Working Effectively with Distributed Teams

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Working from home is a hot topic right now, isn't it? Over the years and especially lately, there has been a plethora of articles written about remote work and all the tools and practices to help you be successful. I know I risk adding to the cacophony of information on the subject, but I do want to assemble some of the resources that I have found most helpful and share some of my own experiences. I hope this sparks some new thinking and discussion among you and your peers!

Personal Story

Let's start with one of my remote work experiences. For 18 months spanning March 2018 to November 2019, I was part of a 8 person scrum team that was distributed across 3 different office locations. We had to work through a lot of challenges in how we collaborated to be an effective team.

A constraint that we constantly battled was that developer talent was split: senior devs were in one office and junior devs were in another. This separation led to frequent temptation for me and the other senior devs to confer in-person about something, make a decision, and then execute that or inform the team after-the-fact. Being excluded from these conversations understandably caused heartburn for our junior developers who felt like they were missing out on a learning opportunity.

One practice that we implemented to combat the talent split was having these conversations in the team chat channel and firing up a video call when a higher-bandwidth communication was needed. Having technical discussions out in the open allowed other team members to join in, if they were able to, so that they could stay informed. Sometimes, the junior team members we had been excluding had valuable contributions that we would have missed if we had spoken together just as senior devs. Other times, they just wanted to listen in, but the effect on team trust was palpable!

To reduce the feeling of the distance between offices, we also made an effort to use video regularly. In particular, we prioritized video for certain scrum ceremonies like retro and backlog refinement. We didn't conduct video calls all the time, but when we did, you could tell that the mood and interactions among the team were different. Video really helps personalize the teammates that are remote from you. Of course, network bandwidth constraints can prove to be a significant challenge for several simultaneous video feeds (and it was a challenge with this particular client).

Asynchronous Communication

One concept that I believe can help distributed teams is asynchronous communication. I was already familiar with some of the practices defined by this concept, but the Doist article Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive really helped me solidify this as a "thing". The article is a bit long, but I definitely recommend reading it.

To summarize, the big idea here is that synchronous communication (calls, meetings, IM) can be detrimental to productivity if used poorly and that asynchronous communication (meeting notes, task lists) can help us focus on deep work better. In this context, consider deep work those tasks that really require concentration and un-interrupted time to get done. Some examples might include:

Writing a blog post 😉
Creating a presentation
Writing code
Designing an interface

Whether we always appreciate it or not, context switching has a cost. Tools like phones, email, and chat platforms are all valuable but can serve as ready distractions that take a toll on our productivity.

Another element of the Doist article that really resonates with me is the personal mental health impact of the idea that we must be "online" all the time. When you're in an office with your team, your teammates can visually inspect whether you are at your desk and available. This is more difficult to recognize when we are physically separated and reliant on status indicators. Does away mean they are physically away from their desk (for instance, getting a snack or taking the dog out) or does it mean they've just closed their chat app to not be interrupted?

Even when I was working in the office with my local teammates, I felt a pressure to be super-responsive to my remote teammates. That pressure nearly doubled on days when I worked from home because I expected that if I was not available to talk at any time, my teammates would think I was slacking off or ignoring them. That's a lot of stress to put on yourself! I'm willing to bet that a lot of us feel something similar, especially when our norm is to be in the office and we elect to work remotely on occasion.

At the same time, company culture can impact these feelings as well. If our boss or team explicitly asks that we be seen as online in some manner or reachable at any time, now we may be extra fearful of repurcussions for taking a much-needed 10 minute break or shutting down communication apps to get some work done.

The challenge posed by many authors on the subject is: can we focus on productivity and output rather than connectivity and availability? That's not to say that we should not hold space for active collaboration, but that we should try not to judge our peers on when and how often we see them online. Instead, we should set clear and fair expectations for ourselves and our teammates. This includes communicating our expected working hours and interruptions proactively as well as establishing healthy ways to measure output that are disconnected from the amount of time we are online.

Practices & Tools

To get started implementing more asynchronous communication practices, you can try to:

Write appropriate emails and messages - don't craft the message with an intention of needing an immediate reply
Plan ahead - limit the urgency of our messages to allow teammates to take time to respond
Take and share good notes
Keep task lists up-to-date
Provide social opportunities for fully remote teammates
Have as much discussion in team-public channels as possible
- For instance, if you have a team channel that everyone is a part of, rather than having direct message chats about something (especially if it could result in a decision), have that discussion in the team channel. You may not need to tag the whole team. Many times, just having the visibility of that conversation is helpful for teammates that did not participate.

There are more examples from Twist in their Remote Guide to Team Communication and elsewhere online.

Synchronous Communication

In contrast with asynchronous communication, let me share some thoughts on synchronous communication as well. Synchronous communication consists of things like phone calls, texts, and instant messages, but more broadly, it is any communication method that depends on immediate responses back and forth between participants. This method of communication is absolutely necessary for work and for collaboration; the challenges lie in doing it in the right amount and doing it well.

Again, I recommend Twist's Remote Guide to Team Communication, but I'll share a few brief ideas here for navigating calls and meetings:

Consider if you truly need a meeting or if there is another communication form that is appropriate
Get familiar with your call tools so you know where controls are. It's worth investing your time now to save everyone's time later when starting a meeting to understand where settings are such as:
- Mute
- Video on/off
- Start meetings with audio and/or video off by default
- Screen sharing
- Change audio devices
- Mute participants
Use video - even if it's just one teammate that's remote, have everyone open their video feed (if bandwidth allows) to facilitate non-verbal communication
Take thorough notes and share them to a place that the team can easily get to them. In your notes, you should:
- Record the agenda
- Call out major decisions
- Identify action items
While talking, pause regularly to allow others to chime in

These practices should be standard for any meeting, including in-person, but are particularly important when everyone is remote.

Working from Home

I do want to take a minute to appreciate that remote work does not by definition mean working from home. Remote work may mean team members in different offices collaborating together on a project. So long as circumstances allow, it may mean working from a co-working space or coffee shop.

There are some aspects of remote work that I think are more relevant to and important for working from home. When we are working in the same place we live, eat, sleep, and play, some inherent challenges come up.

For one, there is a temptation to work too much. Because we are so connected (this is what enables remote work, right?), we also have the ability to be too connected. Check out the "Set Boundaries" section of Surviving—and Thriving—as a Remote Worker and see if the picture presented resonates with you. I do think it's good to set up guardrails for ourselves to protect our mental health. Some ideas include:

Give yourself working hours, and stick to them
Uninstall work apps from your phone
Keep a separate work phone you can put away or turn off
Keep separate user accounts for work and personal use on your computer

On the flip side, it can also be tempting to get chores done or lounge around the house too much. Personally, I think it's okay to have some diversions scattered throughout your day. We all need breaks, and working from home allows us some benefits here. However, I also think we need to be disciplined about doing so. If taking 5 minutes to start a load of laundry turns into an hour cleaning our bathrooms, we should probably check ourselves and at the very least ask:

Is this how I need to spend this time?
Will this be a problem for my team?

We can create a hole for ourselves to dig out of if we allow those chores or distractions to take up too much time. However, I think it's healthy to allow them, and the answer to those questions might lead you to carry on with your home project. Just be mindful of your actions!

Also make sure you can curate a work-conducive environment. This means limiting immediate distractions like the TV, pets, or the people we live with. Our bodies and minds are really good at remembering what we do in specific places, so if you try to work from the same couch that you binge TV shows, you may find it hard to focus.

Similarly, consider exercising the same routines you might perform if you were going to an office like taking a shower, putting on makeup, and getting dressed for work. It may seem like a bummer to not stay in your pajamas all day, but you may find that you feel better about yourself and more motivated just by putting on a fresh shirt.

Finally, if you live with others, try to designate a room or space for work and establish clear signals to use when you do not want to be interrupted. That doesn't mean you have to isolate yourself all day, but you should have an agreed-upon way to communicate that you need to be on a call or focus on some deep work.

Links & Further Reading

Apart from my own story and opinions, I have assembled all of these ideas from other great articles, some of which I have already linked.

Note: since this article was published, some of the original links I shared are no longer valid. As of 13 October 2024, I have replaced or removed the broken links with updated articles about remote work. Enjoy!

Please reach out if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions!