It’s important to be clear about the PM’s expectations, the project scope, and to open a dialogue with the designer. Regular check-ins, input, and follow-ups are a good idea. It’s also helpful to have your designers on IM when they are on their machines just in case there are some quick questions or an emergency. Regularly scheduled phone or Skype calls are also helpful. Complex projects may require calls to the designer several times a day. If the designer is in a different time zone, it may be required that the designer and/or the PM shift their workday for a while until the difficult portion of the project is complete. It’s important to tailor the method and frequency of the contact to meet the needs of both the project and the designer. The PM must not only stay in touch with the designers as needed for the project but also to keep the designer informed and feeling like he is meeting the correct expectations.

Team meetings are a wonderful tool when running a project and there are collaboration tools that help facilitate this (such as Campfire). Project-based team meetings make sense in the virtual paradigm but status meetings don’t. It is more cost efficient to do one-on-one’s or meet with the multiple designers assigned to a project (thus encouraging their interaction and idea sharing as well as getting everyone on the same page) rather than having the entire virtual staff sitting around listening to different project reports. In-person meetings are very valuable for team building, but the virtual work environment is not conducive to creating a company-wide team of designers.

Again virtual project management tools such as Basecamp are very helpful for collecting hours and monitoring budget and scope. It’s important to be very clear about the maximum number of hours designers can spend on a project before they start. Encourage them to stay in touch especially if they see a problem with meeting that time constraint. Communication on all levels is important. The PM must be flexible, pay attention, and hone the amount of touch and review to meet the projects’ needs and keep her designers in their comfort zone.

Human communication is difficult face-to-face with someone you know well. Communicating via electronic means is more of a challenge. Syntax, tone, frequency, and method of communication play a larger role in the success of the project when using electronic means as your management tools. We find that we must tailor every project not only to the deliverables but also to the client and the resources involved.

A certain amount of psychology is involved:
• You must pay attention to your clients’ needs and comfort levels.
• You must know the strengths and weaknesses of your resources and assign them appropriately.
• You must recognize how often or infrequently to touch the client and in what way.
• It’s important to keep your project management feelers out and pay attention to the voice in your head/feeling in our gut that lets you know how things are going.

In fact, your emotional reactions become your biggest asset when managing virtually. The more removed the client, the more you must rely on your human instincts.

Some clients require more attention than others. Weekly reports and/or phone calls may help keep everyone on the same page. Other clients might do better with the update email and calls only when there are deliverables presented. You can’t have a one-size-fits all approach to remote project management. You must be agile, responsive, and pro-active.

There are certain tools that we use to help keep our communication efficient. Here is a short list of some that we recommend using:
• Conference phone lines
  Budget Conferencing
• Collaboration
  Concept Share
• Project management
  Base Camp
• Screen sharing
  Yuuguu.com
• Video conferencing & int’l calls
  Skype

Even with the advent of these online tools, we try to customize the client experience based on the client need and not just rely on them as a crutch. In summary, keep in mind the following when managing virtually a project:
• Change with the project as it changes to the benefit and with the buy-in of the client.
• Keep the clients’ best interests at the forefront of your interactions, recommendations, and deliverables.
• The ultimate success of the project – serving the financial, business, emotional, and strategic needs of the client – should be the motivating force.

This is not altruism but good business.