There are enough posts out there which talk about how to succeed in outsourcing. There are also enough posts which speak about how to succeed with a remote team. What tends to happen though is that often the two are not correlated correctly. So “Outsourcing” gets treated differently and a enabling a “Remote” environment gets treated differently. This post, aimed at CXOs looking to build small teams of upto 30, outlines the foundation that needs to be set for enabling a “Remote” mindset with “Outsourcing” being incidental. The objective is to indicate the first few steps which are needed while building a diverse and yet high-performing team.
“Remote” and “Outsourcing” Relationship
Before we move to the core of our post, we will take a quick look at the overlap area of the two terms so that we can remember this commonality throughout the post.
As we can see from the image above, while “Remote” and “Outsource” overlap, they do not overlap completely. There are multiple instances of a company which has outsourced firm’s people sitting on premise. On the other hand, while remote working is fairly common but working remotely across two different organizations is still considered problematic. The image above helps establish the commonality as well as the differences between the two terms. With the relationship in place, we can now move to our post.
Building a “Remote-First” Temperament
The first and most important piece to remember is that “Remote” is a temperament and “Outsourcing” is a transaction. This piece will be used to build our post and is so important that it is worth repeating
“Remote” is a temperament while “Outsourcing” is a transaction.
When we start thinking in terms of a transaction, the focus starts moving to elements like commercials etc. We would be hard pressed to think of our employees in terms of a transactional relationship. Then why should anyone working with any company, including outsourced employees, be considered on a transactional basis. It is the temperament which needs to takes precedence over a transaction and hence we need to orient our temperament correctly.
Below are four areas in which we need to build our temperament:
1. Build for “Collaborate” over a “Us versus Them” view
If employees are allowed to work remotely, can people working in the same teams, for the same objectives but as part of a different organization not be allowed the same benefit. The challenge here is to ensure that there is alignment of the end goals for each and every team member. If that can be achieved, artificial silos of different organizations’ members working in the same team can be removed.
2. Correct Communication instead of “Over-Communication”
Communication is always critical in any team and people often think this gets exacerbated due to distance. However communication done improperly can lead to challenges even if two people are sitting at the same premise. For “remote” teams, writing is often used as a mode of communication to replace verbal communication. The issue arises when writing starts taking precedence over clear communication. The possible issues which happen are:
- Instead of focusing on writing in key/ complicated areas,writing starts becoming the only form of communication. This reduces agility in any process.
- Writing starts getting considered as documentary evidence / insurance for people incase something goes wrong. This indicates a lack of trust within a system.
- Writing clearly requires correct communication skills which is rare. Also writing something and the reader interpreting it in the same way it was intended are two separate processes.
Mechanisms for clear communication need to take precedence over “over-communication”. A few examples:
- Getting the person who is going to execute a task explain what he needs to do prior to working on a task is much easier that trying to write detailed instructions.
- Having daily standups to know what the team members are working on.
- Documenting only critical areas and more importantly, documenting the “why” and not just the “what”.
3. Conclusion means “at the end”
Often when things do not go as per plan and the person responsible is not present (i.e. is remote), conclusions start getting formed before the concerned person is even spoken to. We jump too quickly to conclusions by default instead of pausing to think of alternate reasons. If the team members are competent, communication is clear and yet something was not performed as per script, it might be easier to pause for other contexts instead of jumping to conclusions too quickly. There often is a good “why” hidden behind any unscripted and unforeseen event.
4. Commitment on making it work
Once we decide to work on a remote basis, it needs to be tried with full commitment. Half-hearted attempts lead to quarter-baked results. We can time-box the period of commitment so that in this period, we are not left second-guessing our commitment to “remote”. Issues will creep up, things will not go as per plan, what should not waver is the commitment to making it work in the committed time-period.
To reiterate, a Remote-first temperament comprises of four steps — Collaboration, Correct Communication, staggered Conclusions and Commitment. These need to be built prior to initiating any steps toward any engagement.
Final Words
Once a Remote-First temperament is in place, elements like “remote” or “outsourced” cease to become fulcrum points on which operations are pivoted.
- The true strength of this temperament is that it works with both employees and people from other companies. It works for both people sitting on-premise or people sitting remotely.
- Remote-First starts with everything looking inwards whereas “Outsourcing-First” attitude starts with an outward process unknowingly creating silos.
- Remote-First starts with happy path scenarios and builds strength around it. Other forms of engagement build protective scenarios first (Governance Models, Escalation Matrix etc.) which are more relevant for large engagements with high level of risks.
Once the Remote-First temperament is in place, getting to build a team becomes that much simpler as one is not restricted by either location or even by providing employment status. The focus correctly becomes forming the best possible functioning team. And that is a good challenge to solve!
A lot of this post is distilled from our success working remotely & in an outsourced manner for our customers while building complicated web/ mobile applications. Would love to hear back on your experiences at daksh [at] cennest.com .
