Managing remote teams.
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While there are plenty of reasons to ‘be there in person’, having a local team also comes with costs and limitations. Sometimes, the right skills are simply not available in the local community. In other cases, a trusted team member moves away, temporarily or permanently, or changes his or her work hours. It is often a lot easier to continue working with the person remotely, than to take on a significant risk of finding a replacement that will be in the team room, in person, during regular hours. With the right approach, it is possible to have a very successful team, that allows for flexibility over time and distance. In this talk, we will discuss the issues and solutions for managing a long-distance team, the difficulties of management over the long distance, the technologies and the gadgets that are designed to be helpful, but are not always.
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Managing remote teams.
- 3. Remote: lack of perception
- 4. What makes for a
- 5. Another floor or building
- 6. Working from the beach for an afternoon
- 7. Telecommuting on a regular basis
- 10. … or very expensive technology
- 11. What works locally • Rich communication • Tone of voice • Facial expressions and body language • Immediate response • Shared environment • Public space • Dress code and other social clues
- 12. Remote challenges • “Out of site, out of mind” • How can I trust someone I have never met? • Communication • Conversation 110 – 150 words/min • Lecturing 150 – 160 words/min • Reading 200 – 250 words/min • Phone comprehension requires slowing down
- 13. Face-2-face is always better than remote* • Minimize remote-ness • Move people to a closer office • Ask telecommuting employees to visit the office • Invest in travel for far-flung team members * Remote teams can be awesome, too
- 14. Becoming aware • what works • what is important • little and not-so-little things • your instincts are likely wrong
- 17. Communication: listening • Comprehension & retainment less than 50% • Need to work harder for remote communication
- 18. Keep remote folks in mind • Smaller teams • Conscious effort to remember entire team • Visual reminders • Names on the board • Pictures
- 20. Watch out for
- 21. Get to know remote team members
- 23. Simplify communication • Continuously open channels • Text, audio, video • Temporary targeted channels • Meeting support • Shared visuals
- 24. Build a two-way street • Direct communication • Allow for subtleties • Be forgiving
- 25. Learn to address distributed audience • Share focus • Talk to the in-room and remote participants • Check up on technology frequently • Phone lines drop and software crashes • Stop if remote folks can not participate • Just like you would if there was fire alarm in the building
- 26. Bring the team together • Decide on office soundtrack • Design a music stream as a team • Create a team picture • Use Photoshop if you have to • Long-distance team lunch • Pick a food that everyone will enjoy – and order it for all
- 28. Overcoming remote-ness • Be aware of long-distance effects • Build and maintain human connections • Learn to use communication technologies
Editor's Notes
- Also: no touch, no smell
- Communication: making information available is not the same as being heard. It is harder but also more important to get an acknowledgement that communication did in fact happen and information was accepted.
- Everything you type in an email will come out with the wrong tone.
- If your team is split into remote ‘pods’, be on the look out for ‘us vs them’ mentality. Push for cooperation between pods. Ask people from different locations to work together closely toward common deliverables.
- People who are never here are easier to think of as one-dimensional, single-purpose cartoon beings. While we are in the office to do a job, we also participate in the social sphere, get to know others, expect others to get to know us. It takes conscious effort to achieve this when working remotely.
- Help others get to know you, too. S
- With no opportunities for simply ‘bumping into one another’, create communication points for the entire team. Asking people to simply call each other leads to not enough communication happening. It is distracting to dial a 10-digit phone #, wait for the line to pick up, maybe deal with voicemail. Talking to other team members should be as easy as turning over to the open mic, and raising ones’ voice.
- Empathy is harder remotely because you do not sense that others’ needs are. Technology makes it easy to fake ‘everything is fine’. You have to work harder to build and maintain human connection.
- Remote teams face communication and productivity barriers that are tougher than those for collocated teams. Know that being remote even for short periods of time will effect your team’s productivity and cohesiveness. However, you can mitigate a lot of the difficulties by putting conscious effort toward bringing the team together, learning to communicate via technology, and designing your processes to enable your team work together most effectively.