How to Lead an Online Project Team

Contents

• Establish team dynamics and standards
• Create a Successful Project Strategy
•  Establish a project schedule and follow it

Have you ever attended a Zoom meeting that was badly organised? Maybe there were problems with scheduling, communication, or endless rants without a purpose. Managing a team for any project may be challenging, particularly when your livelihood or future education is at stake. As the most convenient alternative, virtual meetings, it is crucial to prepare how to manage a successful virtual project team.

Establish team dynamics and standards

• Decide how to reach you. Which form(s) of communication will you use while conducting meetings? Skype, Zoom, or Google Meets video or phone calls?
• Agree on the team's and the project's goals. What are the aims and goals? The possibility of the team breaking apart once the project is over is a further factor to be taken into account. Making consistent judgements in the future will be aided by having a goal and vision.
• Create a team agreement. Team members should be briefed on their responsibilities and the anticipated quality of their contributions. Together, you may create and sign a contract that will hold each team member responsible. Think on how the team will handle absences, lateness, interruptions, and other anticipated issues.
• Choose team-building exercises. How to inspire the team and create relationships is up to the leader. Make sure everyone feels at ease asking for assistance from one another and cooperating as a team. It might be beneficial to do quick bonding activities like icebreakers, story sharing, and name memorization. To create a link to in-person activities, you may have participants take turns discussing on video calls what they love about their dogs, artwork, or other interests.
  

Create a Successful Project Strategy

• Develop a comprehensive action plan. Action plans specify what should be done, who should do it, and how. Split up the tasks, and make sure everyone is responsible for completing their share, but also that there's a backup plan in case someone falls behind. Contigencies should be covered in the team contract; now, concentrate on the steps needed to complete the project.
• Build authority channels. Who is the superior? Do all participants answer to the leader or to one another? How often should members provide updates? Do members have the power to make choices immediately or do they need to check in first? For every problem that can develop during execution, specific channels of authority should be created with matching methods of communication (email, phone call, text, etc.).
• Encourage the achievement of objectives. What spurs the team members to continue working? Members may be inspired by the job itself or by outside pressure. Many people value social acknowledgment from completing a successful work as much as the compensation from it, therefore rewards do not necessarily have to be monetary. Discover a technique to encourage team members to continue working when they are doing well by providing positive reinforcement.
• Follow developments and make revisions often. Measures to assess performance and success should start once the action plan is in motion. How do you gauge the success of the group's members? If something doesn't work out, what will you alter in the team or the plan? It's crucial to maintain leading the team throughout execution and being adaptable.
  

Establish a project schedule and follow it

• Plan out all crucial deadlines and occasions. To schedule the completion of each project component, Google Calendar or a tool comparable to it works well. If using a tentative timetable, share the calendar with the team and assign someone to keep it updated. Meeting times should be communicated to the team, and timelines should be constant.
• Divide aims and goals into milestones. Knowing your due dates will make achieving goals simple. The project's leader should have a document with all of the smaller tasks and components listed on it, along with information on who is responsible for each job and a place to record updates when a component is finished. It would be useful to have a single document that everyone can consult to see how the project is progressing. Since Google Sheets is similar to Microsoft Office Excel but is simpler to distribute, it is a beneficial platform.
• Each meeting's leader should alternate positions. Making each team member feel like a vital component of the group is a part of the "stay to it" element. To do this, it's a good idea to alternate meeting facilitators. Allowing others to take the lead can help prevent burnout in one individual and increase their commitment to seeing the project through to completion.
• Implement the suggested corrective actions. Keep trying even if anything goes wrong. Whenever anything or someone causes the team difficulties, go back to the agreed-upon steps in the contract and really start the remedial procedures. For instance, tardiness issues will only become worse if ignored. When an issue occurs, it's important to quickly identify and address its source.

Even virtual meetings may go well and stay on schedule if project team management is given enough attention and preparation.