This topic contains 7 replies, has 8 voices, and was last updated by 
Gregory Weisser 7 months, 2 weeks ago.
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Due to COVID-19 situation, in the times where it is difficult to meet people, what are the best practices for leading integrations remotely (specially from human/ cultural perspective)?
Hi Navdeep,
You have raised a very important issue that many organisations are currently facing. We have adapted And implemented an internal video conferencing session every week to resolve this issue.We had this situation on a project on major life-science company in Switzerland. Company decided that consultants cannot come to company location due to Covit-19 reasons. We completely changed our way of work and went 100% digital (online collaborations, online teams, virtual calls, use of Google suit, Office 365 tools, Zoom).
We use online collaboration tools (Office 365, Zoom, and Nextiva) to facilitate remote meetings. There have been drawbacks to this approach, as integration scoping can be more easily achieved through being on site. I still travel with our executive team for closing day, but my travel has been significantly limited in comparison to pre-COVID times. I schedule many more calls now. Removing the in-person collaboration opportunities can have a negative impact on progress, but I actively work towards maintaining the human contact side of the business through digital means.
A more digital oriented approach and collaboration tools (Teams, Zoom, sharepoint, Dropbox,virtual datarooms etc) have proved to be effective However the interpersonal element of the process was still missing with any drawbacks this can cause.
Can be quite a challenge. Of course, the main option now is video conferencing. It works, but it’s not always ideal. On the positive side, everyone is aware of the challenges, and doing whatever necessary to make things work.
Really a good topic! It’s relatable to the present day. We have adapted around virtual calls, conference calls in the car, etc. I suppose its become less formal and even approachable in a way. While we are getting a lot more done internally, we have felt an impact externally. we are still on hold with items held up internationally. COVID has impacted many of the countries we do business with in terms of inspections and assessments for real estate or facilities purchases have been delayed by months because these companies don’t have employees coming to work. Italy and Bejing are great examples of a full operational shutdown that even video calls couldn’t help us through.
Great issue you have raised. We have basically managed one whole PMI process remotely (already before COVID 19 and had just one visit onsite) for one deal. Worked well and we used common tools as slack/go2meeting/zoom for communication and for project tracking google suit/JIRA/box.com and similar tools. Speaking of missing interaction/visiting people physically bringing people/different cultures together is indeed a tough one, but there are ways to entertain staff even using zoom or other virtual comms tool with some interactive entertaining initiatives “get your peers know/virtual team building etc, what can really be fun. But in the end we are all human individuals and might feel more comfortable (“breaking the ice”) when meeting and interacting in person.
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