Managing Remote Teams

Foundations

Additional reading / watching

REMOTE: Office Not Required

Does remote work slow company growth?

The ultimate guide to remote work

Notes

Gitlab, Google

is it more difficult remotely managing:
1. Kitchen talks :( missing the real them
2. Everything else not the same - not doable originally thought: how people feel, technologically - empathy
3. How to spot - when something is having bad day, explicitly reach out
4. On boarding manager - how to get them properly
5. Chitchat, off topic -
6. lunch - sometimes it does not work for every team, don't force yourself into it, natural, artificial - difficult, you need a facilitator
7. you cannot force people to synchronise - remote teams asynchronous communication its the best benefit
8. Jukben asynchronous communication - from the beginning, we were preparing for the possibility for the remote team, working only 2 day, asynchronous communication is the must - discord channel, nobody is enjoying it, unwanted connection, not any positive aspect - creating documents, if we discuss something, everything documented, not blocking each others, more empowering - proven concepts (bot for chat, standup document Geekbot)
9. asynchronous communication: delay in communication, time-consuming,
10. Design sprint - remotely - workshop - align real time facetime - continuous call - largely collaborative exercises, down all the ideas, mapping, realign, reinterpretate, for that to get the alignment. We would diverge but then again converge together. asynchronous → but then there is a point to get synchronized in the end of all the processes
11. Short call - explain yourself, brainstorming, not misinterpretation
12. Zoom draining the energy
13. Documenting more? Actively documenting more - onboarding - initial much more detailed, exchange the information. Tons of documents for sales - Vancouver, US, Prague. The documentation stronger, awesome to have manuals - unique productboard - distributed from DAY ONE (it's in our DNA)
14. social connection - meaningful connection - allows you be innovative, alies, can you replicate meeting face to face?
15. gitlab - regularly face to face offsites, too much value in seeing each other, culture
16. this is not remote, you don't have your habits, its extra hard
17. Maurice its way harder, need people
18. you were a manager managing part remote
19. Security - overworking, managing people in the office - remotely output and outcome, lines of code, documents
Managing remotely
1. not big difference - you still need to have skill to manage
2. Martin Mosko - came to Prague, meet in person, helps loads
3. Building trust - remote team, transparent, whatever is going on
4. for teams - focus more, productivity for the individual
5. design → experienced facilitator
Key Take Aways
1. Geekbot
2. Not inspiration from this situation, this is not reality
3. Moving things the space
4. Communication
5. Struggles we have are the common
6. Exercise
7. New vibe, new audience
8. positive feedback, direct feedback, lot of energy from people around
9. Maurice is amazing facilitator
10. Where do we gain our battery - we are all batteries