Topic 2 | Communicate Like a Remote Working Pro

Estimating Actions and Identifying Deadlines and Priorities

According to the creator of the Gantt chart, there are few steps to follow to estimate project plans properly. In application, we will localize these steps in our remote work projects. Normally, it is the task of the manager to plot the timeline of the project and come up with a realistic approach to complete the project.

 

Knowing your expertise and job responsibilities

You should know the limits of your skills. If you think a task will require you to learn or relearn a specific skill to complete the task, inform your manager so the timeline can be adjusted. Besides, take tasks that are scoped of your job responsibilities. It is okay to share your weaknesses so that your team is aware of your downtime.

Avoid taking tasks that are intended for other team members to keep quality control and prevent task accountability. As a hired professional, always resonate with your project manager that you are an expert in the field and you are familiar with how things work.

If you are managing a remote team, you need to be honest and ask the people if there are learning curves to complete a task. Be genuine about the things you do not know since you have a team to assist you in creating a constructive plan. Remember that you are the final touch of everything, so you have to be most aware of your people’s working capacity.

 

Understand how your company process works

This may sound simple, but there are occasions that some processes are bypassed either by a colleague or the project manager himself. It is your right to demand the process and express your thoughts on how to work professionally and effectively on a specific task especially in a remote environment. Inform your team habitually about how it should be done to match your process and the company’s process.

As a project manager (PM), it is important to follow a process like an agile or waterfall. However, it is better to trace histories of how the company did well in repeated or similar projects. Adapt and localize it to the capacity of your team, budget, and timeline. If you encounter an unfamiliar task, set your estimates with higher team-dependency to have leeway for revisions and improvement as a mitigation plan.

 

Expand your PM’s skillset

As an expert in your field, you need to inform your team on how your process work, better if you can share the previous experience of a successful process. Tell them the realistic duration on how a specific task is done before you localize it in your project. Sometimes PMs are too concentrated on the number that they forget about their people’s capacity. If you noticed that this is constantly happening, engage the other team members to set a meeting to refresh your PM and reevaluate your current situation.

For PMs, know how to assign a realistic task. You should have strong communication skills with your boss to make ends meet. TOP TIP! If you think your boss gives immediate tasks that can affect your team’s working schedule, be the frontline and honestly tell your boss the consequences of the disturbed timeline. Sometimes, tasks that are set to priority at random can affect the relationship of the remote workers with the PM, the boss, and the company itself. Know when to refuse on tasks to save your team’s camaraderie, if these cannot be avoided make sure that your timelines are carefully adjusted and your team is well-informed of the changes.

 

Study the performance of the team

As part of the team, knowing the capacity of each member is crucial in project estimates whether their skill set, tools and equipment, and life situation. In remote work, the team should always inform their membership of any challenges or speed bumps they encounter, so these can be addressed immediately.

As PMs, analyze the historical data and performance of your team. Aside from the capacity, estimate how fast a remote worker can meet deliverables. Additionally, think a few steps ahead on how a team can receive delegated tasks if another team member falls short. It may sound time-consuming, but knowing the expectations of an employee based on his/her current work experience can save you more time.

Occasionally, PMs tend to underestimate to meet the favor of the client or boss. You must prevent disservice to your team that may cause them stress to meet unrealistic project estimates.

 

Ask more of the right questions

Remember that you are working remotely, so you have to frequently ask your team and discuss the project. Normally, the PM creates a proposal and you have the right as a team member to employ opinions whenever a new project is introduced.

For PM’s, you should be aware that your proposal should be agreed by all team members and they are dedicated to meet the deadlines and priorities. You should always add a few days from the agreed timeline excluding days for revisions and feedback. As head of the team, assess the response rate of your client or boss and ask questions to visualize their expectations.

 

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

In a classic remote work setting, deliverables should be broken down into smaller components. A work breakdown is composed of a hierarchy of tasks based on their difficulty and collaboration requirements. As a remote worker, you must be familiar with the phases of your task to easily map out how long you will accomplish the task assigned to you.

For PMs, the WBS also provides you a framework to estimate the time and cost to develop the project. It is your responsibility to check on the submitted deliverables of your team. It is also suggested that as PM, focus only on a single project at a time (this also applies to your team). According to Jira (a project management software), working with more than two tasks at a time is already a red flag even tasks are broken down. Juggling several tasks is inefficient for both you and your team and it unhealthy in a remote working environment.

Timeline Estimation

For the remote worker, you should share the actual working days to complete a task. Give better estimates since you are familiar with your working pace.

In a remote work setting, the easiest way for PMs to accomplish a working timeline is to ask the team to give you a rough estimate on how long they do a task. Take the highest or the median number of days suggested by the team including their revision days. Once collected, create a timeline and test it during the first run of the project. Doing a test run will allow you to get better estimates and quick adjustments for the working deadline.

As a contingency, the team should report any problems they will encounter during the production schedule. Since people are working remotely, the team can’t know if you had experienced a power outage or you have an emergency unless your report it. Appealing your issues will help your PM to make realistic adjustments and communication with the client or boss. The PM should also have back up plans to work on unexpected events during the project such as delegation of tasks or modifying the working deadlines.

 

Overall, project planning is one of the difficult tasks to do for the team. Though there are abundant ways to achieve better estimations, a hybrid of team collaboration and work transparency is the best tool to project planning.

 

Check out this case below:

Alberta Team was tasked by their remote employer Irina to create a mobile advertisement for Disney’s Lilo and Stitch Beach Volleyball mobile game. Irina asked them about the team’s rolling timeline to create the ad. They were given the specifications (see list) for the project. Johnny, head of the Alberta Team, has to plan the timeline for the project.

 

Mobile Ad Project Specification

Requirements

  1. Script and Storyboard of the ad (must be approved)
  2. Animation sequence draft
  3. Completed Animation (has at least 3 major revisions)
  4. Must have an ad in landscape and portrait format
  5. Responsive design in all smart devices

Johnny had several mobile games ad projects before and normally it only takes about 3-4 days (including revisions) to complete a 15-second animation with provided assets. He has 3 members in his team: the storyboard writer (Krishna), a graphic designer (Alison), and an animator (Joseph). All of them have more than 3 years of working experience and accustomed to working in a fast-paced environment. The specifications given by the client are detailed though the deadline is dependent on Johnny’s proposal.

He created a timesheet to lay the capacity of his team. At the moment they do not have any urgent projects, so he asked the team about their feedback on how long it will take to have the animations done.

 

Below is the committed timeline agreed by his team.

 

 

 

Johnny had worked with Irina for almost 2 years. He already knows that Irina is highly responsive despite the time zone differences in working days. She normally replies from 20 minutes to 3 hours via chat or email. All his team members live in the Philippines and respond almost instantly.

 

 

Additionally, he also assessed the roadblocks in his previous projects. Most of the time, mobile ads issues are the manual checking of the translated languages. These are reviewed by the native speaker to check if the language graphics of the ads are correct. Since this is an uncontrollable factor outside their team, Johnny remembers that the latest response time of translators is approximately 2 days.

 

 

Given all the schedules provided by the team and past experiences of Johnny, he summed all the time and added 2 days buffer for any unanticipated issues, project approval, and time zone differences. He estimated that they will complete project in 6 days including revisions and submitted the proposal.