Moving to a remote way of working

In this unprecedented time the ways of working for a large number of people have changed dramatically. Working from home, as common as it might to be some, its still uncharted territory for others.

Moving from a world in which you are around people physically to a world in which everything takes place virtually is a huge change and can present some challenges if you are not used to it.

I have managed remote teams for the past few years across multiple countries and I will share some of the things that I have found useful and helped make this way of working a success.

Tooling

First things first, you need the right tooling to make this work. You will need a means of communication that provides a good quality of video and sound and ideally works with your existing tools.

Some of the common tools in this space include the likes of but not limited to:

• Google Hangout
• Slack
• Zoom
• Microsoft Teams
• Skype

Hardware

If your computer does not have a decent speaker & microphone, arm yourself with a good quality headset. They are widely available from your favourite IT retailers.

Likewise you will need a good web camera, nothing to fancy, but something decent enough that those on the other side of the call can see you!

Daily Standups

We encourage all our teams to run a daily stand up in the mornings before work kicks off. Stand up’s are a standard agile working practice regularly used in technology but can apply to all types of teams. A stand up will consist of each team member talking about what they did yesterday, what they are doing today and if they have any issues they need help with.

There are a number of benefits here:

• This is a great way to encourage team building which is important in a remote world
• Builds and improves collaboration between team members
• Captures valuable knowledge so there is a better understanding of the tasks and projects at hand
• Helps with reducing roadblocks and problems
• Improves understanding of shared goals that the team are trying to achieve

Use a test and learn approach here to work out the best times for your teams, especially if they are in a different time zone!

Meetings

In order for meetings to continue the way they would as if you were all in a room together can initially be very difficult, but there are some simple procedures or rules of engagement as we like to call them that you can follow:

1. Ensure every meeting has a clear agenda and outcome in the meeting description. This way it’s clear to everyone what the purpose is and the meeting can be focused on arriving at the stated outcome.
2. One of the common issues with meetings over conference calls is people talking over each other. The best way to mitigate this is to have a meeting facilitator that can lead the direction of the meeting and keep everyone in check.
3. Make sure everyone’s camera is on, it brings a more of a human presence to the meeting rather than talking to a bunch of icons / profile pictures.
4. Ensure that if you’re not talking, mute your microphone. The background sound of the coffee machine running or something else happening in your environment makes it difficult for others to hear what the speaker is saying.
5. Turn off all your notifications when the meeting is running, this helps reduce the distraction that you can get when on a video call.
6. Write up notes in a shared document as the meeting goes along so that everyone is on the same page.

Adhoc conversations

Since you don’t have the ability to chat to your colleagues that sit next to you like you would as if you were at your desk, it can make having ad-hoc conversations a little more difficult. A quick call here usually is better option than sending messages back in forth via your communication tool of choice.

Trust in your team members

One of the biggest things about this way of working is trusting the people in your team. It’s important to set the right tone early and recognise that the success of the team working remotely will be a combination of everyone working together towards the same goal. Be responsive and reliable and promote open lines of communication to help build trust.

Regular check in

As you won’t be able to read people’s body language due to not being in the same physical space, its important that there is a some time set aside every week for the team to come together. I prefer to keep this very informal, using the time to make sure everyone is ok and if there are any issues related to working from home, they are spoken about freely in this space.

Balance work and play

It’s important that a balance of work and play continues to happen as it would as if you were in the office. That means taking breaks for lunch, getting up for a tea / coffee, walking around a little, getting some exercise and generally not sitting at your workstation for hours on end.

Encourage your team members to host lunchtime hangouts with their teammates or with their friends from across the business. The idea is that it will be like the conversations you would have over lunch at the canteen, so it’s not all business focused.

You could do something like setting up a conference call at 4pm on Friday where everyone can have a drink together remotely.

I cannot stress how important it is to keep elements of fun in the work week.

Test, Learn, Iterate

It’s simple, test, learn & iterate in this way of working. Ask for feedback from across the team and aim to fix the things that are not working as fast as possible. Before you know it, you will have a team working as productively as they would be if they were in the office!