How to Improve Collaboration of the Remote Team

Found yourself in a situation where you have to work remote for an extended period of time? You and your team will need to make some adjustments to the way you collaborate to be as effective as you were in the office.  

One of the first things to look into is whether you company can technologically support the remote work. Do you have remote VPN connection and access to all the application and your files? If you are good there then look into the list of tips and best practices that will help you get started. 

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Support Effective Communication 

When you are remote it’s important to invest in a set of communication tools and come up with best practices to use those tools. It’s important that the team is aligned on a process. 

Here's an example of how you can use each platform to benefit your remote team and ease communication: 

  • Real time chat. Use Slack or Teams channels for quick interactions and asking urgent questions. This could replace you walking over to someone’s desk and asking a question.  

  • Video calls. Calls with video are essential and should happen often. 
If two or more people are working on the same task, they can collaborate together over a simple video call.   

  • Email. Use email for conversations that are more in-depth or after-hours topics or questions. 

  • Project management tools are used for segmenting conversations based on the tasks. This eliminates overlap or confusion. 

  • Brainstorming tools like Miro and Lucidchart would replace getting the team in front of a whiteboard. Use them to generate quick ideas, establish goals, and set a general direction for the design. Running a workshop in a tool like Miro could be as effective as an in-person brainstorming session.    

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Use Structured Workshops Instead of Meetings 

Meetings can be hard and time consuming if you are doing them remote. Replacing a meeting with a clear structured workshop eliminates useless, open-ended, unstructured discussions. It helps focus on important points and accomplish more.  

Here are few scenarios when you can replace meeting with a structured design thinking workshop: 

  • Decision session. (30-90 minutes) It helps to evaluate existing pain points and come up with a decision on how to move forward. Ex. Remote Lightning Decision Jam   

  • Strategy session (one hour to few days). During this workshop you could understand business requirements, share existing knowledge, create consensus on plans and priorities, refine ideas, create focus. Ex. Lean inception workout  

  • Solutioning session. (60-120 minutes). This session is to generate a wide set of ideas through sketching. Ex. Remote Solution Sketching Session

  • Design feedback session. (60 min). This session helps evaluate design from the user prospective.  

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Encourage Team Building 

If you want to build viable relationships and an atmosphere of trust and support, team-building activities are essential when you are remote. It helps build emotional connections that co-located employees build over the in-person chats. Here are few examples of remote team building activities. 

  • Virtual coffee breaks or informal touch points. When you’re working remotely, it’s important to actively create spaces for team bonding. Create a short bi-weekly call with a team, schedule an informal one-on-one or randomly match team members for a quick chat. Having personal conversations is valuable to maintain trust. 

  • Virtual team events Virtually celebrate events like team achievements, birthdays, anniversaries, and baby showers. Who wouldn’t like a virtual birthday cake? 

  • Regular team building activities. Get together for a movie night and stream a movie or get to know each other better with an ice-breaker. 

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Improve Productivity 

Keep meetings to a minimal. Could your question be answered via Teams or Skype? Instead of scheduling Monday morning meetings, focus on scheduling meetings as the need arises. This way, your team can hone in on their projects without unnecessary interruptions. 

Be Flexible 

  • Regular work hours are also probably out for many people. Instead, trust your team and give them the freedom and flexibility to get work done on the schedule that helps them be the most productive. That's good for your team in the long run anyway. 

  • Some team members may be juggling taking care of their kids and working at the same time, and it could be really hard to be present and present during meeting. To help them manage the situation better be flexible with cancelations/delays, share the notes and give each team member opportunity to contribute. 

Your team can be just as effective working remote as you are in person with the right tools, collaboration, and communication plan in place.

MB Collab can help you plan and facilitate remote strategy and design workshops.

Irina Lasselleremote collaboration