Remote work: How do you manage your team?

I'm happy to come and share this experience with you. Our team of colleagues are currently working remotely and here are some suggestions that I hope will help you. 1. Foster open and transparent communication Ensure that your team members are aware of project goals and timelines, and maintain two-way open dialogue where any new discoveries, pivots, or changes in the project are promptly shared with team members. Use instant messaging tools such as Slack, Teams, or Zoom, and store shared folders and documents in a single location for easy retrieval. 2. Ensure team members' understanding and alignment on tasks Help team members to understand the background of their work, to make them more invested in the work, participate in decision-making and formulate corresponding plans to achieve common goals. Online task management platforms such as Jira and Trello can be used to coordinate work, assign tasks to team members, and increase productivity. 3. Time Management Understand the schedules of different team members which is important. This can include knowing about any personal schedule changes and holiday plans, ensuring that appropriate plans are made and avoiding the project being disrupted by changes in life. Tools such as TickTick, Asana, and Google Calendar can be used in this regard. 4. Maintain autonomy and culture Try to ensure that remote team members feel that they are in a culture of freedom and maintain a closely knit team environment. Encourage team members to put their lovable individual personalities into their work and share successes and accomplishments. Regular activities, such as online team activities, game time, and other simple and diverse activities, can be organized to enhance the sense of connection among team members. 5. Network security Remote teams can connect to online meetings and company data through public WiFi and other networks, which means that confidentiality and network security become important. Ensure that team members are aware of security protocols, use VPNs and other network security tools to ensure confidentiality of sensitive information, and help them understand other best practices for ensuring network security in a remote work environment. In conclusion, remote team management requires skills such as transparent communication, task allocation, time management, while maintaining connection among team members and adhering to network security protocols. The aforementioned tools and platforms can help you effectively manage your remote team and significantly increase your work efficiency.

Great question. Some of the things that comes to mind... Set clear expectations: It's important to establish clear goals and expectations for your team from the beginning. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards the same objectives. Communicate regularly: Regular communication is crucial for effective team management. This can include team meetings, one-on-one check-ins, and other forms of communication that keep everyone informed and engaged. Delegate tasks: Delegating tasks to team members can help ensure everyone has a clear role and responsibility within the team. It also helps to build trust and confidence in your team members' abilities. Provide feedback: Regular feedback is important for team members to understand how they're performing and how they can improve. Feedback should be constructive, specific, and timely. Encourage collaboration: Encouraging collaboration within your team can help foster a positive team environment and improve productivity. This can be done through team-building activities, brainstorming sessions, and other collaborative efforts.

We have been using tools like Moxo where the communication takes place and all the docs and client work remains on one platform. Best practices wise, there is nothing much just active and clear communication is the current focus along with documentation of things we are doing.

I manage my remote team by setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback and encouragement, creating a positive environment that fosters productivity and creativity, and holding frequent check-ins with each member of the team.

Remote work definitely presents some unique challenges when it comes to managing a team. One thing that's worked well for me is setting clear expectations and communication channels. I make sure everyone knows what's expected of them and how we'll be staying in touch (Slack, Zoom, email, etc.). It's also important to trust your team and give them the autonomy to do their work without micromanaging. That being said, I do check in regularly to see how things are going and offer support if needed. And of course, celebrating wins and team bonding is just as important remotely as it is in person!

Here's some guidelines forged from one of our co-founders that works pretty well: - Move things to asynchronous mediums when and where it makes sense. - Give a lot of thought to where your direct interaction will be more valuable to your team. Instead of status meetings, implement weekly or semi-monthly 1-on-1s with your direct reports. - Another way you can show up to your team is swing in on their standups. If you do this, make sure that you make a consistent practice of it– an unexpected and unusual Founder or leader appearance can be very alarming. But if done with some regularity, it can be another really good way to be visible to team members who are not directly reporting to you. - Holding office hours is another way to make yourself available to individual members of your team. - Use monthly company newsletters to help publicize the work and efforts teams are doing and make sure everyone is on the same page. - Have monthly Town Halls to share company-wide news, high-level direction changes or refinements, and to answer any questions that team members might have. - Consider making your newly implemented asynchronous reporting visible across departments, whether to the whole team or just among leads, to help facilitate this cross-team background knowledge. Hope that's helpfu!