Virtual organization structure suitable for software companies

    Virtual organization structure is designed to be fluid by nature for being agile and scalable. Rigid structures will not generally suit demographically dispersed team to attain their organizational goal.

Following questions are asserted by hardcore quality analyst

a)      Can virtual organizations manage quality?

b)      Are there any calculated scientific risks available for Virtual Organizations?

c)       Are there reliable, sufficient and supportive statistical evidence ?

d)      Is it approved and accepted as a scientific management technique?

The list of questions may never end…but the answer is ... 

"Virtual organization will serve the purpose, if deliverable is important"

 It reminds me about the ten year old debate which is ongoing in developed countries; about contract staffing teachers. Shortage of teachers pressed the school authorities to fill vacant positions with contract teaching staffs. There were questions regarding the contract staff responsibilities and quality of education they would impart. Profound debates are still heard about education systems, but the purpose of filling teaching positions was achieved swiftly. In nutshell we would have to balance and prioritize deliverable.

Another debate broke out when the developed countries opened their space explorations to private companies. Track record and statistics prove that these companies are achieving their goals faster than government space agencies. We stand better chance to tour the moon in our life time though the quality, standards and process are not strictly adhered to. Not only these companies are growing five times as faster but also have proved that space explorations are profitable ventures.

Virtual organization structure are not totally different from above examples. Virtual organization simply serves its purpose but an efficient project manager would have to mix and match certain technical and management aspects to attain a right deliverable ratio of quality verses productivity. Management is both art and science, hence a right chord has to be struck for making it work.  Working with virtual organizations and globally distributed staff can be even more challenging at times, but productivity needs to be tuned for attaining its purpose.

Physical assets of a Virtual organization: 

There is hardly any physical asset required in a virtual organization. Film industry is the best example for such a case study. Hollywood - this rich industry has remained successful virtual organization venture and will remain so in future.

Scalability: 

Completely dependent on manager to scale up and even down depending on the work load. Most virtual organization team members would have never even met in real life. There are numerous customers and organizations that are functioning in this pattern since years.

Quality control: 

Layout strict acceptance criteria and proper guidelines in the process to follow. The difference here is that the manager should be more random audit centric when approaching quality goals and frequently do auditing than physical organizations.

Reference books:

Handy, C., “Trust and the Virtual Organisation”, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1995

Transition to virtual organization

It is not easy to transit from the "physical well structured organization" to virtual organization. I am not among the one who believe that the transition to virtual organization will shower money and virtual bosses will be on top of the world. Besides finding followers for a revolutionary idea such as virtual organization and change in management principles can be even tougher.

Virtual organization restructuring challenges:

• Virtual organization is a new trend and even employees may not prefer to be isolated when working. Going to office in the morning is still considered part of career and rarely any fresher would like to start working with it.
• Effective leadership is the number one factor that influences success in a virtual organization. Maintaining cultural identity, employment brand and employee/manager satisfaction requires consistent and regular communication in a virtual organization.You can propagate your idea much easily, if you are already a leader in the field. People will follow your principles in a virtual organization, if they have  respect for your vision.
• Virtual Teaming Technology is the key to success. There is no way that virtual organization can be promoted and built without adaption to latest technology. Products like Microsoft Windows server 2008 R2 are built to promote virtual teams and dispersed working culture such as virtual organization. Microsoft Windows 7 and other latest products help you work just as you would do inside your office. 

Case study of a virtual organization
United States Government have taken initiative to even virtualize all tunneling projects, uses virtual organization structure.

Benefit of transition to virtual organization
Benefits of virtual organization transition includes new technology adaption and efficient execution. Cost is just a small subsection of transition benefits.

I will be covering more in detailed about virtual organization transition on my forth coming blogs. Until then please leave your comments that will help me improve my blog quality.

Free up your time by hiring a virtual assistant

Virtual assistants are the best way to free up your precious time to do what you always Love to do.
I have heard many experts say " I love to blog " but I hardly get any time.


Lately this is a fact with me too. Sometimes work will take over your free time.

For example, if you need a person to Blog for you in a specific topic you Love, you could always hire a person and guide him and he could be your ghost writer.
Hire Blog Experts from Elance

If you think you need a website and then you could hire an expert from Elance as well
Hire a Website  Expert Developer Today.

The next obvious question is about the cost... will they be expensive?.. I will answer ithis question strategically...If you know your time is valuable than hiring external virtual teams, you should go on hiring them instead of just delaying what you always wanted to do in life.

Working without walls

“Working without walls” is a new slogan at Microsoft.  A survey showed that 40% of employees are using VPN,  Microsoft has since then got serious about products that facilitate employees to work remotely and from home.
There are whole new set of products from Microsoft that offers secured network connections to remote employees. These goodies are part of Windows Server R2 , small business version. Combination of Windows 7 with R2 brings in good administrative functionality and protection.
Today I will be blogging about “Direct Access” and its application in Virtual Organizations.
Direct Access (in Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Windows 7) – Automates end-user security protocols, giving your IT department complete access to remote computers on the network.
Readers who work on VPNs would ask “ That is exactly what I do with VPN , then why Direct Access?”
The answer is yes. that is what VPN is all about, but Direct Access is much more.

Ask yourself these questions

Don't you need to establish connection to VPN before accessing your resources?
Are you happy to use VPN when you are on the move? Haven't you experienced frequent internet breaks while moving?
Though you are connected via VPN, do you still get the same comfort as the office intranet?

Direct access is the best solution to the above VPN issues.

Users do not need to establish a connection
Users do not need to reconnect, if the Internet connection breaks.
Group Policy settings get active before user logs on, so it is just like you work on your office intranet.
Users can log on to Active Directory, just like in the intranet
Works together with NAP (Network Access Protection) and NAC (Network Access Control) solutions
Communication to the corporate network is encrypted with IPsec

So get “Windows 7” and “Small Business – R2” and transform yourself to a New-Gen Virtual Organization.  Do keep watching for more tips on Virtual organization and kindly leave comments on my articles.

User Stories

This post is regarding one of the basic components of Agile Programming - "User Stories".

As I have mentioned in one of my earlier post, I believe the best way to work in Virtual teams is using Agile Project management principles. Agile principles concentrate on tasks than far fetched project ideas on a whole.

User stories are one of the primary development artifacts for Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) project teams.  A user story is a very high-level definition of a requirement, containing just enough information so that the developers can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it. 

I will cover this in detail in my subsequent posts but this is just an intro on how stories look like to get you started.

User stories are written by stake holders- the ones who run the project. User stories are simple enough that people can learn to write them in a few minutes, so it makes sense that the domain experts (the stakeholders) write them. Notice an example below.

"As a student I should be able purchase canteen lunch passes so that my lunch is reserved."

I will detail how, the above user story will flow through "Agile Life Cycle" in my forth coming blogs.

Virtual team member

This post has reference to an Email from a reader of my blog who wishes to become a virtual team member. "Renuka Prasad" is an experienced .net developer and wishes to be a Virtual team member. Her husband is transferred to locations where she cannot find suitable positions, hence she is happy to work from home and utilize her skills instead.
Renuka wrote to me looking for specific answers.  Her Email excerpt follows:

"I went through your blogs. "Virtual Organizations" is a stimulating thought. This may be the IN thing for SME in the future. In my observation a small hiccup can be to bring the team in concurrence with the standard processes and procedures because of the diversity of the group.

I am yet to get a clear hang of how it works.

What I understood is that we will be having a MS App-V Client installed on to our local systems and we will be connecting to the App-V Server which has applications installed. When requested the client gets package with complete set of  required dll's which is them unpacked and  used by the client.

My doubts are

• Can we get large applications by virtual streaming from the APP-V Server to the client. even Databases.
• Can all types of files be used for virtualization."

Renuka , I am going to take your concerns regarding App-v first.

Dll's are very technical stuffs and may certainly reside inside the application cache but they are not much of a concern for App-V user. App-V can cache, part or full of the application.  What is fascinating  here with App-V is that admin can even upgrade client application without your knowledge. Please take look at these videos in Youtube for getting started

To answer your specific questions

a)Yes, but it is not actually streaming to your system. Streaming is done with RDP or VPN. App-V  caches to your local system and only connects as per the App-V client settings. Supposing you have Visual Studio 2008 in your App-V client, then you can run VS 2008 just like you do from your desktop start menu. In fact, you wont even be able to make out the speed difference.

b)It is not exactly a file concept when it comes to App-V and it is the application cache that works.
 

 Take a look at how App-V architecture works from the above diagram .

Now to the second concern on how process and procedures may affect the virtual team's performance.

Agile project management is a good solution to this. It is a very innovative process that is task oriented than process oriented. You can find principles of Agile management in my website as well.
If an entire project is assigned to an external contractor and he is going to work solely on it .. is called outsourcing.
If we split up the tasks and work as a dispersed team, it can be called virtual team. Hence we make use of the team structure, management and tools for Agile project management. This will reduce the process overloads and maintain quality in  a Virtual Team .

Renuka , I wish you all the best and happy "Virtual Teaming".

Please continue sending me responses and comments. Kindly also subscribe to my feeds(if you use a feed reader).

virtual organization structure

This post are answers in brief to the following major questions about Virtual Organizations.

What is the best suited structure for a Virtual Organization ?
Why would one prefer a Virtual Organization ? 

I will be covering them in detail at a later blog but the basic structure is shown in the below diagram
Basic Structure of Virtual Organization

The diagram clearly shows that the structure is process controlled. Resources, people and suppliers should use the process as the medium to run the Virtual Organization or it will be chaos.

Product and services should also be connected to the process and hence the clients to the Virtual Organizations can follow the same process to be part of it. Agile management principles go hand in hand with VO wherein the clients become part of project itself.

Need of a Virtual Organization

The marketplace is changing dramatically and is expected to continue changing
rapidly.
Regarding environmental change, Huber and Glick (1993, p. 4) wrote.
The fast-changing nature of today’s organizational environments is largely
a consequence of two factors: (1) the increasing effectiveness of
information technology (both communications technology and computing
technology) and (2) the increasing effectiveness of transportation
technology.
Huber and Glick (1993, p. 4) gave three examples of environmental change.
Global markets could not be what they are if information, products, and
people could not be moved as easily as they can.
The decline of manufacturing employment in the United States is directly a
consequence of automation (read “information technology”) and acrossborders
manufacturing and importation (read “transportation technology”).
The social issues that today affect organizations have much of their force
because advances in communications technology (1) make social
injustices and environmental tragedies vivid and widely known and (2)
enable many separate entities to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate
in confronting organizations on such matters.

I will detail these aspects in forth coming blogs. Please continue sending me responses and comments. Kindly also subscribe to my feeds(if you use a feed reader).

virtual organization payment options

I have lots of responses/feedback mails from my readers stating that my posts needs to be more explanatory in terms of technicality and it is best to reduce the density of topics and split it into different posts. Thanks for all those suggestions and feedback and I will be considering them for my future posts.

This post is about different global payment options available for virtual organization to pay their team. Please also note that these rules and regulations may vary country to country and is good to consult with an expert before opting any of these.

I have listed these payment options in the order of my preference but have not favoured or disapproved any of them.

International Wire transfer:
 Wire transfers are the easiest/fastest way to transfer funds globally. Consider the following when you use it.

• Currency of the transfer can be opted by the payee. Often source currency transfer is the best(For example a payee from United States of America can transfer in USD irrespective of the destination currency). Source currency gives the beneficiary the best exchange rates available at their local bank and are often better than selling rates in a foreign country.  I have also observed that the foreign currency reaches faster because they use an international SWIFT code to wire transfer.
• A line of instruction that goes along with wire transfer is the key to safe inward remittance. The remittance instruction contains further instructions to the major international branch to forward the remittance to corresponding branch and to the specific account. Do check this with your bank.

 Paypal:
www.paypal.com
 Paypal is an Ebay company and have very strict norms regarding payments and adheres to it. It also follows rules and regulations of the beneficiary's country.

• Paypal has now introduced a system to withdraw to bank account directly. In India it uses NEFT for transfers. 
• Paypal has also options to withdraw as cheque.
• They do charge a fee for the transaction made unless it is a premium account and have an arrangement to transfer paypal funds to some accounts without loosing paypal fee. 
• Paypal exchange rates are not often par with international exchange rates.
• Verified PayPal account of the beneficiary is best to send regular payments.

 Xoom:
www.xoom.com
Xoom is best suited to transfer funds to some specific countries and have better exchange rates when compared to Paypal account withdrawal exchange rates. Xoom can directly transfer funds from bank account to some selected countries. Points to consider when using Xoom are as follows.

• There is a fee for transferring funds, it varies depending on the mode of transfer, source and amount.
• Xoom also have direct beneficiary account transfer which is more reliable and faster than other mode of transfers.

Cheque:
This is the ages old way but it takes at least 15 to 20 days to reach most of the Asian countries from Europe. It takes another 20 days, if the bank does not have a clearing house inside the beneficiary country.

There are lots of other channels to transfer money like Western Union , remittance websites that do this service and banks .

I urge my readers to enlighten me with more options, if they have exercised/read about them and I will add that to this post as well.

Please keep sending me responses and comments. Kindly also subscribe to my feeds(if you use a feed reader).

virtual teams pros and cons

 I do not agree with packaged business model solutions. Every model has its own pros and cons to it. I rather optimize the model for a requirement so that the pros are weighted.

We will now take major aspects of project managing virtual teams and compare it with stationed team.

Performance :
In general principles, team processes can be classified into two categories: task-related — including those that help ensure each member is contributing fully; and socio-emotional — including those that increase the cohesion of the group

Project postmortem data has taught us that the task related process gives best value, where as organizational values increase when the team is not dispersed.

Agile project management principles are based on task related process. However Agile principles state that two brains working towards a common task from a single shared computer gives better results than a single brain.

Quality Control:
It is always good to build quality standards within the organization and use trained employees to improve overall quality. However quality works hand in hand with cutting edge process and technology, hence organizations recruit people from different companies with higher quality standards to inherit best practices and principles.

I have noted that virtual teams can be propagated/upgraded to inherit quality standards much more easily than stationed teams. However there should be a base minimum benchmark to quality and standards laid out. Methodical documentation should be followed by every virtual team member during the development process.


Project Co-ordination:

Common coordination challenges faced by virtual teams are as follows:

1. Time zone differences
2. Power and infrastructure facility breakdown
3. Language issues within teams
   
4. Communication issues and failure to understand the tasks assigned to them.

I plan descriptive posts that will help you overcome these specific challenges of virtual teams and build solutions to give more weight to pros.

Office Live workspace for SB

My earlier posts were specifically aimed to build and manage virtual organizations but this one is good for regular business/individuals as well.



Sharada Sreedhar is one of a kind marketing executive that I have ever known, not only for her success in profession but also for her operation style. She has hired a secretary for managing office and two marketing executives. The office secretary also helps her and others to followup with the clients and handles the calls too.

The key difference in her operation is about the way she simplifies the interoffice communication process. She and her marketing assistants meet up only on weekends at office and yet they are able generate leads and run a successful business.

The process is all about document sharing without any hi-fi systems/process or CRM software. All her sharing is done using Office Live Workspace. 

Here is how they take advantage of Office Live Workspace.
Sharada and the marketing executives update their business visits/daily report towards end of the day using an Microsoft Excel workbook to Office Live Workspaces.

Most marketing companies do have a daily report system. The executives generally hands over the report directly or emails it to their respective bosses. Boss checks the daily reports and decides next course of action on each business lead. Hence boss generally works late and finds time only to propagate marketing.


Sharada has delegated this responsibility to Reeta - her secretary. Shared documents can be checked and updated by Reeta and she makes the follow up calls, updates any new status on the same document and also alerts relevant executives about any immediate attention required.

How easy is it to work on Office live Workspace? Click here and get going in minutes. 

Now for the most important question. How much does it cost? 

Ah ....well... you know it depends on.... . Hmmm .. lets see.....

Not a penny... it is free.. absolutely free !!!

 All you need to do is install this addin  from Microsoft.  "Office Live Update 1.5" and you get a  new sub-menu as shown in the screen shot below . You will have sub-menu for saving to office Live and opening from office live.


Create your office spaces account and start sharing your documents. Say bye bye to flash drives and portable storage devices to carry your documents.

It could also avoid confusion of emails and track latest version of your documents.

I suggest you take a walk through by directly going to http://workspace.officelive.com/en-us/Home2 .




Well then, I will leave rest to figure out for you. Happy Office Live workspacing .

Application virtualization for Virtual teams

I am very excited about Microsoft Application Virtualization and it's applications in virtual organizations.

I had an Email today from a client who had his requirement summarized as follows.

• I would like to deploy our software app into 300 computers without actually going to each client PC and keep upgrading as we release new versions, which might be once a month or so. 
• I also should be able to save data to a central server and not locally. Updatable on a frequency.
• All these 300 computers are laptops of employees and they keep traveling regularly. They need to use our software even when they are not on the company network or connected with internet.

Now this would be kind of near impossible scenario in earlier era of computing where I would most probably end up suggesting VPN or RDP. Using RDP or VPN do require laptops to be connected to internet as well in such a scenario.

This is where I love Microsoft App-V. You can use App-V client to actually cache the application and set a frequency to update the server or update only when the network is available. The applications works like locally installed application and it looks just like any other desktop application.

Now that is what I call truly mobile. One more very important point is that App-V can be controlled centrally, including updates to application.

I am sure readers will be already getting new ideas. Comment on my post and I will be glad to discuss more in detail.
Do keep coming back for more and kindly leave your feedback and comments. I suggest that you subscribe to my feeds as well.

Cut IT cost and increase efficiency

It is all about cost in IT. Technology is the only domain that is getting cheaper. IT departments are always under pressure to reduce cost and get more efficient.

Many virtual SME owners ask me this question - "If I am able to reduce the budget of IT and increase efficiency then will I be able to cut down virtual employees as well?" . 

I generally counter this question for proving my point with another question. "Don't your virtual employees have a big to-do list of progressive tasks ?".

Most customers complaint that their virtual employees are more involved with maintenance tasks than concentrate on their real job role.

My current blog post is a simple case study on how technology can improve efficiency and reduce cost of IT department.


John runs a Small business web design company and he uses virtual teams. His web designers are scattered around the world and most of his solutions are given online.
He has Mathew - a virtual assistant just to maintain his web servers and to support the customers. Often Mathew has an average response time of about 48 hours for his customer queries/complaints/tickets, which is not good enough in this competitive world.
Mathew also coordinates with the designers, if they face any issues at the server during design and development of websites. Typically Mathew is loaded with work to maintain 8 servers and he also coordinates with other virtual designers, this slows down his attention to resolve customer tickets.

Think about a solution that can maintain all these servers from a single interface,  manage even virtual machines running at these servers and manage security from a single point.

That is right, if this can happen, Mathew will have more time to do productive job roles and could substantially increase response time. Happy customers ... more business, right?

Microsoft System center suite can manage end to end and free up time  The cost of Microsoft solution is approximately 1/6th of total cost of competitor's solutions in the market.
No I am not joking, believe me and I can prove that..
Microsoft solutions are from desktop to data center with a whole range of products to improve Small Business efficiency.
Let me know if, you found this post usefull.
Do keep coming back for more and kindly leave your feedback and comments. I suggest that you subscribe to my feeds as well.

Windows Server R2 for Small Business

Most of SME start-up do not prefer a server to begin with.
A SME owner quoted " Simpler the better for me to concentrate on expansion than be caught in maintenance of servers. I am not quite an expert to keep the policy updates and check for security issues within the server" .This is true for the older generation servers but R2 has a focus for small business, it simplifies admin tasks and selectively let you use technologies that are very important for virtual teams and SME.

Windows server 2008 R2 is licensed for 15 users, this the main attraction as earlier versions of Window servers did not have such a suitable license structure for SME.

The primary concerns ( to the best of my knowledge) of SME using a server are as follows.

• SME have limited IT resource and depend on trusted technology. I have known SME owners who do not like to adapt to new technology simply because they did not think it was worth their time understanding new technology to manage SME.

• Low cost is the primary concern for SME as well.

• Protecting data is very important for any business but it might be fatal for an SME

• Finding business data easily and making it available globally could increase efficiency.

R2 is good suit when considering the above challenges .. it is a good business value, simplicty to buy, state of art technology capabilty.

R2 for SME comes in two flavors. Foundation and Standard
Windows server foundation suitable to SME and upgradable to standard in future.
If you are thinking about virtualization I would suggest you to buy "Standard" - this is the major differene between foundation and standard.

I will be covering more aspects of R2 and how to utilize its power in your SME in forthcoming posts.

Do keep coming back for more and kindly leave your feedback and comments. I suggest that you subscribe to my feeds as well.

Microsoft tools for Virtual Teams

About 7 years back I was a project manager and kept my bags packed through out the year. Coordinating with the base team to get things done was a even more tiring and often lost control over the process and felt helpless without my team and infrastructure in vicinity. The harder part was getting a team member on phone and making him understand the mess I had to solve on-site.
Most IT professionals on the move have experienced similar issues and may still be. Mobility has never been an attraction for IT teams.

The era of mobility issues is a story of past. We live in an era of mobile phones, mobile computers and electronic money.

I wish to share some light moments from the past era. Feel free to rapid read the following para.

Our project was to be deployed in a huge factory that made furnace refractories and needless to say that it was a tensed moment for all of us in the team.
The software had to be deployed at the server of Electrical Control Room.  I was indulged checking outputs and analyzing the results. All of a sudden our application crashed, Murphy's laws had yet again proved right. I tried to cover the issue and raised it to my colleagues through phone for sorting out and instructed them to dispatch a fresh patched software via courier. I was about to report to the management about this setback and delay in release. Suddenly there was the fire alarm sound all over, the transformer at the main supply have burst to flames and the entire control room had to be shut down, all personals evacuated the facility for maintenance. I was relieved that we could re-schedule the release without being embarrassed.

Technologies are also about reducing your carbon foot print and increasing your efficiency without your physical presence.

Microsoft tools have just the right solution for mobility issues and virtual teams. Microsoft tools have looked beyond the traditional approach to solve mobility and have come out with a suit of products that addresses every concern related to virtual teams. Following were the major disadvantages with the traditional approach.

• 
  
  Traditional VPNs are inadequate and hard to manage, with all-or-nothing policy that doesn’t work behind other firewalls
• 
  
  Access to more and different types of applications than ever before
• 
  
  Intranet and extranet access from more users, locations and devices

I will be posting about specific tools from Microsoft in my next blog which will help you virualize teams as well as handle mobility efficiently.

Do keep coming back for more and kindly leave your feedback and comments. I suggest that you subscribe to my feeds as well. 
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Process of awarding job in Elance

I hope the readers of my earlier post would have already signed up with Elance.

If not, just sign up now from the banner below. Believe me, it is free and simple.





I had opportunity to work with a buyer once and we had chances to get together in number of projects. It was a beginning to a long term relation and mutually beneficial business growth. He particularly mentioned in my feedback "Santosh just keeps raising the bar as far as what to expect. We love working with him. Building the right team local or remote is always key to project success. Remote management with the wrong team can be a huge hindrance. With Santosh he brings personal commitment that is rare to find and yet this gives an unwavering confidence in knowing we can work remotely and be successful (by working with him). Why trust your projects to chance - we whole heartedly recommend Santosh to you!"

Privacy of buyers in Elance are strictly guarded. Providers need to ask for any contact info to buyers directly in case they need it during contract signing. However Elance encourages providers to upload a "Statement of Work"(SOW) as soon as the work is awarded to them.

This blog post is about job award process based on the best practices suggested by Elance. More details can be found in Elance and it's blogs. However my intention is to give you a general idea at current.

Step 1 : Post the project.

Providers will bid to your post and you can even open up private communication with them to understand more regarding the project execution or answer/discuss queries. The project bidding period can be decided by the buyer though there is an upper cap to it.

Step 2  : Select a provider and award the project

Once you have decided on a provider, you can award the project to him. This is merely agreeing that you have short listed this provider to work with and now we are looking forward for signing a formal job contract and decide the deliverable and bench marks. The provider/buyer at this stage can upload SOW and related documents and clearly lay down the terms of deliverable or key assumptions.

Step 3 - Deliverable and bench marks

The clearer the terms you have with the provider, the more successful the project will be.
Here are some tips:


a) Check for Elance guidelines from it;s help and blogs before you sign/agree a contract.

b) Read some experiences from search engines.

c) Check out some good books.  I recommend that you read and consider the points in "A Detailed Look at Software Contracts and Licenses & How to Change Them to Fit Your Needs (Paperback)" .


 
Happy buying !! will be back for more tips about Escrow funding and benchmark in my forth coming blogs.

Do keep coming back for more and comment on the posts, it will help me improve and encourage my posts. Also subscribe to my feeds.

Finding talented professionals to work in Virtual Team

It is always best to have a reliable partner when globally outsourcing and building virtual team.

There are risks in finding reliable Virtual team members.
Eyebrows of business owners are raised when they select team members. A very busy virtual team owner from Elance says "It is hard to find good people and it is even harder to find good IT professionals but thanks to Elance I have even more visibility than just a CV and reference checks. Elance gives you the reality and credibility of the provider and makes it easy to decide my team" .


Elance is one such market place where talented professionals and global buyers come together.
Elance helps small businesses hire and manage freelance and contract professionals. Over 100,000 businesses use Elance to find rated and tested Programmers, Designers, Writers, Marketers, Customer Service Agents and Virtual Assistants.

Elance has improved a lot, the way companies buy and manage services. It is the leading provider of software solutions for Services Procurement and Management (SPM), which improve the way that organizations buy and manage services – one of the largest components of corporate spending. 

Escrow is one such feature that gives Elance it's reliability. Providers are certain to be paid and buyers are safe and cannot be taken for a ride without delivering.




I will be posting more blogs on Elance and managing teams using Elance. In the mean time you can sign-up and explore with Elance. Signing up is really simple and easy for both buyers and providers.  
Just click on the Elance banner and fill in your details and within minutes you are ready to outsource. Believe me it is so simple.

I have sat on both sides of the table at Elance( Buyer and provider).  I will be posting more blogs on how to work with Elance and select providers that are reliable. 

There is a rating system and feedback for providers in Elance. I will also post more details on how to select reliable virtual team members from Elance.





By streamlining Services Procurement and Management processes, Elance helps companies of all sizes realize significant business transformations, productivity gains and cost reductions.Elance improves the way organizations buy and manage services - the largest component of corporate spending. 

With Elance's Services Procurement and Management (SPM) solutions, busnesses can improve the success rates and lower the costs of project and contractor based services. The company's offerings include Elance 3, an easy-to-adopt application suite for Fortune 1000 companies and Elance Online, a Web-based services marketplace that lets small and medium sized businesses benefit from the industry's largest network of professional services vendors and procurement experts.







 

Request For Proposals - best practices

The most difficult decision of Virtual team owner is to select his team.

Often the Virtual employer compiles a RFP(Request for proposal) and pitches it to the Virtual candidate.

The shortlisting is done by the employee based on that one single reply to to his RFP.

"Most of the time I don't understand how to reply to the RFP as there are no specific questions in it" says Aravind Gosh a prospective candidate.

Most employers do not make assertions in RFP and they try to summarize the project requirement and let the candidate comment and propose his execution plan. This is very important as vision and goal of the project is more important than just technical expertise when working in a virtual environment.



Perhaps one of the most important criteria I have personally observed to be helpful is the RTQ and ATQ principle:

* RTQ = Read the Question. Refer to what the client is asking for in the proposal
* ATQ = Answer the Query: After you have read and understood the question (and researched on it) you should focus on just Answering the Query. And remember: say “NO” “NA” or “info not available” if you don’t have the answer. Saying so will help you more than hurt you. Nobody (least of all your client) wants to spend precious time reading an answer to a query they did not ask!

Virtual Team and it's impact on IT small business

Carole Joe has an IT expert team upon whom she relies for cutting edge IT technology, sharp ideas and develop state of art software products.
What's interesting about this is that the team never met face to face. The organization is truly "virtual."

"It takes many skills and personality types to run an IT business, even a small business. You really can't handle the technology, marketing and management alone " says Martin, a small business owner from UK. "It's was a strange experience to me."
On top of the usual challenges that businesses face, a successful virtual-office business requires a whole new set of strategies.