Then you’d better learn how to manage your developers right.
Even though remote work isn’t anything new, many project managers, entrepreneurs, and team leaders often run into a bunch of obstacles.
Misunderstanding, a lack of trust and cohesion, poor communication - those can be quite serious if project leaders fail to manage them. In many cases, they cause entire projects to come to a grinding halt or fail altogether.
This guide is here to help you avoid obstacles and enjoy the benefits of remote teams. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll know how to:
- Set up a remote team workflow
- Clarify tasks and responsibilities for each member
- Make every meeting fast and productive
- Keep a team accountable in a respectful way
- Increase team morale.
Prepare a Remote Work Method
The success of a remote team begins with a super organized leader. To avoid micromanaging or conflicts arising due to unclear working processes, he or she needs to set up basic administrative processes.
This means organizing the entire workflow by:
- Deciding who takes decisions and when
- Organizing all tasks and select task owners
- Defining issue management processes.
Every point should be described in detail. The more details, the fewer questions team members will have.
How are you supposed to do it?
One way to organize workflow effectively is with Notion, a workplace app. Your job is simple: use it to create dedicated pages for each workflow stage.
The final result might look like this project roadmap. As you can see, the project has a description of tasks and subtasks (“task,” “bug”), people involved, and timelines.
Credit: Notion.so
When you have all tasks, responsibilities, and other things described, it’s time to set up the workflow.
This is done in JIRA - a popular work management tool.
Here’s the look at JIRA’s work management board with tasks on various stages of completion. Each task also has an assigned person, team, and category.
Credit: Atlassian.com
What you can do with tasks in JIRA:
- Create custom stages for the work process: “To do,” “In progress,” “Code review,” etc.
- Set due dates for each task or process
- Create tasks and subtasks
- Assign people to tasks
- Define issue type
- Assign priorities to tasks and issues.
Tip: Use outstaffing services to hire self-motivated and highly disciplined developers with remote working experience. This HR method means using a service that finds remote developers according to your requirements and needs.
Make Tasks and Responsibilities Clear
The next step towards effective remote team management is defining clear tasks and responsibilities. Even a well-organized JIRA board can cause some bottlenecks if some tasks are open-ended or ambiguous.
To avoid misunderstanding, make each task very specific.
Here are some ideas on how to do it in JIRA:
- Set an exact deadline (day, hour, and timezone)
- Break down a task into smaller subtasks for clarity
- Assign a developer or a group to each task and subtask.
If needed, have a meeting with a project manager to clarify everything.
Last thing: make sure that each team member understands what is expected of them in advance.
This means having a meeting where you explain tasks before and during the project.
Make Meetings Fast and Productive
Nothing kills productivity and motivation more than a long and exhausting meeting. It’s a sign of poor planning and efficiency, apart from disregarding the essential meeting principles.
To keep your meetings fast and productive:
- Prepare and share a meeting’s agenda beforehand
- Don’t invite any additional participants (unless absolutely necessary)
- Set a time frame for each meeting (30 min for daily syncs and one hour for bi-weekly discussions are good starting points but depend on your team size).
The average video conferencing meeting, by the way, is between 31 and 60 minutes. This isn’t so bad. However, time limits set by video meeting software are often a reason why meetings are kept within reasonable timeframes.
Keep Team Members Accountable (Respectfully)
To build trust with a remote team, a manager needs to build a culture of accountability.
Here’s how to do this in a respectful way:
- Establish clear expectations. Have a meeting to explain the work standards, company value, and expectations regarding communication and deadlines
- Keep the team communicating. Avoid misunderstandings with such accountability tools as short daily syncs and weekly 1-hour long meetings. These help to discuss progress and/or any issues
- Ask about their technology/knowledge needs. Does your team have everything they need to complete their tasks? Tools, plugins, apps, etc.? Or perhaps an online course? Try to check in with everybody regularly and encourage them to submit their requests.
Trust depends on clear expectations and reciprocity. Give your team reasonable tasks and deadlines and let them do their job.
Pro tip: Have bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with each team member. Ask how you can help to make working easier for them. This way, you can increase trust and team loyalty.
Keep a Team Morale High
Happy employees are productive employees.
This couldn’t be more true with remote work. Employee satisfaction and employee retention are closely related, which is something you need to keep balanced (because the risk of feeling isolated and undervalued is higher in remote workers).
To keep team morale high:
- Create a channel for employee recognition. To properly recognize the achievements and results of a team or individual members, set up a channel on Slack (or another communication app of your choice). Call it #OurHeroes or #Recognition and share warm messages to show your team some love
- Make time for non-work conversations. Create a few channels on Slack for chatting about non-work related topics. News, random talk, top-rated takeout places - anything that can help them feel more connected.
One-on-one meetings that we’ve mentioned can also help to keep your team happy. They give it a channel for voicing their opinions and feelings, which is something every remote worker appreciates.
The Bottom Line
Remote team management is a unique kind of challenge.
Success depends on:
- Recruiting self-disciplined developers with a sense of accountability and discipline
- Super organized workflows to keep everything running smoothly
- Communicating a lot every day to prevent misunderstanding.
Taking care of these things should make your remote projects successful. Remember - remote teams don’t stay productive by accident - it’s a result of smart planning, excellent work culture, and focus on user needs.