PROJECTCONNECTIONS.COM - Free helpful resources and tools for Program and Project Managers

http://www.projectconnections.com/index.html

PROJECTCONNECTIONS.COM - Here's a good site for Program and Project Managers. It's loaded with Templates, Articles and Papers for review and use. There is a small catch that you have to register for the site to access the materials. On the good side membership is free so there are no hidden costs for basic access. (None that I've found yet anyhow.)

I'm currently reading the paper "Best Practices from Experiences in Facilitating Virtual Meetings." The paper lists 9 lessons of virtual meetings that managers need to understand. The paper also provides best practice recommendations for each of the 9 lessons to help Managers effectively work through issues.

Enjoy the site!

On working with teams virtually...

Yesterday I said I didn't think much in-depth thought had been given to the issues arising from the advent of telecommuting and virtual teams. Of course, (thanks to Google) I'm finding that there are lots of great thinkers meditating on these issues daily.

Here's a great blog I found today called:

Working with People We Can't Be With
http://www.michaelsampson.net/

I'm currently reading this article which has started to outline the A-Z of virtual teams.
http://www.michaelsampson.net/2008/03/a-z-of-virtua-1.html

Enjoy!

iTelecommute - Opening Thoughts....

Ok, so the title is silly... iThis and iThat... But really. I telecommute. This is the inagural post for my new blog that will cover topics that may be interesting to telecommuters, employers, virtual organizations and more.

Let's face it. Telecommuting is new, but not totally unheard of. In fact, I know of at least one big technology giant out there who requires their employees to explain why they NEED a cubicle. This is a total departure from the more common scenario where employees have to explain why they NEED to telecommute.

The Truth About Telecommuting - Telecommuting is not only an excellent option for the technology professional of today, but I whole heartedly believe, that it will be ESSENTIAL to the technology workforce of tomorrow. Why? To put it simply ... globalization. Given that the world is becoming smaller through communication tools, we now are seeing massive projects on a multi-national, multi-cultural and - worth mentioning - a multi-time zoned scale. The human 'tendency' is to collaborate.. to work together, to solve problems and create a 'better' existence for all in the community.

This is a slight shift in thinking for the players and massively increases the variety of the distribution of the players as well. Before the advent of the public adoption of the internet much of the population could not 'collaborate' on ideas and innovations so freely. Now, we can.

The societal and virtually driven changes of who we are and how we do business have occurred at such a rapid pace, however, that I don't believe industries, management, heck - people even, have had a chance to stop and analyze what's going on here, what is the best way (or ways) to communicate and form relationships in the virtual office.... hmmm what is the virtual office and how does this trend effect the world as we know it.

So, these thoughts are why I started the iTelecommute blog for telecommuters and about telecommuters. I'm envisioning forthcoming articles and topics like ranging from - How does telecommuting effect your office moral and relationships? How can we connect with our virtual office mates? Virtual Office best practices. To GoogleApp or to not GoogleApp... iGoogle tools that work 'fer me!... and so on.

Thanks for reading,

Joni