#1 for me is weekly retrospectives - drilling down and optimizing what does not work, giving everyone a voice, testing different approaches.
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#1 for me is weekly retrospectives - drilling down and optimizing what does not work, giving everyone a voice, testing different approaches.
Communicate regularly and openly to help remove blockers and demonstrate genuine investment (and belief in!) each team members' potential and success. Understand, acknowledge and address the anxieties inherent in bein...
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Communicate regularly and openly to help remove blockers and demonstrate genuine investment (and belief in!) each team members' potential and success. Understand, acknowledge and address the anxieties inherent in being remote that get in the way of allowing people to do their best work.
For managers, empowering team members in a remote work environment can be challenging. With our current state of remote work sophistication, the best we can do is make sure people are able to identify when things feel...
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For managers, empowering team members in a remote work environment can be challenging. With our current state of remote work sophistication, the best we can do is make sure people are able to identify when things feel off for them. Then listen and be prepared to unblock them.
The challenges in team coordination described by Metcalfe's law are magnified for distributed teams as people work different hours and lack more of the serendipitous collaboration that happens in an office. For this r...
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The challenges in team coordination described by Metcalfe's law are magnified for distributed teams as people work different hours and lack more of the serendipitous collaboration that happens in an office. For this reason, it's even more important that people have clarity in their responsibilities and autonomy to make progress without dependency on others.
All hard conversations happen face to face (in person or Zoom). Never email, text or Slack.
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All hard conversations happen face to face (in person or Zoom). Never email, text or Slack.
Encourage questions and especially don’t look down on someone who doesn’t get it right away or understand what the next moves are. Then, immediately go after that to follow up with the team or update whatever tool you...
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Encourage questions and especially don’t look down on someone who doesn’t get it right away or understand what the next moves are. Then, immediately go after that to follow up with the team or update whatever tool you are using for project management/communication. Better yet, send a follow-up recap email of the call with the major points/decisions that were made. It’ll help you distill and reflect on it, and it will give your team even more clarity because they can resort back to it and measure progress against it. Treat your team like the adults they are, which means trusting them to speak up when things aren’t clear and leaving them to do their job if they are. Encourage it by leading by example and speaking up when you aren’t clear on something.
Who is responsible for X should be obvious to everyone. When it's not clear, you end up having more meetings, calls, emails, and conversations than you should. This is a recipe for disaster.
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Who is responsible for X should be obvious to everyone. When it's not clear, you end up having more meetings, calls, emails, and conversations than you should. This is a recipe for disaster.
One thing we did a bit differently was have a shared, open inbox for as many of our emails as possible, even if certain people with access to it aren't responsible for 99% of the messages in there. It really helps for...
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One thing we did a bit differently was have a shared, open inbox for as many of our emails as possible, even if certain people with access to it aren't responsible for 99% of the messages in there. It really helps for people to have a view of the overall health of a business (new customers, support requests, business opportunities) to feel like they are more ingrained in the operation.
Staying asynchronous is easy and tempting. But as with any text-only environment, misunderstandings and conflict can easily occur and go unchecked. Our rule was to always go straight to higher fidelity (video) if conf...
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Staying asynchronous is easy and tempting. But as with any text-only environment, misunderstandings and conflict can easily occur and go unchecked. Our rule was to always go straight to higher fidelity (video) if conflict arose. It was a great solution.
Make sure you have daily morning calls with your team. Set the tone, be involved. Trust doesn't mean everyone is on the same page, If things are not 100% clear, do not count mainly on your project management tools, sc...
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Make sure you have daily morning calls with your team. Set the tone, be involved. Trust doesn't mean everyone is on the same page, If things are not 100% clear, do not count mainly on your project management tools, schedule a call quickly, everyone will appreciate that.
Since a lot of “face to face” communication is replaced by asynchronous communication with messaging or project management software, I like to show with screenshots or screencasts when I’m requesting something new, di...
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Since a lot of “face to face” communication is replaced by asynchronous communication with messaging or project management software, I like to show with screenshots or screencasts when I’m requesting something new, different or I’m unsure if I’m describing accurately what I mean to minimize confusion/errors.
Create an infrastructure to support distributed teams -- it does not happen on it's own. Experiment with communications, budgets for home office or workspaces, connection practices, video chat protocols etc. Companies...
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Create an infrastructure to support distributed teams -- it does not happen on it's own. Experiment with communications, budgets for home office or workspaces, connection practices, video chat protocols etc. Companies that accept default modes risk alienated distributed folks as well as miss opportunities to gain the full benefits.
Be explicit, particularly regarding deadlines and whether you want something done now or it can wait. With a remote team you have 1 opportunity to convey priorities: in an office, it's not weird to pop over to someone...
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Be explicit, particularly regarding deadlines and whether you want something done now or it can wait. With a remote team you have 1 opportunity to convey priorities: in an office, it's not weird to pop over to someone's desk a few times a day; remote, that feels like persecution.
Always state the obvious! The right amount of clarity will feel like overcommunication when you're guiding a remote team, so expect to feel uncomfortable with how frequently and how directly you'll need to communicate.
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Always state the obvious! The right amount of clarity will feel like overcommunication when you're guiding a remote team, so expect to feel uncomfortable with how frequently and how directly you'll need to communicate.
Over-communicating is a decent rule of thumb. But not all the time, because then you get into the realm of micromanagement -- and that’s annoying and counterproductive. When there’s doubt about who should be working o...
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Over-communicating is a decent rule of thumb. But not all the time, because then you get into the realm of micromanagement -- and that’s annoying and counterproductive. When there’s doubt about who should be working on what and what the responsibilities are, don’t try to coordinate with everyone individually. Instead, set a time to jump on a call and discuss so everyone’s on the same page. Seems obvious but it gets overlooked. Literally ask: “does everyone understand or have any additional questions”. Often it’s your fault for not being as clear as you need to be, and saying it out loud forces you to clarify your own thoughts. Just remember to keep testing, keep refining your process and strive to always be a better communicator. You and your team will be better off for it.
1) Skype / zoom / video at least once a day, 2) be transparent on everything 3) trust 4) delegate part of your management work (which you are accountable for) in order to force you to sync with remote teams members/ma...
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1) Skype / zoom / video at least once a day, 2) be transparent on everything 3) trust 4) delegate part of your management work (which you are accountable for) in order to force you to sync with remote teams members/managers 5) 360 evaluation at least once a year.
Defining responsibility of who does what on a remote team is incredibly important. You don’t have the organic nature that comes from working in an office alongside people where you can see what they’re doing and adapt...
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Defining responsibility of who does what on a remote team is incredibly important. You don’t have the organic nature that comes from working in an office alongside people where you can see what they’re doing and adapt accordingly. As such, regular check ins, clearly defined objectives and trust is imperative.
Catch people doing something right. We created an automatic update in Basecamp asking our team to post wins (including screenshots) every week. Other team members celebrate each other with boosts (i.e kudos).
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Catch people doing something right. We created an automatic update in Basecamp asking our team to post wins (including screenshots) every week. Other team members celebrate each other with boosts (i.e kudos).
Facilitate remote employee's exposure and connections to a variety of people/departments across the company. Assign them to cross-org projects etc to maximize variety of information and context exchange channels to he...
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Facilitate remote employee's exposure and connections to a variety of people/departments across the company. Assign them to cross-org projects etc to maximize variety of information and context exchange channels to help their work gain visibility, drive better decision making.
Start all meetings with personal check-ins. We do rose, bud, thorn; red, yellow, green; and others. Building personal relationships remotely can be hard, but mutual trust and care are essential to high-performing team...
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Start all meetings with personal check-ins. We do rose, bud, thorn; red, yellow, green; and others. Building personal relationships remotely can be hard, but mutual trust and care are essential to high-performing teams. There's no "watercooler," so you have to make one.
Have your video on even during even casual/simple meetings. Enabling video goes such a long way to help everyone feel more together, communicate better, and trust each other (even when you've mastered remote communica...
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Have your video on even during even casual/simple meetings. Enabling video goes such a long way to help everyone feel more together, communicate better, and trust each other (even when you've mastered remote communication).
Establish a formal communication cadence, including a 30-minute weekly 1:1 via video chat - with an agenda doc and notes that you both contribute to. It'll ensure that you're having bigger-picture conversations (statu...
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Establish a formal communication cadence, including a 30-minute weekly 1:1 via video chat - with an agenda doc and notes that you both contribute to. It'll ensure that you're having bigger-picture conversations (status, progress, goals, growth, etc.) and develop rapport.
Remote has a special place in our hearts at Nira. We’re a fully remote team with folks based all over the world. We love working remotely! And we love helping our team (plus everyone else!) have a better experience working remotely. Nira is a product that helps any team - remote, distributed or in an office - find information across the company, faster. Read our Remote Work Report