Going Remote? Here’s what you need to know.

Tips and tricks gathered over the past 3 years from the remote team at Linum Labs.

There are a number of companies that have had to go remote in the past few weeks. For many of them, this is the first time they’re needing to change their core process so drastically.

I thought I’d offer up some of our top tips and remote working hacks for anyone who may need them. My team has been working remotely for the past few years and there is a preferred set of online tools and practices that we use to make our lives easier, as well as some processes we have adopted internally that make communication and internal relationships easier to manage in a remote setting.

A Good Workstation

First things first, make sure you and your team have the right equipment. This is an easy first step to ensuring you’re not unnecessarily decreasing your team’s productivity. Everyone on my team is equipped with a good laptop (this is easy for them to pick up and move around with) but a number of them have also opted to build themselves impressive “work from home stations”.

This includes multiple screens, extra equipment for design and additional peripherals like keyboards. A good pair of headphones + microphone is also recommended to make virtual meetings a smoother process.

Having a dedicated station set up in your home also helps with separating “home time” from “work time”. I.e. productivity and focus will increase when sitting at your workstation as opposed to sitting on your couch with your laptop.

Remote Working Applications

Our team does everything remotely from meetings, brainstorming, to workshops and development work. We’ve been working like this from the beginning but what we’ve noticed is that the biggest challenges new companies face when going remote is communication. Consistent, clear and purposeful communication.

Communication is THE MOST important thing to focus on when you are going remote and because of this a lot of the below tools revolve around effective online communication.

Our core tools for remote working:

• Discord. Discord is a team chat & communication tool, this should be open all day every day during work hours. We can also recommend Slack (which we used in the past) which is more user-friendly or Microsoft teams may also help for larger teams that require more centralized admin control & troubleshooting capabilities. For some tips on the type of channels to create check out this article.
• Zoom. Zoom is a video conferencing tool that we use for meetings with clients and people outside of our internal team. (For internal video comms we just use Discord) For a free alternative to Zoom (as Zoom limits calls on the free plan to 45 minutes) you can also consider Google hangouts.
• Google Suite. All documentation is done on our google drive using docs, presentations, excel. Live real-time coordination.
• Miro. Creating idea boards and brainstorming
• Project management tools: Trello & Asana
• Streak. Integration into Gmail for client relationship management
• Last Pass. Security is VERY important when working remotely — sharing passwords and sensitive login via chat tools or email is unsafe. We use Last Pass to store our passwords with controlled access to different team members when required.
• Fun retro. More on this later

Remote Working Processes & Routine

I KNOW how hard it can be working from home for the first time. How do you stop yourself from just sleeping all day? Binge-watching Netflix? Living in your pyjamas?

The best way that we’ve found is to work on an output-based system which requires you to be very aware of what your goals & tasks are for the week in order for you to deliver on them. This gives you a lot of flexibility on the how and when of the tasks.

Deliverables and due dates stay the same, they just need to be more clearly communicated and more stringently checked in on — but at the end of the day your productivity shouldn't decrease or slow down because of it.

Putting together a team routine with required practices can help bring more structure and guidance back into your day. Here’s a simplified version of what we do.

1. NO PYJAMAS. (At least from the waist up) It really helps to get out of bed an hour before work starts, shower, get dressed, have a coffee and sit at your work station — keeping your morning rituals more or less the same can help shift you into a normal work routine.
2. DAILY STAND UP. Every day starts with a daily stand up at 09h00. It is compulsory for every single team member to be up and present in the daily stand up — no excuses (unless they’ve previously excused themselves). These meetings are short — usually around 15 mins, and is a quick recap of what everyone did the day before, what they plan on working on for the day, and if they have any blockers from anyone else. This helps keep everyone on the same page.
3. WEEKLY PLANNING. Every Monday we have a longer 1-hour planning session to touch base on our goals and priorities for the week — this helps set the tone for the week. These goals are broken into tasks and updated on the project management tool (We use Trello).
4. RETROs. Once every 3 weeks on a Friday, we do a 2-hour team retrospective using Fun Retro. These are incredibly important as these are the meetings where opinions and feelings can be shared to help the team stay connected, open and honest. We usually focus on: a.) What went well. b.) What didn’t go well and c.) How can we improve? For more information on how to run a good retro check here.
5. BEER O’CLOCK. Just because you’re in quarantine doesn’t mean you can’t get #RemotelyTrashed together and catch up over a pint. Once a month on a Friday at 4pm we stop working, grab a beer and hop into a Zoom call for a casual catch up with our team — this is a strictly no work talk catch up. Other ideas are to use tools like HouseParty or challenge each other in online games.

Guidelines for effective online meetings

• Schedule meetings in advance into your online calendars. We do this during our weekly team planning after we’ve assessed what meetings are important.
• Schedule meetings for a set period of time and stick to that time. Try not to run over or under.
• Prepare & send through an agenda prior to the meeting start time so that other team members can prepare too. It’s best to include the agenda in the calendar invite.
• Don’t cancel meetings without appropriate notice to everyone. Usually, notice at the start of the day or at least 2 hours prior is sufficient to make alternative arrangements.
• Treat your internal meetings with the same level of importance as your external client meetings.
• Take notes & create action points. Make sure someone is assigned to follow up.
• Only schedule meetings with an agenda and a purpose. Pointless online meetings may as well just be a Discord discussion.
• VIDEO ON. Meetings, stand-ups, catch-ups — always with video on. You’re not face to face anymore and visual cues are still super important — especially in the first few weeks of going remote until you get accustomed to your coworker's tone & style.

Additional tips

• Lead by example. Your team will follow the example you set — if you miss meetings, push back deadlines or start slacking, this will set a precedent moving forward.
• Communication is so important. I cannot stress this enough. Over-communicate if you have to.
• Create good routines and schedules.
• Consistency. Stick to your deadlines. Maintain your productivity levels.
• Encourage transparency and trust.

Final notes

• Send memes. Lots of memes.
• Don’t panic.
• Ask for help if you need it.

I hope this helps! It’s not a comprehensive and exhaustive list but it’s a start. I’d also like to offer that if you need any help or advice on the best way to implement remote working at your company that I’d be more than open to have a chat with you and work through some ideas.