We were born in it | Remote Working
My friends and I established a design agency in India that is run 100% remotely. This post is a preface for future pieces where we’ll dig deeper into remote management and scaling an agency business.
For the readers who let out a long sigh of despair at the sight of yet another article on “Remote Work”, let us remind them that there are still many teams and numerous companies who need to catch up on this idea. Having worked with some of them, we thought we should really get behind this and spread the gospel.
Non Zero is a design solutions consultancy and in its current form, it was established at the onset of the covid crisis when a remote operation wasn’t an option for our six-person team. Despite the crisis, the only way to bootstrap our way to “success” was to work remotely and to keep the overheads in check. It comes as a surprise to many but as a business, we’ve handled the whole span of a typical service model pipeline, from sales to delivery barely even seeing our clients or collaborators on more occasions than not.
As you’d guess the ideas in the article do come from our own experience but can broadly be applied to various teams and workflows beyond the world of design.
Remote work was a long time coming…
You’d argue that this global movement only happened because of the unfortunate covid crisis. Though you’d be wrong, the idea of distributed asynchronous work was a long time coming which only caught more speed. Overtime all ingredients slowly but eventually came in place to make this happen. High-speed connectivity across the globe, project management methodologies coupled with online collaborative tools, distributed talent pool, cheap personal tech. equipment… true power of the internet. If we take a step back and take a note of where we’re headed, the future of work is mind-blowing.
Tech. companies of course were the first ones to make the leap but most others are following suit wherever of course it is possible. Some businesses have transitioned completely, some are deploying hybrid approaches and some are still struggling. All in all, we’re all charging ahead and it’s a thing that’s here to stay.
Opportunities in the new wave
For a nascent business like ours, we only see the upside and the tons of opportunities this new wave brings in. A great number of job boards and new roles that have popped up are telltale.
Hours of time saved in unnecessary commute and meetings. Saving money on operations. Greater access to the talent pool. Improved work satisfaction. There’s a lot more but then again nothing good comes easy.
Matt Mullenweg (of WordPress, Tumblr, WooCommerce fame) writes “Developing A Capacity For Remote Work Is The Greatest Strategic Advantage”. He lays out the five levels of remote work in his piece (a good analog to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).
After a quick self-assessment, we see Non Zero transitioning from Level 4 to Level 5. Built over these foundations we are now in a position to scale this model sustainably.
Get your team started and avoid obvious pitfalls
Setting up remote operations is rife with psychological and logistical (payments, communication, hiring, etc.) issues. Having seen teams struggle, these steps can be observed as a suggestion -
1. Be Willing to make the shift.
Know, that just like setting up an office space, this will demand energy and time. For larger teams, it’ll be good if the effort is top-down.
2. Leave old habits behind.
For teams transitioning from a traditional workspace be aware that merely behaving the same way online might not play out well.
3. Map out your current workflow.
It can be a great exercise for teams to jot down how they do their work. These processes could be client-facing as well as internal.
4. Build your tool stack
After having mapped your workflow, jot down the tools you already use and their purpose. Try to then run through the following library to find good alternatives. Remote Tools.
5. Define protocols and processes.
Tools won’t be enough, you’ll have to establish some new team behaviors to make remote working truly possible. Know Your Team Guide can be of help here.
6. Enable through communication documents and assets.
Invest in building communication assets so as to align various teams and stakeholders and also to make onboarding new collaborators and prospective customers easy. Gitlab’s Handbook is a great inspiration.
