середу, 21 листопада 2012 р.

Project management: communications in distributed team

During my working experience I had working on several projects in distributed team or I had just communication with customer. The first type of collaboration is typical for out-staffing and some kind of product companies (do you remember "Rework"?), the second type is typical for outsourcing companies and some kind of product companies.

As you know the one of the most important factors in distributed team is communication. Communication is really important for team in general, and the main challenge of communications in distributed teams is a question: how to organize high-quality communication inside distributed team? The friendship in a team is important, how can we reach it in a distributed team?



The basis of successful distributed team is amazing communications between team-members. Everybody must feeling free to communicate with co-workers, doesn't hestigate to ask questions or propose new ideas. All of it depends on quality of communication, on used tools and so on. I'm going to show you several cases, from the worst possible communication to the best one.



TypeQuality levelDescription
Phone call, emailThe worstForget about productivity work, you don 't have distributed team, you have two independent teams that can work only on different independent projects
IM chating (Skype, ICQ, Jabber - no video calls) + Phone call, emailBadYou still have bad level of communications, the team can work on related projects. Also, possible to have dedicated management part of team, that a distributed from development team, but it's acceptable only for simple projects (simple and cleare requirements)
IM chating, video calls, emailGoodYou have distributed team, that can effectively work on one project and reach results just on time
All of the above + your teams meet each other face-to-face on regular base (each 3-6 monthes)PerfectYou are champion! The best of possible communication level has been already reached and you are working in great team on the success product

At the and I'd like to suggest two beautiful presentation about distribution teams:

and second one




Немає коментарів:

Дописати коментар