COVID-19 has been devastating across countries and industries. The small silver lining that’s emerged from COVID-19 is that remote working has become more mainstream now. To be clear, the number of people working remotely was on the increase even before COVID-19 happened (reports indicate that remote work has seen a more than 40% increase over the last 5 years in the USA), but COVID has now accelerated the adoption rate of remote work.
Remoting makes a lot of sense for knowledge workers such as Technology professionals, digital marketers and software developers. A high percentage of USA based knowledge workers prefer working remotely and only some outliers seem to think that they would get more work done in an office environment.
Challenges with remote work such as sub-optimal collaboration, the inability of employees to switch off from work, and a growing sense of professional disconnectedness will crop up due to the highly solitary nature of remote work.
Luckily, a software development company in the US will find it easier to adapt to working remotely because the IT sector has always fostered an effective WFH system in order to provide flexibility to their employees and thus attract the best technology talent. Thus, technology professionals around the world have gotten used to working remotely. They prefer the flexibility with their schedules and appreciate the distraction-free environment of home (unless you have kids who are also present at home, but that should be the focus of another blog post). They can literally code anywhere and anytime.
The flip side is represented by the project managers who worry about possible delays to critical projects and any setbacks that could arise due to ineffective communication. So to get the most out of your software team that’s going all remote, here are some best practices that can be followed:
Crystal Clear Project Goals
Information related to project goals and objectives should be clearly and widely distributed among your teams. Even your most junior software engineer should be aware of the project’s big picture and should be cognisant of the delivery timelines.
Information about resource workflows, progress updates, dependencies on other teams, etc. must be shared, ideally in a readily available dashboard that anyone can monitor.
Make Your Daily Scrums Better
Here are some ways to make your virtual morning stand-up meeting more effective and interesting:
- In addition to formal stand up style meetings that can get very monotonous, you could try out an informal style meeting once a week (For e.g. coffee with the team).
- Try having a more intimate scrum with the main engineers by reframing yesterday/today/obstacle questions to get richer responses from your team members than just single line updates from them.
- Schedule 1-1 with every developer as you would normally do in an office setting, but be flexible with the time. Work From Home always gets disrupted by some sporadic personal requirements or family emergencies.
Try Asynchronous Communication
Real-time information exchange in a WFH setting is not always possible and also makes it difficult for WFH employees to follow. Synchronous communication is very useful for brainstorming and ideating on projects, but for most other use cases, try using asynchronous communication methods.
- For distributed remote teams across time zones, synchronous meetings and communication is a waste of time especially for those items that can be covered by a well-articulated document or a project tracker.
- Use a video and thread-based communication tool so that all remote team members can participate and get a fair chance to contribute at their own pace and style. Such tools also take away the requirement of noting down live notes.
- Try GitHub, BitBucket, etc. if your software engineers prefer those than to tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Perform Better Code Reviews
For the main code review process, use synchronous video conferencing (preferably with screen sharing) and then switch to asynchronous channels for follow up changes. If the code review can’t be done in a real-time setting, then make sure there is enough documentation with context and background.
Use a Good Project Management Software
An integrated collaboration suite is essential for remote teams for time tracking, task delegation, and scheduling.
- If your team is just starting to go remote, then start them off with a tool like Trello which is simple to use and supports the Kanban approach.
- If you are ok with third-party integrations, then try JIRA or Asana (my favorite) that supports the most popular apps.
- Basecamp is the oldest and considered the gold standard, but is expensive.
Encourage healthy work-life balance
Work From Home cuts down on travel time, so those extra hours should be used by your team to spend time with family and friends, or maybe even in pursuit of some hobbies. Keep reminding your team members to get fresh air and some exercise every day. Employees become more productive and focused when they are able to keep work and home lives separate and give enough attention to both.
Hope the above ideas help your software teams become more effective in all remote world post COVID-19.
Sameer Mehta is a blogger and entrepreneur and writes on technology and lifestyle-related topics. He has more than 15 years of experience across technology, consulting, and marketing. He has written for Entrepreneur.com, West Agile Labs, Exegy Consulting, Jewellerista, etc.
