Working Remotely Together (WITS17 Philly)

Remote work in the tech industry is hardly new. Many companies provide flexible work from home policies or even full time remote positions. Even for office-bound professionals, we all collaborate with remote third parties at some point. When I started my first remote position I was surprised to find that many challenges didn’t have obvious solutions. As a team we need to learn, envision, plan, build, deploy, and triage together. As an individual I need to learn from, mentor, and build personal relationships with my colleagues. That’s not easy to do over the phone, slack, and video chat. I’d like to share some of my challenges with transitioning to a full-time remote technical team member (and now manager) and what practices and tools have helped me create a successfully collaborative team. I’d like to share the perspective and practices that can help you work more closely together, wherever you are in the world.

Transcript

1. Working Remotely Together
   Audrey Troutt
   @auditty
   

   View Slide

2. View Slide

3. 43%
   of US employees work at least some of the time remotely
   and that number is increasing
   

   View Slide

4. http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
   

   View Slide

5. http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
   

   View Slide

6. 60%
   of US companies offer telecommuting opportunities
   

   View Slide

7. “Employees want and
   expect work-from-home
   opportunities, and overall,
   their ability to do so is
   producing positive gains in
   engagement.” -Gallup
   http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
   

   View Slide

8. http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/191501/moneyball-business-employee-engagement-meta-analysis.aspx
   

   View Slide

9. http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
   

   View Slide

10. Remote work takes a lot of different forms
    ●
    Work from home
    ●
    Work from coworking space
    ●
    Work from different office from team
    ●
    Work from _______
    ●
    Work remotely part time
    ●
    Work remotely full time
    ●
    Fully distributed team
    ●
    Partially co-located team
    

    View Slide

11. Working remotely is great!
    ●
    Flexible schedule
    ●
    Focus and be productive
    ●
    Same or better job satisfaction
    ●
    Work from anywhere *
    ●
    Travel sometimes
    

    View Slide

12. View Slide

13. Things you take for granted
    in your office job
    

    View Slide

14. Body Language
    

    View Slide

15. 66%
    of communication is cut out if you are only using text
    

    View Slide

16. Presence
    

    View Slide

17. Stopping by for a chat
    

    View Slide

18. Whiteboards
    

    View Slide

19. A beginning and end to your day
    

    View Slide

20. Shared regional/national culture
    

    View Slide

21. View Slide

22. Other things I find challenging:
    ●
    Forming connections with people
    ●
    Finding synchronous time to talk across
    timezones
    ●
    Having difficult conversations
    ●
    Participating in large active conversations
    

    View Slide

23. “If you think working
    remotely is hard you
    should try being a remote
    manager.” -Audrey
    

    View Slide

24. Remote Working Solutions
    

    View Slide

25. Tools for Remote Collaboration
    1. Synchronous communication tool
    ○
    Slack, Hipchat, etc.
    2. Video chat technology
    ○
    Skype, Hangouts, Bluejeans, etc.
    3. Dedicated camera and mic for any meeting rooms
    4. Document collaboration tool
    ○
    Google Drive, Confluence, etc.
    5. Work tracking/reporting tool
    ○
    Jira, Asana, Trello, etc.
    

    View Slide

26. But it’s also how you use those tools
    Let’s see how I addressed my pain points:
    ●
    Staying in the loop
    ●
    Creating relationships
    ●
    Feeling connected
    ●
    Stopping by someone’s desk for a quick chat
    ●
    Whiteboard collaboration
    

    View Slide

27. Creating
    relationships/Feeling
    connected = Be present on
    chat
    

    View Slide

28. View Slide

29. Staying in the loop =
    Improve your
    documentation discipline
    

    View Slide

30. It’s more important than ever to master
    ●
    Meeting agendas
    ●
    Meeting notes with action items
    ●
    Asynchronous document collaboration
    ●
    Well-organized team documentation
    

    View Slide

31. Stopping by someone’s
    desk = jump on a call
    

    View Slide

32. View Slide

33. Whiteboard collaboration =
    ??
    

    View Slide

34. https://awwapp.com/
    

    View Slide

35. View Slide

36. Make clear policies
    

    View Slide

37. Make Clear Remote Work Policies
    ●
    Who can work remotely and how often
    ●
    What is expected from remote employees with
    regard to hours, checking in, and being “present”
    

    View Slide

38. Actual WFH Policy
    Our official WFH policy is:
    ●
    One WFH day per week
    ●
    No WFH Mondays or Fridays
    When working from home you should be just as available as you would be in the office
    and you are expected to attend all of the same meetings you would have joined in
    person. Specifically, you are expected to:
    ●
    Join daily standup and all scheduled meetings
    ●
    Be present and responsive on slack
    ●
    Let the team know when you are online and when you are offline by posting in
    slack
    ●
    Jump on individual calls as needed for quick conversations
    ●
    Be as productive as you would have in the office, if not more!
    ●
    Put your WFH day on your calendar so that others know when to expect you in
    the office vs online
    

    View Slide

39. Actual WFH Policy
    To support remote collaboration, everyone, regardless of where they are working from,
    is expected to:
    ●
    Include a bluejeans link in all meeting invites
    ●
    Be noisy in the slack channel about topics that concern the team
    ●
    Do not hesitate to jump on a call with a remote team member to include them in
    a conversation
    ●
    Update your JIRA tickets and pull requests daily so that people can
    asynchronously keep up with your progress
    Occasional WFH days
    There are days when you need to work from home, for example, to receive a package
    or repair person, or to avoid driving in the snow. In those cases, let your manager know
    in advance and follow all the expectations listed above.
    

    View Slide

40. Actual WFH Policy
    Feeling sick?
    If you are feeling sick and want to stay home I'd prefer that you take the day off and
    rest than try to half-work from home. I trust you to use your judgment here.
    If you are feeling better but still contagious, you should definitely work from home so
    you don't get the rest of the team sick
    Regularly scheduled WFH days:
    ●
    Always: Audrey
    ●
    Tuesdays: ...
    ●
    Thursdays: ...
    

    View Slide

41. If you take nothings else
    away from this talk...
    

    View Slide

42. Co-located people in meetings:
    ●
    Add a link to your calendar invites
    ●
    Speak up
    ●
    Turn on the camera
    ●
    Don’t tap on the table
    ●
    Make space in the conversation for
    remote participants
    

    View Slide

43. Remote people in meetings:
    ●
    Add a link to your calendar invites
    ●
    Be present
    ●
    Wear headphones
    ●
    Show your face
    ●
    Raise your hand if they won’t stop
    talking
    

    View Slide

44. You should be doing these
    things anyway
    

    View Slide

45. 37%
    of US employees would change jobs to be able to work where they
    want at least part of the time
    

    View Slide

46. “Dispersed teams can be
    as collaborative as teams
    who see each other every
    day-- if managed and
    supported correctly”
    -Gallup
    http://www.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx
    

    View Slide