Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Business Trends: Project Management and Client Coworkers

By Louis Soul

For many businesses that are on the cutting edge of new business paradigms, the concept of a geographically isolated business is becoming obsolete. It is entirely possible to put together a business consortium or a project team made of subject matter experts spread across all time zones and from around the world. In fact, this kind of decentralized management of business projects is becoming more of the norm than the exception in the twenty first century business environment.

Blogs, wiccis, and shared working environments. Group sharing environments on the web are becoming more and more common. By setting up a tool set on line in which team members can post status reports, leave emails, update the project management software, file expense reports and stay in touch with each other, you facilitate the kind of communication that keeps the team moving forward successfully. Blogs, private message boards and wiccis are also excellent means by which an ongoing "conversation" can be carried out between team members that anyone can check into and get caught up with the content of what has been done and what is being planned for the project.

By becoming adept at using cyberspace as the primary "location" of your project team's interaction, you can literally create a team of highly specialized talent that can be located from anywhere in the world. This vastly expands your ability to tap the best minds for your work and to streamline the project management process. It will take time to get used to and there will be some missteps along the way. But if you can conquer global team management using internet tools, it will be a valuable skill for successfully executing global projects for your business.

On the client coworker

The idea of being customer service and customer satisfaction oriented is not a new paradigm in the business world. Even in businesses that are not directly working with the public, the idea of structuring the company to satisfy the needs of the people that make it possible for the company to stay in business - its customers - is a core value for a large percentage of businesses, especially those that are successful.

By altering the mindset especially of an office worker to that of someone who comes to work with that entrepreneurial or retail oriented outlook, the employee is freed to become more creative, more aggressive about completing quality work for their "customers" and get a greater feeling of satisfaction from satisfying their internal customers.

There are some real values to be had by introducing a customer service attitude even to internal support functions within the company. When combined with other empowering techniques such as process improvement and open communications with all levels of management, it can unify an office and put some real life into your staff. - 15246

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