Embracing Virtual Teams: A Matter of Communication

Embracing Virtual Teams: A Matter of Communication

Hooman Baradaran

– April 14, 2020

Hooman is the founder of Amytis IT Solutions Inc. in Ontario. He was a senior web and mobile developer and agile team lead before getting his PMP, and has a master’s degree in human-computer interaction.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, your management (or organization’s landlord) has most likely had to close the office until further notice. Certainly not a risk you could have foreseen. You may not have had enough time to come up with the right workaround quickly enough—but if you had an established virtual team in place already, it’s mostly business as usual.

But even before COVID-19, the benefits of virtual teams and work-from-home arrangements have long been apparent. Imagine if only half of the people who have to commute every day and cause rush-hour chaos were able to work from home. In addition to the reduced carbon footprint and other environmental benefits, you’re easing congestion for those have commute due to the physical nature of their work.

Your project team can also save hours of precious time spent commuting and use it instead for their own hobbies and personal time—and come back to work ready to perform at their best. Additionally, you’ll have a much larger pool of remote experts at your disposal and save on office expenses, among other benefits.

While A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) sees virtual teams as a tool to develop teams, it prefers co-location when possible. But when it comes to IT teams, it’s worth considering the workload of typical developers. A developer trying…

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Published at Tue, 14 Apr 2020 04:00:00 +0000