5 things I have learned about effective remote teamwork during Covid-19
It has been a few months since we have started working from home due to Covid-19. Here are my learnings and reflections on how to make it effective at a team level.
1. Keep the routine
Make sure that you keep the same routines or close to as much as possible when your team is working from home. We humans are creatures of habit. If you are doing things in a certain way at a certain time, it becomes easy. At a time of stress and uncertainty, make things easy for your team.
Following this rule, the team kept the same time and format for our stand-ups, for our tech talks and group team sessions. We have the same time and routine for our sprint planning, sprint retrospectives, and meetings with clients. We ensured that we did not drop things that are not directly related to project work such as tech talks or technical group meetings. We still maintain our R&D schedule.
This enabled the team to develop a certain level of normality as they were working in pretty much the same way as they were in the office. It helped us deliver critical projects with tight deadlines without any major impact.
2. Have a good work system in place
Nothing beats a good work system. If you have established a good work system (The way work comes to your team, the way it is scheduled, and delivered), then you can be rest assured that the team will not drop the ball when things change, even when it is a sudden change.
We have a very strong work system based on Scrum and Kanban established before the COVID-19 restrictions were enforced. This allowed us to keep working within the defined system pretty much as we were working in the office.
3. Communication is the key — make it effective
One of the key things that get impacted when a team is working remotely is a drop in team communication. The office chit chats, the kitchen discussions, water cooler gossip, and osmotic communication suddenly stops. It is really impossible to replace the various forms of informal communication that occurs in the workplace in a remote environment, however, there are things you can put in place to bridge the gap.
- Whether you are using Slack, MS Teams, or any other chat tool, create project-specific channels. All the communication about the project should happen through this channel even it is between individuals. This will ensure that all the project team members are aware of the communication and if they need to provide any input they can do that. This goes some way to emulate the osmotic communication that can sometimes play a crucial role in the project success
- Always start project-based online meetings in your team channel so everyone is aware that it is happening. This will enable any interested team member to join the discussion
- Set up round-robin catch-ups between team members so that they can talk about things that are not strictly work-related
- Make use of code reviews between team members and encourage pair programming as a means for enhanced communication
- Allow 5–10 minutes extra in stand-ups to enable a bit of social chit chat before starting
4. Keep the fun alive
Most people miss the social aspect of working in an office. The Friday night drinks, team events are not possible while working remotely, especially during a pandemic. Ensure that you set up regular online social events. Make use of online games, themed online meetings, and have them regularly. Keeping the fun alive is key to boosting moral and team participation
5. Leaders / Keep or start 1–1 with your team
If you are in a leadership position, make sure that you keep or start 1–1 with your team members on a regular basis. It is critical in times of stress and working remotely. In an agile environment, the team has a high level of collaboration with standups, design meetings, sprint planning, reviews, and retros. In all that collaboration, it is easy to forget the importance of a 1–1 meeting.
Use a 1–1 meeting to ask how an individual team member is doing, and how you can assist them. How is their personal development is progressing, and are there any issues? Ensure that you remove any impediments that have whether it is equipment or process improvement. This will go a long way for overall team morale and commitment.
