Building Remote Teams That Work Well with Government
Like businesses across the country, many government offices had to shift to a remote approach to doing the people’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this post, we share best practices from Coforma’s Project Management Office for successfully navigating remote work with government partners during and beyond the pandemic.
Even under the most desirable circumstances, working successfully on government projects requires a strong project management approach — one that’s founded on honed operational practices, thorough processes, and deep wells of patience. Under more challenging circumstances, such as working with newly remote teams that still need to meet government standards of doing business, delivery teams must be nimble and sometimes creative to maintain a high level of confidence, minimize risks, build trust across teams, and ultimately get the job done well. Here are some of Coforma’s insights from a full year of remote-only work.
Build Trust and Accountability
There’s nothing like delivering on time, on budget, and with quality insights and solutions to create trust and bonds between a client and team, regardless of the modes of communication. In a remote setting, the ability to foster trust between two teams who have never worked together and may never meet in person further strengthens the foundation of good working relationships and smooth service and product delivery.
“Although the process of building trust remotely may be a bit slower, there is really no other difference between remote and in-person teams. There are so many meetings that team members get to know one another, and I have not come across an issue connecting with clients.” — Kat Allarde, Senior Manager, PMO at Coforma
Recreate face-to-face contact with a cameras-on policy.
Face-to-face contact over Zoom or another video conferencing service is important to establish rapport with the team, to get to know one another, and establish an understanding of each team’s ways of working. Body language is so important to communication, and it translates the same on video as it does in person. Instead of being separated by screens, think of them as a powerful medium for connecting and sharing information. Coforma saw great success going remote because we were in constant communication through different apps, using them to share different dimensions of our work, goals, and lives with one another.
Be present on Slack.
While you can’t drop by your coworker’s desk and have a quick conversation with them in a remote environment, we achieve a pretty great approximation through Slack. Instead of being bogged down by emails or chasing communications across platforms, information is centralized on Slack and organized across channels as well as private messages. Being active on Slack is an ideal way to stay in the loop and make yourself accessible to your teammates — without having to slog through threaded emails.
Keep checking in.
The basis for a strong team relationship is consistent communication. Figure out the meeting cadence and schedule that works for your goals, whether it’s daily stand-ups, whole-team meetings every sprint, or weekly one-on-ones with every contributor. A structured calendar of meetings doesn’t have to be reserved for Scrum projects, either; instead, continually checking in lets you understand what people are working on without having to assume the state of a project at any point.
Know Your Process
Design your toolkit of applications and practices that supports successful remote team management now, and continue to build on it for the future.
Use the right software.
Take advantage of the applications the remote environment has to offer. Once you adopt high-quality web applications to manage your team, it becomes easy to have a consistent approach to projects. Robust project management tools such as Asana and Trello take the stress out of task tracking and help align teammates. Real-time collaboration tools such as Google Docs make giving and receiving feedback on deliverables easy, and they integrate well with Slack.
Have a process for introducing remote tools.
It takes time to incorporate new tools into a project workflow. First, ensure the government approves all the tools you need to use and that your team is aligned with the product owner. Ideally, remote tools are addressed right off the bat during the project kickoff, or even earlier at a pre-kickoff meeting that introduces the team, tools, and approach to the client and their project. Provide pre-recorded video tutorials for tools people might be less familiar with or offer a brief demo with the client so the team spends less time tackling the learning curve of new software.
Nail the closeout.
Guide your team through a successful project closeout. Hold a retrospective where your team can talk through their feelings and experiences about the work they did, and invite the client to give full perspective. In terms of administrative closeout, give the client at least a month of access to download your deliverables.
“Recognize that an in-person connection is still missing for your team — where’s the happy hour? Be sure to keep building the connection and relationship between everyone, and celebrate the work and its success.” — Kat Allarde, Senior Manager, PMO at Coforma
Respect People’s Time
Efficiency, brevity, and empathy are values for both successful project management and healthy team building.
Use a team charter.
Team charters work with project plans to centralize key data. By completing one prior to kickoff, we create a reference tool that the client can use to report to higher-level executives and a foundation for good documentation practices. Collaborate with the client to create this document, and include details on the team, deliverables, and milestone dates for the project.
Address Zoom burnout.
It’s important to be cognizant of the total work people are doing, including their various deadlines, meetings, and time zone. Distributed workplaces often have a high volume of meetings to get things done, so do what you can to lighten the load. Using private messages to send requests to your team is a less disruptive version of stopping by their desk with an ask and lets them own their time better. Do not meet when it’s not necessary, and don’t require everyone to attend a meeting if they don’t have to. Consider shortening meetings by as little as 5 minutes for a half-hour meeting and 10 minutes for a one-hour meeting. It gives people a needed break.
Communicate through conflict.
We aim to tailor our teams to fit their projects well, but it’s not always smooth sailing. The key to unraveling conflicts on a remote team is the same as an in-person one: good communication. The Project Manager is often at the center of this process, translating and buffering communication between individuals, the team, and the client. If the team is behind on a deliverable, work one-on-one with people and leverage team discussions to figure out how to work through things with a positive framing. Often redistributing workloads and advocating for priorities can straighten out deadline management.
Additionally, be in tune to people’s moods. As you work with folks, you’ll get to know them and know when something feels amiss — check in with them on Slack after a meeting if so. Giving them another opportunity to speak could uncover something important, even if your teammate didn’t think it was.
Whether we have the opportunity to meet and work together in person or virtually, Coforma values partnership over consulting. To continue delivering quality products and services on time and on budget within a remote-only setting, we refined our approach to collaboration through our learnings over the last year. We look forward to continuing to offer a seamless experience as the remote work landscape shifts and grows.
