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Increased Trust, Better Virtual Teaming, New Ways of Doing Business: Maybe 2020 Wasn’t All Bad

November 24, 2021 | by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

A poll of webinar attendees finds a silver lining to 2020.

Webinars can be deadly dull at times, even if you’re interested in the subject. We try to avoid putting the audience to sleep by incorporating live polls in our presentation. In October, during the How We Thrived webinar (view the recording here if you missed it!), I was particularly interested in knowing how the audience members thrived in 2020, as compared to our study respondents.

Here’s what we asked the webinar attendees, and how they responded:

Q: In 2020 did your organization change their way of doing business

  • To a great extent
  • Somewhat
  • Not at all?

A: A third of attendees (33%) answered “to a great extent,” and another 59% said things had changed “somewhat.” Only 8% felt things had not changed at all.  So, not surprisingly, the vast majority had faced at least some major changes at work.

Q: This 92% of audience members who experienced big changes in their work environment then weighed in on what virtual project management strategies their organizations had used to keep on track:

  • 88% employed virtual teams
  • 60% used virtual training techniques
  • 42% relied on virtual project management (including cloud-based systems and/or PMaaS)

These responses mirrored the findings in our research report. Prior to the pandemic, organizations only used virtual project management “to a little extent.” The sudden shift to remote work caused a rapid adoption of all kinds of virtual practices, methods, and technologies (to see all the examples, download the research report here.) Granted, many organizations struggled with these changes. As our research data points out, the highest performing organizations were already skilled in the use of virtual teams, training, and PM before the pandemic hit. They were able to leverage their experience and know-how, while companies who had not been investing in virtual strategies had a very steep learning curve.

Nevertheless, across the board, most of our audience, as well as a majority of the research respondents, seem to feel that the challenges of 2020 yielded some benefits:

Q: Would you say the changed work environment

  • Increased trust and engagement among stakeholders
  • Negatively impacted trust and engagement among stakeholders
  • Had no effect?

A: The majority (57%) responded that they had seen increased trust among stakeholders. Another 29% reported no effect. Only 14% felt the impact had been negative.

These answers were gratifying in two ways. First, the responses of the webinar audience echoed the findings of the study, giving us confidence in our results. Secondly, it’s heartening to hear that, in times of great change, people have come out of the crucible in a positive spirit. Virtual project management showed its quality in 2020; the effects of its adoption will be long-term and, for most practitioners, this is a satisfying outcome to a very hard period. And that's a thought to ponder this Thanksgiving weekend.

About the Author

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin is editor-in-chief for PM Solutions Research, and the author, co-author and editor of over twenty books on project management, including the 2007 PMI Literature Award winner, The AMA Handbook of Project Management, Second Edition.

View Posts by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

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