project management
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Dear all, Being a team of free lancer developers, three member team working at different places, we are facing issues related to project managemeent and specially coordination between the team members, as all of us work from our homes. As a team head i am looking for some best practies of project management particularly suitable for us and specially to tackel the following areas, 1. Team coordination 3. configuration managment Please suggest me any thing e.g., your experience, articles, process model, books etc., so that i complete my projects effectively and efficiently. Thanks Muhammad Sarfraz
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Dear all, Being a team of free lancer developers, three member team working at different places, we are facing issues related to project managemeent and specially coordination between the team members, as all of us work from our homes. As a team head i am looking for some best practies of project management particularly suitable for us and specially to tackel the following areas, 1. Team coordination 3. configuration managment Please suggest me any thing e.g., your experience, articles, process model, books etc., so that i complete my projects effectively and efficiently. Thanks Muhammad Sarfraz
Muhammad, you have a unique challenge, though it's one that is becoming more common. Someone in your team must lead, else you're doomed to fail. I suggest that, since you had the chutzpah to post here, you take on that role. Set goals for your team, in terms that they can relate to and report on. Hold a group meeting online at least once a week to see how everyone is doing, offer help, and report status. If at all possible, meet in corpus once a month, over dinner or lunch, to help establish a rapport among your team. Set up a status tracking system, whether on paper or PC, and keep it up to date. If a member of the team falls behind expectations, assign another to mentor him immediately. We all have blocks, and using a team/mentor model helps to break those. Good luck, and keep us posted on the progress of your team - if successful, it will make a great article for CP!:-D
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Dear all, Being a team of free lancer developers, three member team working at different places, we are facing issues related to project managemeent and specially coordination between the team members, as all of us work from our homes. As a team head i am looking for some best practies of project management particularly suitable for us and specially to tackel the following areas, 1. Team coordination 3. configuration managment Please suggest me any thing e.g., your experience, articles, process model, books etc., so that i complete my projects effectively and efficiently. Thanks Muhammad Sarfraz
I second what Roger says - excellent advice! :) I have found that forums are an excellent means of communication. If you can't get those set up, email is fine, too. ;) Here's a project/task management site[^] that might help you, although it might be a bit overblown in your case. :~
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Dear all, Being a team of free lancer developers, three member team working at different places, we are facing issues related to project managemeent and specially coordination between the team members, as all of us work from our homes. As a team head i am looking for some best practies of project management particularly suitable for us and specially to tackel the following areas, 1. Team coordination 3. configuration managment Please suggest me any thing e.g., your experience, articles, process model, books etc., so that i complete my projects effectively and efficiently. Thanks Muhammad Sarfraz
A big problem in all workplaces is communication. Eg the leader/boss tells the worker to do something, however the worker has a totally different idea as to what it is he/she is meant to be doing. In remote workplace situations this is far worse. I always try to practice telling back in my own words what I believe I have been told to do, and ask underlings to do the same. Unfortunately many people find this infuriating and would prefer to have poor communications. Thus I beleve good lines of communication are essential otherwise your team will be going in three seperate directions. In coordinating a team, it is necessary to know each team members skills well before allocating them tasks and alloting them time limits. Herein lies a great deal of diffulclty as often the team members do not know their own strengths and weaknesses or and abilities. However if you manage to correctly identify the members you can use resource centric programme planning rather than task centric project management. Personally due to the problems I have described above, it's my belief that teams are a highly inefficient means of completing projects, and the prima donna approach is better. Regardz Colin J Davies
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**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
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A big problem in all workplaces is communication. Eg the leader/boss tells the worker to do something, however the worker has a totally different idea as to what it is he/she is meant to be doing. In remote workplace situations this is far worse. I always try to practice telling back in my own words what I believe I have been told to do, and ask underlings to do the same. Unfortunately many people find this infuriating and would prefer to have poor communications. Thus I beleve good lines of communication are essential otherwise your team will be going in three seperate directions. In coordinating a team, it is necessary to know each team members skills well before allocating them tasks and alloting them time limits. Herein lies a great deal of diffulclty as often the team members do not know their own strengths and weaknesses or and abilities. However if you manage to correctly identify the members you can use resource centric programme planning rather than task centric project management. Personally due to the problems I have described above, it's my belief that teams are a highly inefficient means of completing projects, and the prima donna approach is better. Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
Colin Davies wrote: Herein lies a great deal of diffulclty as often the team members do not know their own strengths and weaknesses or and abilities. I have previously favored indicators such as the Myers-Briggs personality profiles, even the simpler ones that can be found online. Even if not considered absolutely "accurate," the purpose is to find that broad brush, the one that indicates one individual is more or less aggressive, more or less submissive, and more or less extroverted. If you delegate a task to someone who would rather be led and you are hoping that they will figure it all out by themselves, then you will be doomed, simply because the person doesn't behave (according to their personality) the way you want them to based on what you have asked of them. While communication is an important aspect for a phyically separated team, "knowing your audience" is also invaluable. Dave "You can say that again." -- Dept. of Redundancy Dept.