5 Ways to Get Maximum Value When Your Remote Team Meets Up
No need to mention why I’ve had very few opportunities to meet colleagues in person these last couple of years, we’ve all been in the same boat even if we’ve been in different bubbles. Although life has almost returned to normal for some of us, many of us find ourselves working remotely and this means much less contact with our colleagues. This year I was given a fantastic opportunity to spend a week at the Version 1 office in Bangalore, India. While the majority of people at Version 1 now work on a remote first basis, arrangements had been made to get 120 people into the office and spend some time together.
Several reasons for me to get excited, call me old-fashioned but I love spending time in person with the people I work with. On top of that, I’ve never been to India, I am a big fan of Indian food, and I was excited to experience the Indian culture.
In Person Introductions
On our first morning of the week, after an action-packed journey through Bangalore by Auto Rickshaw, we arrived at the office. The office was buzzing with the excitement of people meeting in person for the first time. Throughout the morning there was a constant flow of people arriving from various long-distance locations, and so the introductions went on, as did the challenge to remember so many names. Is it just me or does everyone seem taller in person than on a web camera? In just one morning, I could see the value of these face-to-face introductions and the positive energy that they were creating.
Social Lunches
With so many more people in the office than usual, outside catering had been arranged for the week and was being served on the top floor. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to experience some local food. It is easy to underestimate the value of going for lunch with colleagues, opening ourselves up on a personal level and just getting to know each other as people rather than team members. All that is lost when working remotely. Sure, you can do social calls, but it is simply not the same as being in the same place, discussing your food, surroundings or even who is wearing the most stylish clothes. One of the things I really miss about office work is lunch with colleagues, so for me, making every lunchtime count when with teammates is surely a must for remote first workers.
One-to-One Chats
With a busy morning of introductions and lunch out of the way, I needed to get some one-to-one time with other people in the team. Whether you are a scrum master, tech lead, manager or some other influential role, reserving time for one-to-one chats is invaluable. And this is not a one-to-one status update that I am talking about. It’s two people, on the same side of a desk or even sitting back on a sofa, discussing what is on their minds. Letting someone feel safe to discuss what they are feeling, anything they might be struggling with, some ideas that they have, and even where they want to head in their career. Doing these as regular video calls is important but if you have the opportunity to be in the same place, use it to get in as many one-to-one chats as you can. Being in the same room gives us access to body language, eye contact, smiles and hand gestures, which all heavily influence how people interpret and react to information.
Team Chats
As many of you already know, a regular retrospective meeting can really help a team to continuously fine-tune and improve their way of working. These days, ours are done online using a collaborative whiteboard tool. These whiteboard tools are great, but you cannot beat getting everyone in the room together. So as obvious as this might be if you can arrange your team get-together to coincide with your retrospective day you can all get in a room and have a great retrospective without people freezing or forgetting to come off of mute.
Team Building
Ok, team building is a luxury and can get expensive but our time together was rare enough to justify the cost and so we had a day organised for our immediate team. There are plenty of positives that come from team building. Better communication, better collaboration, increased trust and loads of fun just being a few. Combine all these positives together and you get higher team engagement.
We spent the day away from the Bangalore centre just doing fun activities together. These included an attempt at volleyball in the steaming hot midday sun, table tennis, some kayaking, a few rounds of Carrom and cooling off in the swimming pool. The kayaking and swimming pool were surprise opportunities for one-to-one chats. We didn’t have any structured activities; it was just quality time to play with and against each other at various games and get plenty of opportunities for laughs.
While many teams and companies still do meet in person on a regular basis, many teams now find themselves working from home on a semi-permanent basis. With this in mind, we all need to make extra effort to establish and maintain relationships with the people we work with. Chase those opportunities to meet workmates in person, you might spend an hour or two commuting but don’t let lazy habits prevent you from getting to the office every once in a while. And when you are in the office, instead of spending the whole day on your headset, chatting to people elsewhere, spend your time wisely, spend it with the other people who added the long commute to their day.
Even when we are not meeting in person, keeping the team engaged is vital. I shared some ideas on this on a previous blog about engaging remote teams.
About the Author:
Simon Wraight is a Scrummaster here at Version 1.
