Remote working: Swings & roundabouts

Remote teams, when built right and maintained well, are a wonderful unicorn of trust, freedom, and creative productivity. However, in pursuing this unicorn, it’s difficult to remember that working remotely is incredibly difficult— professionally, psychologically, and personally. It affects everyone differently, and requires a surprising amount of openness and trust from top to bottom. Leading and ensuring the success of these teams isn’t easy, and the requirements change from team-to-team. Let's learn about how to set constraints and enable remote success for all!

Transcript

1. Remote Work Swings & Roundabouts
2. Hi! @IvanaMcConnell
3. ?
5. My experience so far
6. It’s complicated
7. Remote Remote-friendly Remote-first Nomad “ ”
8. The distinction matters
9. Sword of Damocles the sense of foreboding engendered by a precarious situation, especially one in which the onset of tragedy is restrained only by a delicate trigger or chance. ⚔ ⚔ NPR “ ”
10. The benefits
11. Harvard Business Review Forbes CNET Free Code Camp
12. Flexibility
13. Flexibility Productivity
14. Flexibility Productivity Talent + Inclusion
15. Flexibility Productivity Talent + Inclusion Heads-down time
16. Flexibility Productivity Talent + Inclusion Heads-down time Deliberate communication
17. The pitfalls
18. Forbes Sunday Times Mark Nichols StatusPage
20. Flexibility
21. Flexibility …but to a potentially-damaging point.
22. Productivity
23. Productivity …but only for the self-motivated!
24. Talent + Inclusion
25. Talent …can be hard to identify at the best of times!
26. Talent …can be hard to identify at the best of times! + Inclusion …only begins with hiring
27. Heads-down time
28. Heads-down time …with its own distractions and loneliness
29. Deliberate communication
30. Deliberate communication …must actually happen …might be misinterpreted
31. Time zones are a thing!
32. So yes…it’s complicated
33. Things will go wrong.
34. What does wrong look like?
35. Loneliness and isolation.
36. A lack of cohesion and friendliness
37. No work-life balance
38. Work gets done slowly, poorly, or not at all!
39. Struggles are magnified for the under-represented
40. The individual feels lonely and isolated The group lacks cohesion and friendliness Work-life balance suffers for everyone The work gets done slowly, incorrectly, or not at all! Ambiguity ⚔
41. all of these [communication] technologies have a weakness, which is that we have to choose to use them. The Atlantic
42. What makes remote work great…
43. …also makes it incredibly difficult.
44. Success = the right constraints
45. Doing this requires introspection.
46. Success requires an understanding of our selves.
47. Innovate yourself. “ ”
48. Individuals
49. What do you need to do good work? Try things. Record progress. Measure success!
50. What do you need to be a good teammate? What do your teammates need from you?
51. Be exceedingly honest, but not harsh. Be deliberate.
52. Organizations & leaders
53. Know what kind of company you want to be
54. …then communicate it!
55. Take action
56. Remote productivity is different. Get to know your team’s routines! Schedule check-ins and enable change. State expectations! Socialize intentionally. Meet in person!
57. Enable change.
58. When it works, it’s !
59. Boundless Jillian Tamaki
63. Commit! …to reflection …to honesty …to each other.
64. Thank you.
65. Some Resources I Mentioned… https://customer.io/is-open/effective-remote-work.html https://customer.io/blog/Lessons-from-becoming-a-remote- team.html https://37signals.com/remote https://techmasters.slack.com/apps/A11MJ51SR-donut http://15five.com