11 Tips for Successful Communication in Distributed Teams

Not being in the same office impacts communication more than anything. One day all you had to do is say the news out loud and everyone knew. Now if you forget to share it with everyone equally, bad things can happen: someone will be left in the dark, feel left out or communicate wrong information to your customers!

How did things get so complicated! Let us help you make them simple.

Here are few rules of distributed communication:

Move team communication to one platform. Find and adopt a virtual office space where teams can communicate, collaborate, keep each other updated. And the most important part — USE IT. Most of starting distributed businesses choose to use Slack or Trello. Important is to choose one for everyone.

Build processes and communication principles. If you didn’t before, its time to set clear communication principles that are inclusive for everyone. Among ideas could be time boundaries of communication (no texts after 9pm), the rule to post call summaries to team chats, be open to being contacted with questions from outside of the team etc.

Don’t underestimate random chats. Within that platform create an informal channel for everyone. Informal chats help us get to know each other better, break the ice, feel comfortable working together. And it is usually given the last priority when moving communication online.

Regular team check-ins will let your team get on the same page regularly. It will also take away the necessity to ask everyone for an update twice a day (we all know that person).

Keep people informed of decisions taken, achievements, breakthroughs, new ideas — everything you feel is relevant, adds value and keeps the team on the same page.

Spread the news equally. Important news needs to be announced to everyone at the same time. Be in online or over a call — don’t leave anyone behind. Definition of ‘important’ depends on your company culture, of course.

Be approachable together. Make sure people know how to reach anyone in the company and make ‘responsiveness’ part of your culture.

Help build the community. Give people opportunities to contacts each other directly. For example, introducing new hires to everyone on day one and sharing their contact details, will prompt people to send ‘welcome’ messages. If everyone’s strengths will be available publicly — more people will start asking for help.

Be inclusive. Don’t let people feel like they are the outsiders. Its challenging to participate equally if in a big meeting you’re the only one on the conference call. You’re all remote now! If someone needs to join remotely, encourage others to join via video conferencing as well — it’ll help everyone get similar attention.

Don’t lose ideas. Create a clear way for ideas management: how can anyone submit a new product or any other ideas within the company. Or where people can post ideas to get a second opinion and constructive feedback.

and finally… Don’t overdo it — don’t flood chats with information — it’ll be easy to drown! Attention span is short and everyone has work to do.

Good luck!

- Nadya Liubyva, User Experience Lead at Elin.ai

P.S. For more advise on distributed teams, see more articles on our Medium channel!