The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased distributed work in academia. Consequently, new challenges regarding the management of research tasks and teams have become even more pressing issues. In this paper, to help researchers with this matter, we share our experiences and best practices to adopt and set up an online project management system. This is presented as a case study of our research group, homed in the Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Department at the University of Central Florida.  Data were collected from interviews with key stakeholders and observations during group meetings. This research shows that choosing and configuring a project management software can be accomplished in a brief time and with an accessible process. While this case study was limited in two ways, specifically by the structure of the group and the work we do, our findings are relevant to other academics aiming to improve their management processes. We contribute with a framework, best practices, and lessons learned to introduce a computer-based project management system and implement successful managerial practices for managing distributed teams.