Category Archives: Management

Challenges with Managing Remote Teams

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With Covid still lingering we still have organizations allowing staff to work from home. I started thinking about challenges Managers face with managing remote teams, ensuring targets are met and maintaining a healthy balance.

There are some obvious challenges however how can we overcome them?

Challenges

In-Person Interaction (Lack of):  When you have been used to working a few feet apart on a day to day basis, not being in the same physical location tends to hinder spontaneous conversations and could affect relationships.

Communication and Collaboration issues: Physical distance can make this difficult and the absence of spontaneous conversations could lead to delays.

Team Cohesion: It could be harder to maintain rapport and trust with the team without the face to face interaction.

Company Work Life Balance: Some managers have stepped up team delivery expectations feeling that this is needed to ensure the team isn’t slacking off. On the other side of the coin some team members blur the lines between work and personal life balance which could lead to burnout.

How to overcome these challenges

  • Regular online meetings (video preferably) allowing time for informal discussions rather than straight “business chat”
  • Encourage virtual team building activities.
  • Set clear expectations but remind teams that it is okay to take breaks.

Remember that we have lives outside work and productivity increases when people enjoy what they do. Be pleasant and show them you care.

What are some Challenges with Managing over 25 Applications for an Institution

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Have you ever stopped to think about what it would be like to manage over 25 Business Systems for an Institution. How would you manage applications that are accessed 24/7. What are the day to day challenges. How do you manage the different Business areas each with their own set of requests and goals. How do you manage uptime, upgrades, performance etc.

I hope this post will provide an insight into what it was like and how to juggle the various challenges.

Communication:

  • We had weekly meetings with each of the business areas. This would allow them to share any new requests, receive updates on work in pipeline and also to raise any concerns they may have.
  • Real-time dashboards for some applications.
  • Internal status reports updated and shared in a central location for all concerned to have access.
  • Monthly status meetings with Senior Leadership.
  • Weekly reports to Middle Managers.

Security:

  • It was crucial to have secure systems, with real-time monitoring.
  • Encryption and access controls in place with regular audits.
  • Requirements to apply vendor patches and updates needed to be carefully managed with Change Board visibility. Especially if they would require downtime.
  • Changes tied in with Backups with clear roll-back plans in case we encountered issues.

Application Performance:

  • Each application required monitoring, ensuring visibility of bottlenecks, performance issues and optimizations as required.
  • Access to real-time reports with clear routes for escalations as required.
  • Regular performance optimization reviews.

Support and Training:

  • Communication with IT Helpdesk to provide updates.
  • Provide day to day application support to end users
  • Provide training for new staff, new features to existing staff (normally part of upgrade project but delivered by the team)

Change Management:

  • Weekly meetings with the Change Board
    • To provide progress updates.
    • Get approvals for new changes
    • To have visibility of changes in other systems that could impact our applications.

Vendor Management:

  • Working with various vendors has its own set of challenges.
  • Working with them to resolve bugs or issues.
  • Maintaining communication with Support, Accounts, Contracts and their Leadership to always ensure smooth services and deliveries.

Resource Allocation and Management:

  • We had Technical Resources from the team allocated to each of the Applications
  • In some cases a person would be allocated to multiple applications.

Emergency Preparedness & Business Continuity Plan

  • Some areas of the organization required 24/7 access to applications so we had an agreed plan that would be activated in emergencies.
  • Business had a manual work around if required. This was always a short term plan.
  • Each System had a plan and was listed in the BCP.

 

We had a daily session at the start of the day where we reviewed the progress of all pipeline activities for each business area across all the applications. Ensuring deliveries were on track as previously communicated to the business. This allowed me to have full visibility of all the areas.

In the event of any failures, we all joined a call (regardless of time or day) to identify cause and agree a resolution plan. Any affected Business areas were made aware of the issues so they could initiate the previously agreed back-up plan as defined in the Business Continuity Plan.

No two days were the same and we always needed to have “enough fuel in the tank” as in Operations there was always a possibility that the next call could change the direction and plan for the day. Yes some days were tough but with the right team the days were always fun…