Remote Working Culture — S(no)w Problem!
A snapshot from our Lucan design team’s view last week
Anybody based in Ireland has spent the last week with weather on the brain: worrying about it, being cooked up inside by it, and are currently wading through the great melt caused by it. We thought we’d share a bit further on how we still managed to move a bit closer to our public release at the end of the month through our fairly simple remote work policy.
Pillars of our Remote Working Team
A snapshot taken from meetingRoom’s whiteboard feature V1
Planning
What are you trying to achieve? Determined focus on meaningful milestones is crucial to move a business forward. We’re on course to release a beta. This has been fueled by asking questions and modifying quickly. The foundation to getting real work done is planning effectively. Plan SMART.
- We have product roadmaps
- We have dedicated build deadlines
- We have accountability markers to ensure we are delivering for team and project
Agreed Communication
Critical to any team communications, whether it’s email etiquette or where a team reports, is to set boundaries and expectations from the outset. Making sure everybody is on the same page is key to execution on any project. You need to dig in and work to find the flow that fits your team’s dynamic. For us that boils down a few key house rules:
- Slack/IM/email/phone calls is for quick one on one feedback or direct feedback on an issue. It’s not a tamagotchi — do not feed the beast!
- Planned meetings, right now a daily sync and a kickoff on Monday morning: everybody works their own hours but it’s important to check in daily (we literally get in a room once a day together)
- Block out time for work. Aside from our set meeting and a few ad hocs/group lunches, we keep communications to a minimum — we’ve found less is more and if you all know what you’re supposed to be working on and you’re keeping to the plan, that’s kind of the point, right?
- If it’s important bring it up in meetingRoom for wider discussion and human contact for context (we don’t believe in long email threads where we can avoid them!)
Reporting
We try to keep it simple — plan the release or task at hand, break it down to weekly bitesize tasks and daily check-ins on those tasks.
- We use tools such as Trello & GSuite (Google Sheets) to allow for online and offline reporting
- We track our progress on a daily basis, and have a live source of truth that reflects our progress and blockers. We do this using meeting notes and updating our timelines
Reflecting
Reflection and taking on board what you’re doing to achieve your goals, big and small, and how your team uses channels is important. It’s vital — not only in daily implementation but in terms of sectioning off items of work to solve a problem at a time.
- In our early days, we spent far too much time trying to report and over-communicate since that’s what we doing as a company — right? Wrong.
- We learnt early on there is no right way of doing it: organisations need to find the right way for teams to get the job done, from the tools they use to the social norms and rules, especially in remote work
- You need to be willing to change what isn’t working to move you closer to your goal, and be relentless at doing so
- Nobody gets it right every time — that’s ok. Acknowledge, learn and move on the in the right direction. Do it with your team, regularly (don’t solve for problems that don’t exist yet within reason).
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Why we’re working day and night, through the storm and sludge, is to let other teams begin to realise amazing productivity in a unique new experience.
If you’d like to try out the future of work we’ve built at meetingRoom, you can request access to the beta be clicking the button below, we’d love to have you on board.
We’ve welcomed a lot of new users in the past week, especially in Ireland, and we look forward to working together meeting you all over the coming weeks and months.
