6 Ways To Optimize Your Team’s Workflow (While Working From Home)
Full disclosure: this content was originally set to be shared at SXSW next week, but as a safety precaution I am opting out of crowded airports, stuffy airplanes and conferences with 400,000 attendees (and you should too). Although disappointing, this turn of events is an opportunity to reflect in gratitude for Cisco’s work-from-anywhere culture as well as refine my team’s collaboration techniques to optimize for a completely interrupted workflow (from the sterile safety of my home office). Webex has transformed the way we collaborate, and this connected culture has saved our work (and sanity) over the past few weeks as we communicate, function and work together just like a team who is physically together in a traditional office — even, when we are not.
This is a big part of what makes Cisco the #1 Place to Work, and why as a manager I have been delicately balancing trust and touch points that keeps a team functioning, morale up and creativity flowing. While we typically work across multiple time zones (with our peer design teams in Shanghai, Galway and Oslo), the local Seattle team had just found our ebb and flow when we had to suddenly reassess how to continue our high quality and velocity output given the increase risk of germ exposure. How could we continue a seamless workflow when we no longer have day-to-day face time? As a manager I’ve found a few things that served us well:
Set clear expectations: Working from a non-office setting can be an adjustment, so having an open discussion about the reality of expectations, availability, deliverables, and flexibility is key to ensuring everyone has a clear understanding of what their new work environment means to their day-to-day.
Team huddles: We continue to meet early and often with ad-hoc meetings or calls to share design progress, give feedback or round-robin status. These touch points continue to ensure the team feels connected and empowered to do their best work. Never underestimate the power of video! Keeping video on ensures we’re making eye contact, staying present, and connecting just like when we were sitting side-by-side in the office.
Real-time collab: whiteboarding and affinity mapping together makes remote feel local; when we can’t be together in person we can still sort stickies, co-author and annotate mock ups (with tools like Figma, Teams Whiteboarding, and Miro).
Respect boundaries: For many of us, turning work “off” can be a challenge, so I make explicit effort to avoid messaging after-hours. When work bleeds into home it can be easy to dip a toe back in when we should be cooking dinner, decompressing with kids or curling up with Netflix. Don’t go there! Respect after-hours, put on that DND and (if you’re like me) close that home-office door until you clock in the next AM.
Switch it up: We’ve found that a healthy mix of IRL and virtual works best; so if there is opportunity to meet in person to do 1:1s or design critiques together, it can be a welcomed change of scenery to working exclusively solo at home. Rendezvous at a coffee shop or consider hitting up a local co-working spot (we love The Riveter) — you’d be amazed at how inspiring a new setting can be!
Have empathy: The threat of Coronavirus is scary, and at the end of the day — we are all humans with lives and families, so a big part of the past few weeks has been recognizing the very real fear, anxiety and growing concern over coming to the office, attending events and work travel. As much as we love our jobs, it’s not worth risking lives over — so I am extra mindful in setting an example that it’s ok to adjust your environment to suit your needs at any given moment.
We’ll continue to adapt our workflow and adjust to find our groove — continuing to celebrate the little things (with emojis), virtually high five as much as possible and crack jokes during meetings (usually with a Giphy exchange). In today’s climate, being flexible and connected is the future of collaboration — and we’re out to prove it really is the new way to work.
