Leading Remote Engineering Teams Through Uncertainty
This is not remote work as usual.
In times like this, work effectiveness and productivity take a back seat. Our highest priority is the safety of our family, friends, and community.
Social distancing measures, escalation, uncertainty, cancellations and closures in response to the covid-19 outbreak disrupt our sense of normal.
But there are still demands at work that need to move forward and people that depend on us. So how do we address this challenge as leaders of our teams?
In this article, we’ve consolidated the most timely and critical insights on leading remote teams featuring engineering leaders from our own past events:
Tim Olshansky, CTO @ Aconex
Jason Warner, SVP of Technology, GitHub
Wade Foster, CEO & Co-founder @ Zapier
Dana Lawson, VP of Engineering @ InVision
Dave Camp, VP of Engineering, Firefox at Mozilla
Combined with insights from a recent Remote Work Q & A by Zapier (hosted by Wade Foster) with experienced remote and distributed company leaders like:
Michael Pryor, Founder of Trello
Natalie Nagele, Founder of Wildbit
Sarah Park, President at MeetEdgar
Kieran Flanagan: VP Marketing at HubSpot
A big thank you to Wade & Zapier for hosting such a timely Q & A and bringing together experienced leaders to guide people in a critical moment. Here are the insights we learned:
Remote work amplifies team dysfunctions. This intensifies further when paired with speed, uncertainty, and stress…
The good news is that the challenges you face in your remote team are no different than what you experience in person. And the tools to anticipate and intentionally address these problems have never been better.
The solution to team leadership during times of uncertainty is to be intentional with how you:
Build trust
Communicate
Maintain Connection
TRUST
Key Insight: Clear expectations, transparent communication & visible output
“How do I know and trust people are actually working?”
This fear is common. But you face the same issue in the office. There’s nothing more demotivating for someone with freedom & trust, to then be micromanaged once their remote.
Remote work only works with trust. How do you eliminate this fear to build and lead with trust remotely?
Clear expectations: State the absolute obvious. Explicitly define what you expect for how you’ll communicate, collaborate, what you’ll do when you need help, or how you’ll resolve conflict if there’s disagreement. Create open agreements with what the time will look like together and how you’ll operate.
Visible work output: Make work output objective, visible & transparent. Look at how you’re measuring productivity. Can others see it and know it’s getting done? In engineering, there’s often high visibility and objectivity because we’re constantly shipping features. Make those outputs visible to all to help build & maintain trust. The opportunity for a manager here is to value output, not time in the seat.
Transparent communication: Over-communicate the relevant information your team needs to be successful. Communicate more than you think you need to. The greatest fears are often the ones in our own heads. Deliberate overcommunication helps eliminate fear and create trust.
Ideas for Action:
Use a “remote work charter” to illustrate “here’s what’s expected, here’s our commitment to you as a result.”
Start with smaller deliverables & more frequent check-ins to build trust, coach & course correct if needed.
Ask yourself at the end of the day — What’s the evidence of your work going to be? The habit of reflecting back on the work will make you more focused on the end goal, whether in office or remote.
For projects — Provide clear specs upfront followed by quick check-ins empowers teams to work more autonomously, allowing for a more clear direction and team agility.
Cross-Functional Pair Programming — If you have a team of engineers, designers & PMs, pair programming can be a tool to build trust, facilitate good collaboration & communication.
COMMUNICATION
Key Insight: Consistency, Repetition & Assume Positive Intent
Consistency: Consistent communication through all different channels you use helps ensure the team “gets” the information they need to succeed.
Repetition: Repeat yourself “ad nauseum!” Repeat yourself until you feel like you absolutely can’t do it anymore. Rephrase, reframe, find new words to share the same message.
Positive Intent: Assume positive intent in all communication. Be curious and ask questions first. Assume you heard wrong and clarify. When in doubt ask.
Ideas for Action:
Urgent question or issue? DO NOT WAIT for the next 1:1! Pick up the phone early & often to call, or video conference IMMEDIATELY.
Don’t be a jerk through text — If there’s an issue that arises, address it quickly & privately (preferably over video).
Use video! Declare no meetings without video. Video enhances communication and understanding. 10% of what we say is verbal, the rest is body language etc. Supplement the main video conversations with links, resources, anecdotes, be comfortable with the side chate!
Write stuff down from meetings! Create artifacts other people can learn from who didn’t make the meeting. Record the call and share it with other key people. If there’s someone who needs to be a part of the conversation, bring them in on video!
CONNECTION
Key Insights: intentionally plan connection & leverage video
The social aspect of the work is something you must plan for. There are two elements 1) recreating in-person interactions in the office 2) helping colleagues better get to know each other personally.
Intentionally Plan Connection: Connection happens when people share and exchange meaningful information. Plan for and prioritize “non-transactional” time. When remote, it can be so easy to only talk to someone if you need something from them. Make time.
Leverage Video: 90% of communication is non-verbal. Visibly express yourself more (through your face & body language) to create a higher fidelity signal in your responses on video calls.
Ideas for Action:
½ hour morning meetings: no work talk + no agenda, just to say hi, check-in and see how everyone’s doing
Dedicate the first 5 minutes of EVERY meeting to your colleague’s personal life
Remote socializing. Full remote teams (like InVision) use “remote happy hours” as fun ways to build causal interaction with their global teams
Video in early! Join your meeting 15–20 minutes early to catch up and hear how your team member is doing.
Start a “Friday-Updates” Channel — create a way for your teams to share personal updates (ex. What they’re up to with their friends & families).
Random Pairing — This helps build cross-functional or cross-company relationships. Plan time in your all-hands or engineering org meeting to randomly pair people to connect. Zoom’s breakout function works great here.
Synchronous food delivery! Team lunch can still happen.
“Water-cooler” Question of the Day — create a communication channel for off-topic, fun conversations. Post a fun question each morning. Ex. “what was your weekend like, anything you want to share?”
Friday “Demo” Day — Have team members share things they care about (hobbies, collections, activities, etc.)
Customize virtual team fun! A few examples… movie streaming days! Or… Team .gif dance party! One team recorded and shared themselves dancing. The point is to find something fun that’s aligned with your team culture that can spark meaningful sharing within your team.
Task someone on your team to create fun! You don’t need to (and won’t be able to) recreate the same fun team activities and in-person socializing virtually. Your team will know how to do this better than you
If you make a WFH dance .gif, send or tag us (@SFELC) PLEASE!
Bonus Insights
I have a more junior team, this is their first time working remote, what else should I do?
Have more frequent check-ins to support them and create more opportunities to answer their questions. Daily stand-ups to prioritize and course-correct can be effective and build trust. As trust builds, transition to weekly objective planning is another effective practice.
How do I continue to support the growth of the members on my team?
Continue to make it a consistent agenda item of the conversation. Prioritize time to talk about personal things (both career growth & personally)
How can you escalate critical priorities while remote?
Slack (or your preferred instant communication platform) — a good channel for “reminder” messages
Text — “somethings on fire” and will need your attention
Video/Phone — this is urgent & needs to be discussed and solved NOW.
The home office and dealing with school closures.
Be understanding. Be patient. Be flexible.
Redefine productivity for a bit — Work is a big part of life, but it’s not all of the life of the people on our teams. There’s a lot of things going on outside of work. We must be understanding, patient and flexible.
Give space for people dealing with emotional challenges or colleagues who need to take care of family things. Parents may be taking shifts to get a bit of work done.
What personal productivity tips have worked?
Plan out your day the night before, rank your priorities, block out time to do each thing. Keep it simple.
Notice what time of day and tasks are energizing for you and what isn’t. Try structuring your time around that. Take little breaks. Have a hard cut off time. Create space between home and work
Write a prioritized list. Find what creates a sense of progress.
Facilitating creative brainstorming — first generate ideas alone (or in smaller groups) then share and discuss in larger group.
Good resources and knowledge sources?
Deep Work by Cal Newport
“Getting Things Done” Methodology by David Allen
Resources Curated from Fully Remote Companies
58 Reports, Guides, Books, Podcasts, Blogs & Articles on Remote Work
Atlassian DACI framework — efficient & effective decision making
Mural.co — Whiteboarding
Our normal remote work routines will be disrupted during this period of uncertainty and fast change. We know this period of remote work is different and will amplify our teams’ dysfunctions.
The leadership fundamentals of trust, clear consistent communication, prioritizing people and relationships will create stability and get our teams through this challenging time.
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P.P.P.S. If you make a WFH dance .gif, send or tag us (@SFELC) PLEASE!!