Before the recent COVID-19 pandemic threw everything out of gear, the concept of remote working and distributed teams was not so common. As we tread into 2024, work is no more synonymous with a common working space. Fortunately, technological advancementhasmade it possible that we can work from any place –home or a coffee shop. But remote workingprofoundly changes in scenarioswhere a team has distributed members. Isn't it simpler to work remotely if you are a freelancer or an individual contributor? But if you are a manager with a distributed team, it can get challenging. Having said that, more and more businesses are trying out the concept of distributed (or remote) teams. If you are a project manager who aims to find a cost-effective solution for resource management while maintaining the project management integrity, then there is asolution for you. Using the right resource management tools.
The future we envisage for work permits boundless virtual workspaces that will open upa sea of social and economic opportunities. These opportunities will breakthe barriers like physical location, butit will take some time to get there. And by having the right tools like a good resource management software you can build manager remote teams seamlessly. But before we move ahead to see the benefits of such tools, let us see what is meant by a distributed team.
A distributed team is basically a group of workmatesor team members who work remotely. They may be working in the samecity, in a different location or geography, but from home. They alwaysuse online means to communicate with each other and do not share a common physical office space. By installing latest technologies or resource management tools, distributed teams enable employeesto easily access all of the organization's resources and software.They can use anapplicationto share important data and updates without operatingin a traditional office space.
Though it seems tough, managing a distributed team becomes easy with the help of resource management tools that handle collaboration issues. Read on to see how that happens.
Be it a small team or a big one – communication is always the key. Without open communication, any project wouldn't have a chance to succeed. Communicating clearly helps to understand the scope of work, track the status ofthe project, and resolve any bottlenecks. When you are working in the same physical office space, talking to a colleague is not a problem. But with a distributed team, you need to organize your communication process with messaging apps. Fortunately, there are multiple tools available that canhelp youorganize an instant meeting or a video call or conference. This helpsin making remote workers feel like a part of your team and organization. This also creates a positive environment for better collaboration. You can also find out the challenges each team member is facing and help them resolve it. If you use a resource management tool like eResource Scheduler, communication and collaboration won't be an issue any longer.
With businesses going global, and teams spread across various locations,it is difficult to keep a track of all resources in an organization. This results in several challenges. It's tough for the leadership to get a bird'seye view of the entire resource pool in their company. It's also difficult to see who is doing what and calculate the hiring requirement accurately. However, resource management software maintain a centralized directory or a list of all company-wide resources. With that, you can organize your resources easily by using multiple parameters like qualifications, competencies, experience, or availability. When you need to find the right team member for a project, irrespective of where they're located, you can do it in just a few clicks.
Organizations these days usevarious tools like virtual desktops, screen-sharing tools, collaboration tools, and virtual meeting software to manage a distributed team. Employees and contractors can create, edit, and share documents on Cloud, and pull them quickly when they need. But managing multiple software can be daunting.For instance, organizations use different software for roadmapping, project management, and team management. But for managing their team's time, and ensuring that people are productive, they need a separate time-tracking tool. Then, for communication and brainstorming, they need another. What if you can get all this in a single online platform? Check out the leading resource management tool called eResource Scheduler – a single platform for managing all this and more.
Keeping a track of every project's status, team members, progress, and timelines is important. Now, imagine if you have to do it virtually.How would you ensure that all your team members know their daily tasks and stick to their schedules? How would you knowtheir dependencies and how will that impact your project delivery?Resource management toolsare the solution here. The project managers can easily create to-do lists, dashboards to show the progress, and what is already completed. As soon as a resource is ready to be assigned a new task, you can use the advanced filters and find the best project to assign to that person.And like other details, you can easily keep a check on all the dates and timelinesin easy-to-read dashboards and reports.
When it comes to project management, project planning is one task which involves a lot of your time and effort.But even then, you don't know if it's accurate or not. This can change completely when you use a resource management software.A tool like eResource Scheduler gives you precise AI predictions of your project effort, timelines, and captures constraints or possible deviations such as cost, scope, or schedule.The main benefit of advanced resource management tool is that it automatesresource management, project planning, and scheduling process. It also helps project managersset a solid foundation for their assignment, and provides tools to scope out various milestones, important deliverables, and define each roles before the execution stage. Resource management tools like eResource Scheduler keep your plans up-to-date and tracks progress continuously against your baseline.
How do you get valuable information like budgeting costs, utilization graphs, overtime details, etc.? It's tough, right? Resource management tools provide easy-to-designreports that you can customize too. These reports offer an insight into all the information you could need. That's not all. You can automate your reports to save time and reduce manual work. If you want to enhance your management skills, a tool like eResource Scheduler with API integration can collaborate with all your existing software. You also get real-time updates about your resources and projects and a multi-user interface that offers custom user rights.
Working on multiple projectsentails sharing multitudes of documents, files, and data. Mostly, these documents or data is for common usage. It gets trickier if the document is confidential or needs to go through regular updates and edits. And witha distributed team, sharing documents, updating them, and maintaining confidentiality can be a challenge. But it is not so if you use the right resource management software. Such a tool enables everyoneto immediately access the required files from any place at any time. You can share data, reports, or any important file with your entire team or just one person in a distant location in just a couple of clicks.
With global teams, how can you ensure getting regular updates about team members and projects? As a project manager, you must knoweverything about your team like their skill set, qualifications, experience, and availability. This will enable you to assign the best people to suitable tasks. But isn't that complex? No, it isn't! The right resource management toolssolve this for you. Be it resource planning, managing them, or maximizing their utilization, a centralized system like eResource Scheduler can do it all. It'sa configurable tool which updates itself regularly and also manages your business requirements.
Working seamlessly with a distributed team isn't a piece of cake. You may mix up the time zones, find it difficult to set up a meeting, or track their daily performance. But this situation can be handled well with the right resource management tool. An AI-enabled tool converts the time for all the team members in a project. If you like to track the time or utilization of your team members and aim to enhance productivity, the time tracking feature of eResource Scheduler comes in handy.It will inform you of how your distributed team is managing the assigned work and help you plan ahead accordingly.
Project management involves handling multiple projects simultaneously. Also, new projects are regularly added to a project managers' portfolio. This makes it more complex than ever.Every project has its own constraints and requirements. So, you keep juggling between resource scheduling, task management, and team management for various projects. A configurable resource management toollike eResource Scheduler can forecast any requirements or deviations for your projectsmuch in advance. This gives you adequate time to get readyto manage change successfully.
Enbraun's flagship product, eResource Scheduler, is a leading resource management tool. It enables organizations of all capacityto maximize benefits from their resources. This multi-user, resource management software is especially designed to help optimize resource utilization at each level of a business. It also improves resource coordination and collaboration across locations and geographies and enables real-time visibility. You can easily configurable this tool as per your company's unique requirements. Gain advantage from its brilliant features like custom resource types, task level scheduling, drag n drop scheduling, managing multiple working calendars, or import/export through MS Excel etc. And all this in a very affordable cost. So, try it for free and manage your distributed teams while boosting productivity and profitability of your business.
