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The rapid development of technology experienced in the 21st century has made it possible for organizations to work with remote teams. This has brought challenges at times to manage the remote teams because they are out of your sight as the manager. Managing the teams effectively will put your team management and skills into a test. However, this is a simple test that you can pass and manage the teams effectively. This article offers you some five ways on how to manage the remote teams in project management more effectively and achieve the goals set.

Inspire the team with a big picture perspective

• As a project manager, managing workflows and project deadlines are vital responsibilities you must perform to ensure all tasks are completed efficiently. You should have the ability to engage all employees who might lose sight of the overall teams’ vision or goals. Distance can lead to development of a gap between the team objectives and the intrinsic value of understanding that you are performing meaningful work.
• You need to make the remote teams have an understanding of how their work is important to the overall success of the whole project. Never at any point lose your inspirational touch because this is the only way that the teams will know the importance of the roles in helping attain the overall goals of the project.

Focus on managing results and not the working style of the teams 

• When you are managing remote teams, your primary goal should be to concentrate on the quality of work, instead of how the work is done. It may be hard to determine the number of hours the remote teams work and how they do their work because they are out of your sight. If you evaluate performance based on how long the teams work, you can make wrong conclusion. Instead of focusing on the working style of the remote teams, you need to focus on tangible and intangible results from the teams. For instance, tangible results from the teams involve being able to meet the project deadlines consistently and providing quality work.
• Encourage the teams to create a balance with their working arrangement, so that they can be more productive and meet the schedules more effectively.

Make sure there is effective communication at all times 

• Just like when working with other teams, effective communication is key to achievement of project goals. Communication with remote teams require extra efforts to ensure that all things work in the right way. As a project manager, you must address issues that occur in those teams.
• In addition to giving the required guidance that makes the teams be able to move forward, you should also be available to show support. This helps strengthen relationships that boost positive collaboration. You can close the communication gap as a result of times zones and space by using chats, emails and phone calls. This will also act as a great motivating factor that will help your teams be more productive and meet all the deadlines set effectively.

Focus on team building

• Studies show that team members get motivated when there are good relationships among the team members. Stronger relationships lead to better collaboration and high productivity that benefits the entire team. It is easy to form these relationships naturally if team members meet physically. There is a great need to foster connections between the team members as well as their connection with you as the project manager. Develop team building activities to help build stronger bond and strengthen the connections.

Do not spend a lot of time during conference call meetings 

• Just like in physically located environments, you need to be prepared when you attend the various meetings. You need to have effective agenda planning to ensure that your conference call meetings are straight and to the point. Make sure that you email the agenda before the beginning of the meetings, to allow team members prepare crucial information if necessary.
• Answer all questions well to ensure that team members are aware on all the updates on the project. Try to develop connections that boost commitment to the different tasks. Develop a remote working environment with clear, real and reasonable rules and goals. By having the right guidance from you, productivity among the remote team members will improve.