Managing the Project

If you are the leader or President of your virtual company, you need to know how to be a good leader and motivator. There are many great books on the topic, and it is suggested that you go to the local library and read about people managing. It's not barking out orders or dictating what each person does; management is about encouraging people to get work done using their own initiative-- and the added challenge is that you may not be paying much if anything for the members of your team's work.

Keeping your team together, focused, and motivated is probably the single most important activity you as leader can devote your time to. Without a team, your project will stop dead in its tracks. And you can't just keep replacing team members, because each new person has to learn how the company operates and get accustomed to the other people on the team. It takes time to create a team that can work fluidly without arguing and quitting.

Constant contact and encouragement are required for keeping the project moving forward every day. This will become a second nature habit, but only after a whole lot of discipline on the part of the leader. It is hard to get past your own worries and really listen to the problems others are having and on top of it make them feel motivated to do what you ask. Not everyone can be a good manager, but it only takes the will and a lot of work.

One facet of building strong morale is to trust the work that others do. If your project is substantially large, there's no way you can track the minute activities involved in even one small task that each person is doing. There must be a mutual respect and trust that things will get done right and on time. If things don't get done right or on time, don't blow up and scold the person-- try to find out why, and then help find a new way of going about it. In other words, don't investigate details until it requires your attention. In general, the more freedom people receive, the more initiative they will offer. And that means improved morale, more productivity, and a better product.

When the schedule begins to slip and your deadlines are closer than you thought, you might need to rearrange some elements of the project, or cut some out entirely. Some slippage should be expected, because unforeseen events will happen (sickness, personal problems, or hardware downtime). Defer tasks onto other able team members, but at all costs you have to keep to the schedule. If you allow the schedule to slip and then ignore the fact, it gives the whole team the impression that you don't care and the schedule doesn't matter. This will lead to very bad habits in the future when your next paycheck is at stake. It should be noted that this is an extremely difficult aspect to manage if you are not paying the team, since they must work at other jobs to survive. Scheduling becomes next to impossible in this case, but it should be worked at nonetheless.

Sometimes a member of the team is simply not performing. They may ignore your emails, or ignore tasks and do what they think should be done. This is a problem and should be handled as early as it is detected. You have to let that person know that the project as a whole depends on the coordinated actions of everyone, but unless the guidance you give is followed, the required coordination is destroyed.

If they persist in causing schedule or morale problems, it might be time to tell them to leave the team. This is not something that is to be taken lightly. Firing someone will affect the whole team negatively, not just that person. You will notice a dip in morale, and maybe things will slow down a little. That's your cue that you as leader have to inspire motivation-- so plan for that inevitable slump, however minor, and be ready to give the team the push it needs to continue.

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