How to Have Your Remote Team Working Smoothly

This is reposted from joaquinroca.com with permission from Joaquin Roca.

This is a first for me. I received a request for a blog post. This question came in from Matt Weber, founder of Conjure: “I'd love to see your thoughts on pulling together a virtual company.” Well, Matt, here are eight thoughts:

1) Communicate, communicate, communicate: This is the hardest thing for virtual teams. Make sure you are over communicating. And this means from both directions (those who are virtual as well as those who are in the office). Create opportunities for all-hands meetings, make time to catch up one-to-one, make steady use of your chat client, debrief over email, text message, phone chat, use all the tools at your disposal. Communication is key.

2) Tool up: There are lots of free tools out there, but you might also want to invest in some paid services as well. Your communication tools are going to be really important. I love Google Apps (email, calendar, drive, Hangout, G+ all allow for tons of collaboration), some people love Skype, GoToMeeting is a favorite for larger meetings, Hipchat is a neat tool for chat that allows there to be some persistence with the communication, Trello, Asana, and ToDoist, are all great ways to collaborate on tasks, 37 signals has a bunch of tools for team collaboration, Harvest is a great way for everyone to keep track of their time and make what they are doing more visible, Google+ (with use of Circles) and Yammer can also be great tools for sharing and creating internal networks, I’m also excited about news collaboration services like Delve.

3) Set goals and check-in weekly: Having a write-up at the beginning and end of the week detailing the things that will get done and all the things that actually got done can keep people from wondering what’s going on in their virtual teams. When possible make metrics for all team members (local and remote) highly visible so everyone can track their progress and there’s never reason for anyone to question each other’s productivity.

4) Make some time to actually be together: There is no substitute for actually spending time together face-to-face. I’d try to make this monthly, though quarterly is probably more realistic for some virtual teams. Actually getting together to spend time working and playing together can do a ton to build a sense of team that can be lost when you are working virtually.

5) Include virtual team members: Popping champagne in the office to celebrate closing a big deal? Make sure your virtual team members are stocked with their own champagne at home so they can join in. Did your client send over a thank you gift? Share some with your remote team members, or at least take a picture to share. Make sure they feel like they aren’t being left out.

6) Be on time and don’t waste people’s time: Differences in time zones suck; don’t make them worse by being late. Also, people in an office can get carried away with what’s going on in the office and forget the remote team doesn’t have access to that information. Sometimes meetings have to get pushed back, make sure you let your remote team members know this is happening as early as possible so they can plan their day. For your remote team members, and for those in the office, make sure only people who need to be in meetings are asked to join. You don’t want to waste their time. If their voice is important to the decision being made, however, make sure they get an invite. There is nothing more alienating to a remote team member than not having their voice heard. You might even let them passively check in to meetings they don’t have to be in. An open GoToMeeting event at every meeting will allow them to get a better pulse of the organization even if they aren’t participating (this is clearly something that won’t work for all organizational cultures).

7) Equipment: This is a huge cost, but really worth the investment. Make sure you have really good microphones. You will make up the cost of the mic in meeting time saved very quickly. A really nice large screen is great to keep locals aware that there are other people in the meeting. Also, make sure their faces are showing so you don’t forget them (that is, don’t cover them with a document – get two screens if you have to). I’ve also seen offices running persistent two way video chat in the office. That gives you the opportunity for serendipitous meetings with virtual team members in the same way you have chance conversations with those in the office.

8) During meetings, check in with them to be inclusive, but not too much: If you go around the room looking for feedback from everyone present, make sure you go to them as well. If they look like they are lost, stop and make sure they get caught up. Try not to make them the center of the meeting, though. This can be just as alienating as not acknowledging them at all. This is a very difficult balance.

I hope these tips are helpful! Do you have any that I missed? Please leave them in a comment below or tweet them@Joaquin_V_Roca.

Joaquin is an organizational psychologist who helps New York startups scale their human systems. He has helped SumAll run more efficiently and communicate more effectively with our remote team. To learn more about our friend Joaquin, visit joaquinroca.com.