Working Remotely through COVID-19
Remote working has always been a practice at moovel (becomes REACH NOW). After the government announced that there will be a country wide lockdown, we, as Engineering team will try to accommodate the safety of everyone at the company by working from home. There are a lot of remote working guides out there to make it as efficient as possible but, we, as a team, think the following measures can help everyone.
Which measures enable us to work remotely?
Meetings with clear agenda points
As our current setup allows for unlimited calls, almost every meeting has a video conference URL attached to it. You can join however you like, app, mobile, web. Therefore, all meetings must have an agenda, giving them focus. The agendas follow the template:
- Purpose of the meeting
- Topic(s) discussion
- Decision(s)
Team Standups
Team standups were already mostly remote. Pre Covid-19, engineers worked remote for 2 days a week max. Now we switch to remote standups by default, which is a minor adaptation.
Write Ups & Documentation
Working remote boils down to working asynchronously most of the time. Focusing on write ups and documentation of roles & processes is important, since everyone needs access to the required information.
Status
While working remotely, making sure your fellow engineers are aware of it via webchat status is important. It allows us to manage expectations on response times proactively on our main communication tool, which is a webchat.
Offsites
Offsites are part of our DNA - In fact, the next offsite preparations had already started! The core preparation team spent quite some time on this topic. Unfortunately, with the nation-wide lockdown, we had to defer it indefinitely. Once the lockdown situation changes, we will reconsider if and when to resume with organising our next offsite.
Are we ready to work fully remote?
In conclusion: we are close to having a good setup within our team to accommodate remote working for everyone. But of course there are still things that we have to solve.
Regardless, we are more confident than ever before that working remotely through COVID-19 is the way to go!
