Remote teams are here to stay.
I have been leading distributed product dev teams since 2001. Here are 10 leadership tips on how to optimize your remote team. Learn how often to meet face to face, and when to not meet at all.
Summary
1️⃣ Think through the rhythm of the team. What needs to happen each day, week, month, or quarter? Establish rituals for these like Monday morning meetings, daily standups, retrospectives, quarterly offsites, etc.
2️⃣ New team members often struggle when joining remote teams. Focus on what new team members need during their first 30 days. Have them write an intro to the team or create a private team stories podcast.
3️⃣ Group recurring meetings so that the team can plan their day around them. Each interruption causes a lack of productivity. As a side benefit, if the chunk of time is too big, it is clear the meetings need to be streamlined.
4️⃣ To accommodate different time zones, agree on core working hours when people will be available. All mandatory meetings should be in this window if possible.
5️⃣ Don’t just keep a standing meeting on the calendar. Cancel it if the topic does not need a discussion.
6️⃣ On the flip side, do not make big decisions over chat where some not be able to participate fully. Get people together voice-to-voice to work through issues. Turn your emotional IQ to 11 for these meetings.
7️⃣ Use web-native tools. If your team is remote or hybrid, everyone needs equal access to information.
8️⃣ Face-to-face is still important for building relationships. Schedule team offsites at least twice a year. I prefer 3 to 4 a year for best alignment with setting quarterly goals.
9️⃣ Do frequent retrospective meetings where the team can openly discuss what went right, what went wrong, lessons learned, and next steps.
🔟 Live and breathe a learning mindset. The team together helps define and refine how to best work together. Discovering the best way to work in a changing environment should evolve with the team.
