Is your project team scattered all over the place, and most of your meetings done on the phone?  Many project managers lead a virtual team and getting the best out of people and their time can be a challenge when you are not based in the same office.

You can learn how to do work better with a virtual team by joining The Virtual Working Summit, which runs from 28 June through to 9 July 2010.

I’m one of several experts taking part in the first ever Virtual Working Summit. It consists of short, practical interviews over ten days this summer and is hosted by Dr Penny Pullan from Making Projects Work. You can join wherever you are, by phone or web. For more details, see the Summit website.

The Summit will cover:

• Building Trust Remotely
• Navigating Across Cross-Cultural Tripwires
• Tools for Successful Virtual Working
• Communication on global projects
• Sustainability and Virtual Working
• Negotiating Internationally
• Social Media and Virtual Teams (this one is my presentation)
• Conference Calls Made Easy

And there will be other topics as well.

The Summit is free, and the first of its kind.  It will give you access to leading thinkers and practical tips to make you even more effective at working virtually – which has to be useful for project and program managers looking to be more efficient.

If you can’t make it to any or all of the presentations, Penny is recording the proceedings and they’ll be available to buy on CD, so you can listen to what you missed at your leisure.

If you are able to attend, why not register now? I look forward to ‘seeing’ you there!

Related posts:

1. Today I’m at the Virtual Working Summit Today I’m speaking at the Virtual Working Summit on the subject of using social media with virtual teams, in conversation with Dr Penny Pullan. Want...
2. Virtual Working Summit Special Offer In July I spoke at the Virtual Working Summit, which was a great, fortnight-long event with loads of interesting speakers.  The presentations were recorded and...
3. Join the PM Telesummit, 8-10 March Do you feel that 2011 is rushing by too quickly?  I can’t believe that February will soon be over already, and I haven’t made much...

I’ll be presenting to the APM’s Women in Project Management SIG on 10 June, and you are invited.

We’ll be talking about how project managers can use social media.  I’ll be presenting this:

There’s a revolution happening in project management: social media tools are finding their way from branding and marketing to the hub of companies and project teams that are making new things happen. The old project management methodologies are being challenged by the fact that those working on projects are using social media tools to communicate and collaborate, and the ways in which we work with colleagues and virtual teams have changed forever. Not everyone agrees with that, though, and convincing management that you want to adopt social media tools for productivity gains can be difficult.

This session will look at the theory and practice of using social media tools to get things done in business. Is it hype or do these tools actually work? And how do you get started with a project-based social media initiative in your own company?

It doesn’t matter where you are, this is a virtual event (and it’s free) so you can come along if you want to.  Find out more and book for the event here.

Related posts:

1. Social Media for Project Managers: survey Happy New Year! You might have seen the little pop-up box which is appearing on this blog at the moment* which talks about a survey....
2. Win a copy of Social Media for Project Managers I’m back from the U.S. – a place where you can use your hairdryer in the bathroom, unlike here – after an excellent PMI North...
3. Social media in a project environment – the results Earlier this year I ran a survey looking at the uses of social media and enterprise collaboration tools in a project environment.  Thank you, if...

Earlier in the month I attended a womenintechnology event about the business value of social media – something I’m particularly interested in, given the topic of my forthcoming book.

The evening was held at the Intellect offices on Russell Square, and the room was packed.  It was a pretty small room, in comparison to some of the WiT events, but there were still a couple of hundred people there, all feasting on wine and cheese before the speakers.

Eileen Brown (@eileenb) gave a general introduction to social media and some of the dangers of participating on Facebook and Twitter without understanding the community rules (and getting fired in the process).  I realised how much I knew about social media when she finished her talk and I hadn’t learned anything.

Euan Semple (@euan), on the other hand, spoke about how he felt that the terms social media, enterprise 2.0 and web 2.0 gave the impression that this movement was different, discrete and expensive when really it is an extension of the changing workplace.  Again, all concepts I have researched for my book, but he was a very engaging and interesting speaker.

“I think there is something ‘female’ going on,” he said, describing the move away from the ‘male’ approach to hierarchy and status.  Semple explained that the evolution of the workplace gives us more choices about where and how we want to work.  “I have to decide not to work 24/7,” he said.  The evolution of technology helps this – Semple said that it was naïve of companies to ban access to Facebook when many employees carry a phone capable of accessing the site anyway.  Managers who worry about people wasting time on social media sites should worry less.  Relationships are based on trust and “that is why inanity matters,” Semple explained.  Sharing small, non-work, confidences and comments is how relationships grow.  And everyone needs successful, strong relationships in the workplace.

The value of social media in a workplace setting was highlighted by how Semple explained organised networks.  We all know the official networks in the company – groups of interested professionals, or perhaps ‘the women’s network’, and the corporate hierarchy.  But we all know that there are other networks in organisations too – people who lunch together, play golf, have their children at the same schools.   Social media allows individuals to connect into those “viral networks”.

“Management is about tidying up,” Semple said, and making things look organised is not one of the spin-offs of a social media initiative, so the two approaches can seem at odds.  “Much of the organisational function of management is becoming less and less needed,” he said.  Instead, organisations will want middle managers who can see patterns in perceived disorder and help other see those patterns.

Social media initiatives at work may not be easy to get off the ground.  Semple advocates the Trojan Mice approach – small steps and an incremental deployment, convincing users through word of mouth and by making the tools intuitive.

Much of the resistance to corporate social media deployments is about the fear of losing control of the information channels.  “Did you have it anyway?” asked Semple.  Just because you think you had control of the communication channels doesn’t mean you actually did – social media tools make it easier to notice that you don’t.  However, embracing the social media approach to working gives management (and individuals) greater influence.  And influence is far more practical today than control.

You can download the slides from the event from the womenintechnology page about it.

Related posts:

1. Event: Social Media for Project Managers I’ll be presenting to the APM’s Women in Project Management SIG on 10 June, and you are invited. We’ll be talking about how project managers...
2. 25% off Get Started Using Social Media on Your Projects If completing the social media survey has made you think about how you could be using social media tools on your projects, then Get Started...
3. The Social Media & Project Management Survey returns This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey. This time last year lots of you completed the survey...

Today, Andrew Filev, who writes the fab Project Management 2.0 blog, and I are swapping posts.  We agreed on the loose topic of social media and project management.  Andrew has a great deal of knowledge on enterprise 2.0 and social media, so I’m glad to have him as a guest author today.  You can read my take on the subject on his blog!

Bas de Baar, Josh Nankivel and Cornelius Fichtner raised an interesting question during their presentation at the PMI Global Congress. The question was, “Why should you care about social media?” Social media in project management is a hot topic, so I decided to elaborate on the question and tell you a short story of two project managers.

The Story

A U.S. company, SuperSonicTeams, Inc. got really lucky last year. It acquired two rather big projects at one time. Both projects came from oversees clients (the first from London, the second from Barcelona) and implied the involvement of SuperSonicTeams’ three offices in San Francisco, Orlando and Dallas. The work on the two projects started simultaneously. The first one was led by Jake and the second by Simon. Both Jake and Simon are experienced project managers and know how to do their jobs well.

Jake’s Project

Jake is always busy. In the morning, he comes to his office and checks his e-mail for messages with project updates. He then spends hours calling his team members, e-mailing them or meeting them in person to collect all the information he needs and to make sure that everything is well and on track.  After that, Jake, as a manager, has to merge these updates into the project plan. Later, the updates also need to be communicated to the upper management. So Jake has to make reports and hand them in to the company’s executives to keep them aware of the project’s progress. Jake also has to follow up on the London client’s feedback or the partner’s actions. How? Via e-mail, phone calls and meetings, of course. He wishes he could see his client from London more often, though, as he knows the importance of personal relations in project management.

During the course of the day, he constantly has to resolve issues through another endless series of e-mails, phone calls and meetings. No doubt, Jake also has to handle matters, like confusion of different versions of the same Word or Excel documents, or to help his people to find where the project-related documents are stored.

Jake’s team members are also busy, as they get 50-100 e-mails per day that they need to check. They do not have direct access to the project plan, so if they want to report progress on their tasks, they need to e-mail Jake about that.  Sometimes they miss important items, but it’s not a big deal, as Jake always remembers to call them up and remind them to check their e-mail (unless he is too busy himself or simply forgets to do this).

Sounds tough, but Jake is an excellent manager who loves his job. He manages to keep everything on track, though he hardly ever has time to think about his project management strategy or his team’s motivation, and he often has to stay in the office overtime. But, well, nothing is easy, right?
Anyway, despite all the difficulties, it looks like Jake is going to complete the project successfully and on time. However, with this crazy schedule, he will probably feel overstressed and dead tired.

Simon’s Project

Simon sees project routine differently. In the morning, he opens his e-mail inbox, just like Jake, but the amount of messages is down to 10-15, so it doesn’t take him long to check them all and send his replies. He believes that e-mail is a great tool, as long as you don’t get overwhelmed with messages. Simon’s team doesn’t need to exchange dozens of e-mails, as they use a Web-based project management system, where everyone can check the project progress online, including the customers from Barcelona and the corporate executives. Moreover, Simon’s team members can update their tasks online, so the project plan is always up-to-date.

At the very beginning of his project, Simon thought it would be neat to run an internal project blog, where he could publish his project development vision, and his team members from offices in San Francisco, Orlando and Dallas could give him their feedback online, instead of calling him on the phone, which is expensive and time-consuming. Later on, his team members also started to publish their ideas on how they can move the project forward faster. This project blog turned out to be a brilliant way to share project-relevant thoughts for the whole team. Everyone checks it as soon as they get an RSS update, and if someone wants to go back to an older post, it’s really easy to find it, thanks to tags and categories.

Simon doesn’t use his phone for project collaboration that often. He prefers Skype, as it has instant messaging, call and video conferencing features all in one place. He runs quick, 15-minute virtual meetings with his team and customers from Barcelona every day, and he doesn’t even have to leave his office for that.  Simon thinks that IM is a great tool, but it doesn’t always work well for team collaboration. This is where Simon finds a microblogging app very helpful. Simon’s team members use it to report what they are working on at any given moment of time. They ask questions. They share links. They quickly share files they’re working on. They announce that an issue turned up, and they are stuck. They get tips and help from their peers immediately. Simon and all his team members check this microblog from their phones, as well, and can respond to an important request even on the go. Everyone will get their updates instantly. This is very convenient for a team that is distributed over 4 different time zones.

Simon doesn’t have to deal with issues like document version confusion, as his team uses a project wiki to create their project documentation. This wiki is a universal reference resource for Simon’s team members, and they love using it, as it’s easily searchable, editable and available online anytime they need it.

Just like Jake, Simon is a very busy man. He is busy thinking through the next step of project work and motivating his team members. In fact, he even made friends with his team and clients, as he knows that personal relations are the key for any project manager. He catches up with them on Facebook and LinkedIn, and he follows them on Twitter.

Simon also is successful with his project. Moreover, the project results and the journey to those results exceed the clients’ expectations. Why? The team collaborates seamlessly, has fewer communication issues and, therefore, makes fewer mistakes that need to be corrected. In addition, Simon managed to create a real project community, even with a distributed team of people who never saw each other. As a result, his team members are really passionate about their work and readily follow their project leader. The clients from Barcelona love the way Simon is handing the project and are going to bring another big project to SuperSonicTeams.

When Simon hears the phrase “social media,” he says that he doesn’t care for buzz words and never follows the hype. He simply keeps up with the latest tech trends and is not afraid to try new things. Some of them prove to be very useful for his project management practices.

When Simon’s project is over, he will immediately be ready to take on a new one. Yes, the one that was brought by his clients from Barcelona.
Who do you think SuperSonicTeams’ executives will value more? Jake or Simon? The answer to these questions is sure to lead you to answer the earlier one: “Why should you care about social media?”

Andrew Filev has been managing software teams since 2001 with the help of new-generation collaboration and management applications. His best practices are based on implementation of Enterprise 2.0 software in project management. Now Andrew is an expert in project management, a successful software entrepreneur and the CEO at Wrike.com, as well as writing regularly for the trade press and on his  popular Project Management 2.0 blog.

Related posts:

1. Social Media and Project Management: a waste of time? In this video, you’ll go behind the scenes at the podcast I recorded earlier this year with Paul Naybour from Parallel Project Training, Lindsay Scott...
2. International Project Management Day: Is social media making projects more complex? The theme of this year’s PMI UK Chapter International Project Management Day conference is ‘Complex Projects – Elegant Solutions’.  So, in keeping with that theme,...
3. The Social Media & Project Management Survey returns This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey. This time last year lots of you completed the survey...

Email sent! Please check your inbox for the download link.

Happy New Year!

You might have seen the little pop-up box which is appearing on this blog at the moment* which talks about a survey.

I’m writing a new book on the role of social media and enterprise collaboration tools in a project environment, and I am interested in gathering your experiences – positive or negative.  The survey is 9 questions and takes less than 5 minutes, so please do complete it if you can.  [Update 30/12/10: this link has now been deleted as the survey is closed and the link goes to the 2011 survey instead].  The results will appear on the blog and will probably get a mention in the book too.

I’m also interested in hearing from you if you have more experiences you would like to share that might make interesting case studies on the uses of social media for project teams.  Please get in touch.

As the book develops you’ll get all the latest news here, so stay tuned to hear how things are going.

*The box is powered by WP Greet Box, a WordPress plugin.  So far, it seems relatively easy to use (although I did have to do some work to get the related posts links to work properly with it), and you should be able to avoid seeing the pop-up again if you click to close it.

Related posts:

1. The Social Media & Project Management Survey returns This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey. This time last year lots of you completed the survey...
2. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey.  This time last year lots of you completed the survey...
3. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey Results The 2011 Social Media in a Project Environment Survey results are now available. Key highlights: 20% more people are using blogs for business use than...