"Where is Bob? Has anyone heard from Sarah?"

Is remote work really working?

In a previous article, we talked about the three critical elements to setting up your teams or organization for remote work success. However, we often hear that the best laid plans go haywire, and it is just too hard to keep track of remote workers.

Let’s take a look at this issue in more detail. The opposite side of the fear of not knowing where people are, is something like “Agile teams are supposed to be self-organizing so why do we need to know where people are?” However, the reality is somewhere in the middle.

During my career, I have built teams with huge amounts of autonomy that were able to reach a high level of self-organisation. However, this metamorphosis does not happen overnight. And if the teams are part of a larger company, there will always be levels of accountability stakeholders outside of the team, and someone has to ensure that happens.

In our previous article on remote work, we talked about communication plans and work agreements for the team. These two items go a long way towards ensuring that the team organizes not only to provide themselves the flexibility to manage the work the way it needs to be done; but also to foster a culture where teammates are available for each other when needs arise.

In many teams, pair programming or co-working are a daily part of the environment. How do you work together though, if you don’t know how to reach people, or when they are available? 

Here are a few tips when setting up a communication strategy for remote teams:

• Use chat platform to post a message when you are stepping away for a bit, and when you are back. This is not about someone checking up on you, but about allowing teammates to know when you are available for teamwork, meetings, offline conversations, etc.

• Remind teammates of your availability in the daily standup, if it is different from the norm (e.g. time off, a block of non-work hours during the day, etc.)

• Have core hours for the team. This is critical if you have teams that span several time zones. Establish a set of hours where everyone agrees to be logged on and available. This ensures that meetings, teamwork/partnering, or customer activities can take place on a predetermined schedule.

• Allow team members to have “quiet hours.” This is similar to the quiet car on a train. There are times when an activity requires so much focus that phone calls, chat or email cause time consuming disruptions. Set boundaries to ensure that everyone is still around during core availability hours, but are able to have quiet time to focus as well. 

• Create “non-task” time for the team. If the team is part of a larger corporate entity that places demands on time, work with the team and the company to set specific hours for those tasks. The team can dedicate time jointly to these tasks, thus causing less disruption to the task list.

If we incorporate these more advanced communication strategies, then we won’t be left wondering “Where is Bob?” and we are not asking “Have you heard from Sarah?”

What other ways can you and your teams set up your communication strategy to ensure that people have the safe environment they need to do focused work, and also be responsive to teammate and corporate demands?

Learn more about the work that we do and the programs that we offer. Set up a call to start planning how you want to change the culture of your organization.

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About the Author:

INDRA A. BOOKS

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