The ProcessLab's team, from left: Annari Tolmay, Ninéll Robinson, Pat Cassisa, and Rizé Blom.
Flexible working can widen access to talent and give employees greater control over how they work. But without clear processes, visibility of workloads and deliberate efforts to stay connected, it can quickly become difficult to manage, particularly as a business grows across more projects, countries and time zones.
This was the central message of ProcessLab’s presentation at a recent PMO Forum event, hosted by Project Portfolio Office under the umbrella of Project Management South Africa (PMSA). ProcessLab specialises in business process optimisation through intelligent process management. It runs 51 projects for nine clients in seven countries and operates remotely, without traditional offices.
Four of its leaders took the forum through the operating model they have built to support a distributed workforce, while still maintaining predictable delivery for clients. Annari Tolmay and Rizé Blom, programme managers; Pat Cassisa, senior programme manager; and Ninéll Robinson, head of delivery, explored four interconnected elements of the company's approach, namely flexibility, visibility, quality, and culture and belonging.
For Guy Jelley, CEO and co-founder of Project Portfolio Office, the takeaway for project management offices (PMOs), is balance. “Successful flexible working depends on maintaining equilibrium between individual autonomy and organisational clarity,” he said.
Tolmay’s advice was that the starting point of setting up remote work should be recognising that it requires more than moving office-based activities onto digital platforms.
“An office is not just a place; it also creates visibility. Co-workers notice when someone is under pressure, identify a problem and escalate it quickly. Physical workplaces encourage informal knowledge-sharing and organic learning, as well as providing a sense of culture. When COVID-19 forced companies to work remotely, many discovered how much they had relied on these benefits without consciously designing for them.”
ProcessLab treats remote work as an operating model design challenge, rather than a location policy or an office replicated on a collaboration tool. “When designed carefully, remote work can support focus, accommodate diverse life stages and allow people in different locations and time zones to contribute. Flexibility gives access to skills and capacity that might not be available in a conventional office-bound, nine-to-five model, like skilled parents who work part-time or specialists who prefer to focus on delivery rather than work from a particular location.”
A clear, shared rhythm supports this approach. Regular check-ins and retrospectives help teams to stay aligned. These practices take client and project requirements into account, so that internal flexibility does not compromise the client experience.
Several practical mechanisms also contribute to making this model work. A skills matrix helps people find the right collaborator to ask for help, rather than relying on whoever responds first. Meeting notes and decisions should be documented and shared, while planned, structured handovers can provide the context needed for another person to continue the work. Availability and working hours should be communicated consistently, and existing tools and project management platforms used before introducing new technology.
In addition, artificial intelligence (AI) can play a supporting role, for instance, to capture meeting notes and actions. The value lies not simply in making meetings shorter, but in reducing the need for additional catch-up sessions and making information more accessible.
As Blom clarified, managing a distributed team requires a clear view of workloads, available capacity, skills, project assignments, dependencies and upcoming commitments. The objective is not to monitor where employees are working, but to understand whether the organisation has the resources and capacity to meet its commitments.
The same principle applies to ad hoc requests. A seemingly minor task can consume valuable time, particularly when several people make similar requests. Making this otherwise invisible work visible allows teams to discuss priorities and agree on trade-offs, rather than letting additional work accumulate unnoticed.
In ProcessLab’s case, it already had much of the required data. “We knew when people were taking leave, which projects they were working on, how resources were planned, what the project budgets were and which activities were client-facing or internal. The challenge was that the information sat in different places and did not readily answer the questions managers needed to ask.”
Bringing this information together as ProcessLab has, through the use of a collaborative work management tool and AI, helped managers to identify potential bottlenecks, allocate resources and anticipate the impact of leave or competing deadlines. However, these tools do not replace project management judgment. Project managers must remain responsible for checking information, making decisions and managing delivery.
Maintaining consistent quality can be more challenging when teams are distributed. In an office, people may learn standards through observation, informal feedback or quick conversations with colleagues. Remote workers cannot rely on these interactions happening naturally.
Cassisa highlighted the need to make standards part of everyday workflows, rather than leaving them in lengthy documents or folders that employees may rarely consult.
“This starts with a clear understanding of client requirements, agreed processes, intended outcomes and performance measures. From there, organisations can build checks into the way work is completed, covering both technical requirements and the consistency of deliverables.”
AI-supported checks can help identify omissions, inconsistencies or presentation issues, allowing teams to address problems before work reaches the client. Nevertheless, people still need to review the results and take responsibility for the final output.
Robinson then addressed the human side of distributed working, stating that culture starts with recruitment and onboarding. “At ProcessLab, we specifically look for people who can manage their own work, take initiative and operate with a degree of autonomy.”
New employees then follow a structured three-month onboarding period that includes training, practical project experience, team feedback and support from a buddy.
Regular team routines help to maintain connections. Weekly check-ins provide opportunities to set priorities, review progress and discuss risks, while less formal sessions give colleagues space to share personal interests, experiences and milestones.
Recognition also matters. Informal initiatives that draw attention to a team member's contribution help to keep achievements visible even when colleagues are not physically together. Making time for in-person interaction, where practical, is key.
Culture, Robinson argued, cannot be left to chance. Trust, accountability and connection need to be reinforced through leadership behaviour and the way the company operates.
“The lesson is that connection needs to be deliberately designed. People do not necessarily reach out when they feel isolated, so organisations must create regular opportunities for colleagues to get to know one another, share knowledge and feel part of a team.”
ProcessLab’s experience points to several practical considerations for PMO leaders, particularly as teams grow:
- Set clear principles: Establish shared expectations for availability, communication, accountability and delivery without imposing unnecessary rules on every aspect of how people work.
- Make capacity visible: Bring project commitments, workloads, skills and planned leave together to support resource allocation and identify delivery risks early.
- Build standards into workflows: Make quality checks and agreed processes part of the work itself, rather than relying solely on documentation or individual memory.
- Use AI as an assistant: Apply it to administrative tasks and consistency checks, while retaining human oversight and accountability for decisions.
- Create deliberate opportunities for connection: Combine structured working routines with informal knowledge-sharing, recognition and opportunities to build relationships.
- Review the model as the company evolves: Reassess processes and responsibilities as the team grows, rather than assuming that arrangements which worked in the early stages will remain effective.
“When people can see what needs to be done, understand who is responsible and access the information and support they need, distributed teams are better equipped to manage competing priorities and deliver consistently for clients. This is why designing an operating model in which flexibility and accountability can work together is critical,” Jelley concluded.