One of the ten applications outlined in the Bangemann report (a white paper published after a meeting held in Brussels in June, 1994) is Teleworking. Martin Bangemann was one of the twenty members belonging to the High-Level Group on the Information Society. The aim of this group was to give recommendation to the European Council about Europe and the global information society. After the meeting, a report was requested by the European Council and, on the basis of this report, it would have adopted an operational program defining precise procedures for actions and the necessary means to achieve them. Teleworking is perfect for independent professionals that require a certain degree of freedom in their endeavour. This post-information era is tending, more and more, to an economy system based on individual productivity, where it's possible to measure results in terms of money. But, in a project oriented environment where the work is handled by a team (a group of people usually being in the same physical place), can teleworking be applied?
A complex project usually is broken down using a technique called Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). This technique gives the opportunity to decompose, in a methodical way, the project work into meaningful and logical smaller pieces for the purpose of planning and control. This becomes the data dictionary for communicating on the project; furthermore, it should include all activities associated with the project scope, it should have have a child/parent relationship (which means that you can roll up and summarize any information from the lower levels and upwards -- this is true for activity cost, resource effort and schedule information), and it can also be used to assign responsibility for groups of activities to different functional managers for planning and or accountability purposes. It should also be used as the format for capturing and outlining changes to the project.
The WBS makes it "easier" to manage (monitor and control) the project work, if the team is all in one place. But, with telework the work place becomes "virtual". This means that team members might be dislocated to different parts of the world, including the people that are accountable for keeping track of the project's progress and status. Assuring that results are maximized, resources optimized and risks minimized can be accomplished through an integrated global PMO evolutionary mechanism ... this will solve the problem of the "distance global manager".
