Are you a small business owner? Then you must be familiar with wearing multiple hats at the same time.
From hiring suitable employees to handling the clients, you have to take care of everything!
The leader, who runs a service business, has to deal with agencies, employees, clients, and freelancers for the project.
A project involves a bunch of people. They will be working on different projects. So, someone must be there to ensure the smooth functioning of every cog.
Besides, there is covid-19. It has almost paralyzed the world for two years. Many companies are turning into virtual businesses.
So, you have to oversee the progress of your projects virtually. Right here comes the necessity of a virtual project manager.
Now, What Is A Virtual Project Manager In Simple Words?
Virtual Project Managers do all the management work for any project remotely. Management work involves monitoring and tracking the jobs and other tasks, despite the time zones.
The project lead doesn’t directly participate in any task. He monitors and guides the team towards the goals.
You can compare the role of a virtual project manager with a movie director. A movie director casts the actors and makes everyone play their functions properly. A virtual project manager does the same for your business.
The manager helps every staff to coordinate their roles with the organizational goal.
The job of a virtual project head includes,
- Developing the plans
- Monitoring
- Overseeing the entire project.
The virtual project manager is responsible for the outcome of any project. Therefore, they must have the following traits:
- Flexible
- Organized
- Great communication skills
- Motivational
- Good leader
- Honest
- Straight forward
What Does The Virtual Project Manager Do?
A virtual project lead benefits you in so many ways. Here’s the list!
Virtual Project Manager Helps in Minimizing risk
You might face many unpredicted events during an ongoing project. Your team member might fall sick, or the stakeholders might change the contract.
An experienced virtual project manager researches a lot about the contingencies. He also creates backups to make your team perform without a break. Those things reduce risks in your businesses.
Your Project Manager helps in leading the team
The virtual team lead motivates the employees to achieve the goal. He ensures that the remote team stays coordinated.
Monitoring the performance of each staff is essential. The virtual project head does that for you.
The managers will update you on the project’s progress every once in a while until your team reaches the goal.
A virtual project leader ensures everyone completes their tasks without wasting time.
Virtual Project Manager Does the Market research
Thorough market research is the key to a successful business.
The virtual project manager conducts in-depth research. He reveals valuable insight into the choices of your targeted customers.
The market research will help you to get the details of your competitors’ moves as well.
You can develop a solid marketing strategy with the help of that information.
Virtual Project Manager Helps in Figuring out the budget
If your project is a car, the budget works like its wheels.
The budget of a project can create many barriers in terms of time, resources, and scope. It plays a vital role in completing a project successfully.
So, it would be best if you had someone who would track your budget throughout the project. Your finance team will submit the report of audits to the virtual project manager. He will keep track of all the records and approve them.
A Project Manager Helps in Managing timeline
It is easy to deliver a project when maintaining the timeline of the project effectively. The virtual manager breaks the task into manageable parts.
Thus, you get a clear idea about the progress, strength, and weakness of your team.
Steps To Hire A Virtual Project Manager
Want to get a project manager on board but worried about how to get the best one? No worries, here are the steps to follow!
#1. Look for online platforms.
To hire a virtual project manager the first thing you can do, discover the online agencies that provide you with such services. There are many reputed outsourcing firms such as Invedus, Brickworks India, etc.
They build a dedicated team of virtual project managers by handpicking the most talented professionals for you.
So, do proper research and reach out to a reputed outsourcing firm to hire a highly qualified and skilled virtual project head.
#2. Figure out what you want
You must have some expectations that you want the manager to fulfill. Prepare a task list that he can follow after joining.
You already know that managing every function of a business is a tough job. If you get your virtual project manager a pre-determined idea of organizing the business operations, things will be easier for him.
#3. Compare your options
Weight your options based on scopes, costs, and quality. Talk to the people who have hired and worked with virtual project leaders before. You can also read the client testimonials on the websites of the online platform before hiring.
#4. One to one conversation
Are you done with the shortlisting of eligible candidates? Then it’s time to have a one-to-one talk with each of them.
It will help you to figure out if they are fit for your team or not.
#5. Discuss next moves
After finalizing the virtual project manager, you must have a discussion with him about the following steps. Get him a clear understanding of task routine and output quality.
How Much Does A Virtual Project Manager Cost?
The charge of a virtual project manager depends on the demands and scope of the projects.
When they work for you on a generic basis, they cost less. They charge more if someone plays a specialized role, such as a digital virtual project manager or constructional virtual project head.
Along with that, the charge of a virtual project leader depends upon the country of the professionals.
Hire a project manager – Advantages of hiring a virtual project manager
Having a virtual team benefits you in several ways. You can save the overall expense and have employee satisfaction both at the same time.
The virtual project manager ensures that your virtual employees give their best performance and achieve the organizational goal.
Here are the other benefits that you get when you hire a virtual project manager.
1. More productivity
The virtual team leader monitors the progress of each employee individually. He makes everyone properly do their job.
It increases the ultimate productivity of your team.
2. Time saver
You can save many hours a day after handing over the responsibilities in the right hands. It lets you focus on core tasks to expand your business.
Generally, virtual project managers are pretty flexible. They might work for you from a different time zone. Then you will get 24/7 availability from them.
3. Value for money
Usually, a virtual project manager charges an hourly basis or as per the pre-project flat price. They don’t ask for any advance payment. So, you can pay them as per their work.
4. Get an expert on board.
Hire a virtual project manager to get an expert just a mouse click away. A virtual project manager is someone who has sound knowledge of business operations and managing resources. His suggestions can help you in every step to grow your business.
You can explore more benefits of hiring virtual employees by Invedus
What Are The Challenges Of Virtual Project Management?
Every coin has an opposite side.
Virtual project management is also not an exception. The person you hired as your virtual project manager must have to clear a few hurdles.
Trust issues
It is the topmost challenge that you have to overcome. You have to trust your team. When they are working from home, it is natural to fear they aren’t working diligently.
If your virtual project head is new to the corporate world, it might be a bit hard for him to gain your trust.
Tracking the progress
Sometimes managing a team virtually becomes tough for the manager. Unless he implements a tracker, he can’t understand if the unit is giving its best or not.
Tracking is not even an ultimate solution. If the employees want to slack off, they will find their way. So, the manager has to motivate them genuinely. He needs to build a solid bond of trust and honesty with the employees.
Office culture
Every organization has its own culture. The employees can be habituated with that only when they go to the office.
A virtual manager will never know your office culture. He might get a hurdle to understand this and work accordingly.
Communication barrier
Allocating tasks and explaining them to a remote team is difficult from time to time in a virtual project. Communicating with each of them can make the process slow.
As a result, the team takes more time to execute the tasks.
The manager should create a channel of communication with each of the team members. A daily team call works excellent in this scenario. Here he can follow tips to keep the remote team happy and productive.
What Are The Tools For Virtual Project Management?
Your virtual project manager can easily overcome those challenges with a few highly beneficial tools. Have a look at those following tools that help both the management and employees do a better job!
G-Suite
This proud member of the Google family offers you a bunch of fantastic software. The collection includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar, and many more. Ultimately, it gives you each and everything you need to create your virtual office.
You can save all the crucial data and information in those applications safely. A virtual project collaborator can easily share files with his employees and keep their data safe.
G-Suite offers you:
- Calendar management
- Document management
- Content management
- Video conference
- Real-time editing
Zoom
Who doesn’t know the name of Zoom in 2021? The change in all kid of operations worldwide after covid-19 has made Zoom extremely familiar to everyone.
It is now the most used video conferencing app. nothing can beat Zoom in conducting online meetings.
Why? Let’s find out. Here are the key features that Zoom offers you:
- Attention indicator
- Conferencing
- Screen sharing
- Live conferencing
- Video conferencing
- Co-annotation
- Role-based permissions
- User management
- Collaboration tools
- Board meetings
- Meeting ID
- Instant messaging
- Content management
Apart from these, most schools and colleges have been using Zoom for academic purposes during the lockdown periods.
Virtual project managers can also use Zoom as an easy substitute for real-life communication with the team. Here you can also check the top free agile tools for your scrum team.
With all these details and the significant advantage of securing the best talent in the world, you might want to hire virtual employees. Send us your requirement, and we will get you the top minds from the largest IT and non-IT talent pools.
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