Podcast Interview: How to Make Remote Work Productive

Cornelius Fichtner and Bruce Harpham, PMI Congress 2015

Do you work with people in different locations? I often work with people in different offices and countries. It’s an interesting experience to navigate.

This week, I appeared on Cornelius Fichtner‘s excellent podcast the Project Management Podcast where we discussed remote work. As a side note, I recommend the PM PrepCast if you are studying for the PMP exam (created by Cornelius Fichtner’s company).

Here are highlights from the podcast to whet your appetite:

• 03:20: the two principles you need to learn to make virtual work effective
• 04:30: what does “remote work” and “remote teams” mean anyway?
• 07:32: the impact of the shared talent factor on remote work
• 10:10 the danger nobody talks about when it comes to working from home (nothing to do with web cam mishaps!)
• 13:00: why you – the project manager – needs to go first with remote work (i.e. lead by example)
• 14:08: what you need to do before you dive into remote work and work from home arrangements
• 14:30: why you probably don’t have to buy anything to get started with remote work
• 17:20: what you need to know about remote work and interacting with executives
• 19:00: how starting with self-knowledge makes the difference in communicating effectively
• 21:30: how communication flexibility contributes to your success as a project manager
• 21:50: what to do if your company says “you can’t buy Slack! Use the tools we provide!”
• 25:40: get a peak inside my toolbox of the favorite apps and tools I use in remote work

Click Here To Listen To ‘How To Make Remote Work’ Effective Podcast Episode

Does your project rely on virtual teams? If yes, then it means that working remotely is the norm for your project team members.

Are they doing their work effectively and efficiently? And even if you answered yes, there is always room for improvement, right? Good, because how to make remote work productive is our topic today.

Our interview guest is Bruce Harpham who has written about remote workers and how to increase all our effectiveness. He argues that working virtually is simply the reality on many projects and project teams these days.

And so in order to help us improve remote work he recommends the following four steps:

• Evaluate your current tools
• Review communication preferences and strengths
• Analyze the project’s requirements
• Adjust your communication practices

We’ll go through each of these in detail with lots of examples from his own experience.

About The PM Podcast: Cornelius Fichtner, PMP is a project management trainer who helps his students with their PMP Exam prep, and since 2005 he has published hundreds of interviews with project managers from around the world. The interviews are free on Project Management Podcast.