The new normal is here - run your remote team well and continue to build excellent products

With experience managing remote teams over the last 5 years, here are my cheat notes to ensure you remain productive whilst still having harmony.

Build your business rhythm

We are all creatures of habit. Building habits into your team helps with productivity and alignment. Your team will know where to be and what to expect from the important meetings week in and out.

In my product teams, we run morning stand-ups and I believe they can work for everyone irrespective of role.

Currently, we run weekly planning on Monday for an hour and then 15 mins on Wednesday and Friday mornings. Everyone can share their progress, challenges and ask for help. Assign someone to host the meeting (be the Scrum Master) and update the task board - Trello is still a firm favorite here! Our projects and other processes fit into these meeting. Issues are raised and more detailed discussions taken off line.

For the wider processes (Sprint Planning, UAT, release dates), map out the cadences and make sure they are in the diary and keep everyone updated about any changes. For wider dates across the company, shared calendars can be useful.

Build your remote culture, pick your tools and use them

Office culture exists even if there is no office.

People have to work together and they build norms in doing so. As you start your remote team, think about the type of culture you want to create. Your product culture should be aligned with the company, but you may want to push certain values like openness and transparency. Check out the Basecamp employee handbook for inspiration. They are experts.

Tooling is essential to collaborate across geographies and timezones. So much has been written about this, so I won’t go into any detail about it. Select your preferred messaging / video / knowledge management / ticketing platforms and make a start. Make sure that everyone uses them and that new starters are trained about how to use them too.

Get honest feedback with retrospectives

Without seeing each other and ‘lunch room chats’ sometimes process or team issues are not quickly addressed. Use a monthly retrospectives to get everything out in the open and discussed. Creating this time for your team can help with step change where previous processes are not working or don’t exist. It is good to reflect and talk.

If there are many issues to resolve, try to prioritise and focus. There may be only so much you can do before the next retro. Take things step by step.

Mix it up now and again

With your team fully remote, the weeks can sometimes start to blur.

Mix it up with special focus now and again. Perhaps you set aside a week to focus on operational issues or UX. Set the scope of and let the team make progress. At the end of the week you can celebrate your wins!

Try to see each other once in a while

Although, this is difficult (even more so currently), it is worthwhile to see your team in person. Getting to know each other and realise your shared values is helpful especially during times of conflict or change.

If this isn’t possible, try at least to turn on the video once in a while!

Good Luck!