Optimizing Remote Collaboration
Full-time remote work left a large impression in 2020, cementing it as the status quo for many more companies. For people accustomed to office life, adjusting to a new way of working can be a daunting task. Learning new skills to thrive in a remote environment can feel overwhelming. The good news is many companies have been operating remotely for quite some time. By leveraging the guidance of well-operated remote teams, the home-based remote workplace can be just as fun and productive as in-office experiences.
Learn From the Best
I joined Roivant in November 2020 as Product Manager to help form a new all-remote division at the company: Vant Tech. We needed to establish a new culture for the team quickly, as the paradigm at the NYC office was unsuitable for remote work. No one gets points for re-inventing the wheel. GitLab was way ahead of the curve and still maintains fantastic documentation on collaborating and managing teams remotely. We implemented most of the guidance, adjusting as needed to best fit our team. This included:
- Asynchronous communication must be supported.
- Agenda items and meeting notes are critical for information dissemination.
- People need to express their preferred methods of contact as well as optimal meeting times.
Walk Circles Before Lying Down
One of many reasons to value dogs is their penchant for walking circles before lying down on the ground. Be it evolution, superstition, or habit, they make sure their environment is exactly right before settling into a good rabbit-chasing nap. Working from home is smoothest when you have a physical space dedicated to your work.
For myself, I need a quiet space, close to coffee and cereal, with just enough of a San Francisco city view that I can zone out and focus on a speaker’s words during a meeting. An adjustable standing desk in the kitchen fits my personality and habits best. Unless I’m doing rote data entry or watching training videos, I prefer to be standing on an anti-fatigue mat.
It’s pivotal for workers to double-check their posture and hand positioning to reduce the chance of repetitive stress injury (check out this guide). If you are regularly at a computer for 8+ hours a day, you are only hurting yourself long-term with bad form. How are you going to be the next Twitch superstar on the weekends if you cannot touch a keyboard for leisure due to carpal tunnel?
Create Balance
Work-life balance is a sensitive subject for some people, especially during the hiring process. The reality of all-remote work is that there is bound to be crossover between work and personal life. It can be helpful to document your work responsibilities and identify steps that require collaboration (asynchronous or real-time). This allows you to better structure your workday and maximize productivity while reducing the chance of burnout. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. For me, managing a team means I need to be there for them when they need me. We work together to facilitate expectation management and keep track of communication preferences and known friction points; all gets captured in a “Working Norms” document in Confluence. I may temporarily turn on Slack alerts on my Apple Watch during prime work hours — some may feel that’s a step too far. It’s all about finding the right balance and ensuring that you are in control of the situation.
On Water Coolers and Bathroom Breaks
People often forget how many passive signals they process and use to inform how they interact with coworkers. The thing I miss most about office life is having my desk stationed next to the support team. I was a better PM by listening in to support calls as they came in, looking for patterns in problems to guide feature development, or context on a bug or request that I might be able to help with by messaging over the relevant records to the support staff.
It’s on all of us to perform introspective assessments of the types of events that could impact our actions and look for remote substitutions whenever possible. When in-office, it’s very easy to see doubt or rumors fan through a company like wildfire (starting ironically at the water cooler). Working remotely, I need to make sure I provide teammates enough opportunity for communication. People should feel free to bring up off-topic conversations and reveal what’s on their mind.
In-office I often used visual cues, like excessive bathroom breaks or seeing a person bang their head against their keyboard, as a sign that there was a situation or they felt over-stressed. Full-remote requires finesse and truly knowing your teammates to maintain a similar appearance of clairvoyance. You can’t go full helicopter parent and set a recurring hourly Slack message asking, “Are you mentally ok? Please confirm.” Leveraging passive cues leads to better people management. What is their normal writing style? Meeting attendance behavior pattern? Normal hairstyling and room cleanliness? Is anything different from expected behavior and is it a strong enough signal to trigger a direct check-in? The levels and types of signals vary from teammate to teammate. Emotional intelligence is key to maintaining a high-performing full-remote team.
Socializing. Distantly.
Wherever and whenever possible, try to bring teams together for social in-person meetups. Teammate-to-teammate relationships are key to all high-functioning teams I have been a part of. For remote teams, regularly hopping on Zoom to play something like a Jackbox Party Pack session of Quiplash can do so much for building relationships. People need to see their coworkers as real people and not just a choice in a dropdown when assigning tasks.
Always Be Iterating
Not every company will have a role or department dedicated to facilitating remote workflows. Solicit feedback regularly from your team. Find out what are the things happening that help them to fall into productive flow states. What actions do they drag their feet on? Perfection isn’t the goal. Honesty, vulnerability, and humility to change provide the best foundation to establish and grow full-remote teams.
