How to successfully maintain creativity remotely

How to collaborate as a creative team, when you’re not in the same office

Code Enigma has staff all over the world. Mostly in Europe. Our design team work remotely. We find ways to effectively communicate and work on client projects together.

We encourage creativity, but this can be a challenge.

We spoke to our designers and asked their thoughts on how they keep things fresh, exciting and successful. Here’s what they said:

1. Communicate clearly. Communicate, always.

Communication is really vital for every team but it’s the lifeblood of a successful remote team. If you’re not certain of the project goal, the plan or what tasks belong to which team members, you’re going to fail to deliver.

A clearly-defined medium and style of communication is key and should be well-established. When it comes to remote working, you have to communicate more than what you might expect.

Ensuring the whole team (not just the designers, but developers and project managers too) understands the connection between their roles and responsibilities is vital.

No one should make assumptions. There shouldn’t be a need to read between the lines. Asking questions will make sure there are no misunderstandings.

It’s best to avoid using jargon that isn’t universally understood at the company. Especially when you’re working with a new client. First impressions can only be made once. You only get one shot at setting your communication tone.

We preach about having empathy for users when we’re designing for a website. It’s important to have that same empathy for our colleagues. If you feel a cloud of confusion forming, have a video meeting to see people’s faces and hear their voices to clear things up. This will solve an issue before it becomes a problem.

If designers know the meeting schedule for the whole project, who will be there and why they can prioritise their work to suit this. Equally, it can highlight where time might be better spent elsewhere.

2. Kick-off as you mean to go on

Kick-off meetings set the scene and expectations for a project. If you can, it’s useful to do this in person. Where possible, we aim to meet our clients for the human reason that it’s good to get to know who we’ll be working with. This will help you connect and bond as time goes on, which facilitates mutual understanding.

Whether you can achieve an in-person kick-off or not, however you communicate it, make sure you do communicate the goals of the design project. Outline how these feed into the overall business objectives.

If a client has a development team that hasn’t worked with our design team before, it’s important to learn how everyone fits into the scenario. It aids appreciation for each individual’s skills and sets realistic expectations. Developers can then appreciate user experience, user research, accessibility and visual elements of the work in hand.

We like to work in an agile fashion. Doing this as a remote team helps us to work in such a way that is adaptable and scalable, iteratively reaching the desired goal quickly. We use this to showcase how designs will be realised over time.

3. Establish SMART goals

It’s important to establish a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed. Doing this at the start of a project means everyone has the same vision for what we’re trying to achieve.

There needs to be an agreed delivery plan with everyone understanding how this project contributes toward the bigger picture.

This goal should be communicated and agreed by all because designers and developers talk in different languages and without formal acceptance of a goal, each discipline could go off on their own tangent and not realise any misalignment until it’s too late. The teams should understand and accept the who, what and why, but not be told how to get there. That’s where they need to be creative in their respective roles to find the solution.

4. Follow your chosen design process

Processes are fundamental for any team, whether you’re in an office together or not. Remote ones take a little more organisation for smooth coordination. Designers need time to get things right, especially on big projects. It’s important not to outline a design upfront or lay down an impossible expectation or strict direction. A valuable process will allow the designer appropriate time to focus their attention without being dictatorial.

Having a process means planning ahead. This takes the time pressure off of design phases because you know what’s on the horizon. Letting the wider project team know what’s going on will take the pressure off of the designers too, as progress naturally unfolds.

Letting designers manage their time in an outcome-driven way will remove the need to check in too much (this is different from over-communication).

Chat systems are great for this. We use MatterMost, but the most popular is Slack, or IRC if you like retro things.

The process must involve a feedback loop including delivering useful feedback. We wrote another blog on this and you can read that here.

5. Use the right tools for the job

Use tools to support your remote working. These tools are getting better and better all the time.

There are some fundamental ones:

Messaging client
You must be able to reach one another regularly. Emails can get clogged up, lost and ignored. Chat clients like MatterMost or Slack keep people updated in real-time. Plus you can send each other GIFs.

Digital whiteboards
Sometimes you can’t beat being sat at the same table with a packet of post-its. But you can do this virtually. Using programs like Trello or Figma lets us play around constructively.

Secure, cloud-based document storage
You have to keep your design assets safe, but also have enough room to store them as the files tend to be huge in size volume when you’re keeping track of different versions and iterations. A cloud-based solution will allow you to work on it in real-time and collaboratively.

6. Keep it real

When you’re part of a remote team distributed around the world, managing different time zones and bank holidays, things can get blurry. Set some scheduling rules for frequent meetings. Get everyone to agree. For example, we have daily scrums, usually in the morning. These scrums make life easier.

Having a work-life balance is really important, too. Being remote, there’s a tendency to stay connected for longer than is healthy. Over-working is where mistakes can happen. If you’ve planned the project right and scheduled the right meetings, then there shouldn’t be an issue getting it over the line. Mistakes happen, we’re human, but it’s more likely to happen if you’re tired.

Accept that people go for lunch and coffee breaks. Accept that life might happen to you or your colleague and that means things need to be reassessed for that day, or week. Be kind. Be realistic. Be human.

7. Say thank you!

Remote teams are still teams. People spent their time to finish that project to the best standard they can. Rewards are still possible!

Sending something as simple as a branded coffee mug reminds everyone that we’re on the same team. You see those mugs when we’re on calls and it’s a symbol of our cohesion.

Summary

Remote collaboration takes dedication, discipline and patience. It doesn’t mean creativity cannot flourish. We’re really proud of the work our design team create with strong user experience, accessibility and visual beauty.

If you’d like to talk to us about how to adjust to working remotely, we’re here. Contact us today.