having a common methodology can lead to better quantity deliverables and better project results. Which in turn gives more importance to the project onboarding processes, to help ensure the use of common methods and consistent deliverables.

Nevertheless, very few project managers say as long as you finish this task in X days; I am not interested in how you get there.

Today’s Situation

Having said that the WFH scenario for your project team now has become the only method to drive deliverables as a factor to understand progress and completeness of tasks. This is a challenge and is for another blog, but below are a few tips to help with your current work challenges and hopefully results in a safe and sane manner for you, your team and your family!

Here are a few pointers to be considered during this mode of work

• Optimize your space (and webcam image)
• Mute when you are not talking
• Keep calls focused and short
• Close the door (or find a secluded place), if you can
• It doesn't have to be a video call always!
• Having a desk and comfortable chair is essential

Other team members on the call should be provided an opportunity to participate - also remember that often networks have a lag and responses and discussions are not as fluid as in person meetings.  Much more patience is required!

Family members, pets and non-project activities may interrupt a conference call; this is part of the WFH experience. Expect it should it happen!

And not everyone has a fast internet connection!

Here are a few thoughts on what WFH is doing to the project

• It is always project work time - the split between office and home is not apparent!
• What happens to work-life balance
• Planning time is important, so you have appropriate breaks; and can maintain focus
• You have to eat - take a break - so you can stretch and cut away from the screen and work
• You cannot walk to another meeting - it is just a change to another call!

And above all

• Respect team members desire to have time with family

On another note the condition we can identify as “home body” in these challenging times; which certainly identifies what a lot of us doing in the past few months, creates a significant stigma/gray area.

With the capability of being able to move out of the office environment one some days and go out to a restaurant or a watering hole to enjoy some down time is engaging and desired. This allows a person to let their hair down and be informal with their colleagues and engage in some other activities unrelated to work.

With the current shelter-at-home directive the opportunity to manage this kind of gathering is now not possible, so what are the options for making something similar happen?

Looking to the options I have seen in the current times, it is not surprising that people have come up with creative ideas and we now have online/virtual happy hours and there are groups getting together after work hours (5 o’clock somewhere). There are various ways in which there are notes/directions of how to make this more engaging and interactive – leading to a more formal structure to these unlike when you walk into a restaurant to grab a drink!

The options available online are various and you have to pick and choose what you want to manage as your framework and basis/theme of your virtual happy hour and choose one that suits your group attending or what you (or your work buddies) can be comfortable with.

I leave you here with these thoughts to ponder and mull about in the next weeks of shelter-at-home life.