Though many businesses have transformed to fully remote, or at least hybrid work<\/a>, many are unaware of the challenges and solutions team members will encounter on their hybrid journey.<\/p>\n In fact, many teams may not have readily available technology nor feel prepared to work differently. Others may have the technology but don\u2019t know how to get started or how to leverage it effectively.<\/p>\n Ultimately, to enable remote teams to function and deliver properly, we should remind them of the importance of the basic agile-quality attributes of transparency, accountability and collaboration. The foundation of delivery requires teams to practice these three quality attributes.<\/p>\n For this article, we will focus on tactical actions that you can take today to enable your remote or hybrid teams tomorrow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Agile<\/a> is big on promoting transparency. But, it\u2019s not only for stakeholders. Transparency starts within the team and its team members.<\/strong> For teams used to working with big, physical boards and note cards, this change can be a radical shift.<\/p>\n Remind your team of the adage, \u201cWork doesn\u2019t exist unless it\u2019s visible to the team.\u201d As more workers move to remote, their work can become increasingly opaque because it\u2019s hard to see what other team members are doing at home. One of the first things your teams need to do to continue with this level of transparency is to move their work to an electronic agile board.<\/strong> Some great free to low-cost tools to consider are Trello, Microsoft Planner and Jira.<\/p>\n Many companies can access one of these or something similar, but if your team does not usually work with electronic agile boards, they may struggle initially. Physical boards enable face-to-face conversations, easy visualization and intuitive interactions. The challenge with moving from physical to electronic agile boards is that you can easily reconfigure physical boards, something new agile teams do quite often.<\/strong> Electronic agile boards are not as easily reconfigurable.<\/p>\n Another challenge with electronic agile boards is that it\u2019s harder to see massive backlogs. A way to overcome this is to tailor your view to only pertinent items during key ceremonies (such as daily stand up or refinement sessions). This allows you to ensure things are visible at a glance. Also, avoid overly cluttered views that induce eyestrain.<\/p>\n Some views we suggest include:<\/p>\n Another challenge teams face \u2014 driving transparency of otherwise invisible work. Invisible work is work teams typically do without creating a card. Especially in a remote environment, it is vitally important to drive the transparency of work.<\/p>\n Therefore, if someone is working on something, they need to have a card. Making all work visible will help instill confidence and gain a shared understanding of what your team is working on. If you\u2019re new to remote work, be aware you will often find the team works on more invisible work than you thought. This is a good opportunity to remind the team how important it is to limit their work in progress.<\/strong> To borrow a phrase from Sterling Mortensen, this focus will enable them to \u201cstop starting and start finishing work.\u201d The work hasn\u2019t changed, but the visibility has.<\/p>\n As you and your team transition into this new style of transparency, be patient and consider the changing nature of your team\u2019s dynamic when people work remotely. It will take some time for everyone to gain their footing.<\/p>\n As remote work continues, it is essential to promote accountability. Accountability comes in the form of setting, managing and communicating expectations.<\/strong><\/p>\n For example, Scrum<\/a> foresees clear accountability for each Scrum role:<\/p>\n It separates accountabilities, yet teams need every role.<\/p>\n Keep in mind, some changes will disrupt the normal modes of accountability.<\/strong> The development team may have slow VPN connections<\/a> impacting their ability to merge changes or build code. Product owners may experience less than ideal dialog around the value of stories. Scrum masters will experience a whole host of new communication issues.<\/p>\n One thing we typically see with remote teams is their daily stand-up meeting devolving into a simplistic status meeting. It is important to avoid a de-evolution of agile progress.<\/strong> Going back to our roots, we must ask ourselves:<\/p>\n Encourage your team members to participate and speak up. Don\u2019t let assumptions or implicit ownership trip up the team or expectations. If someone claims ownership, relay this information back to the group with that person verbally telling the group they hold the responsibility.<\/p>\n To that end, it\u2019s important to not only set ownership expectations but timeline expectations for remote teams. If someone says they\u2019re going to work on a story, ask when they think they\u2019ll finish. Any work not completed in that timeframe should result in something the team can help with finishing.<\/strong> Encourage factual, open and honest communication that enables trust-based, not fear-based behaviors \u2013 more so than you would during an in-person meeting.<\/p>\n Collaborating from a distance can be a challenge. Collaboration starts with communication, but it is usually the first thing to drop within remote teams. In an office, most interactions occur via face-to-face conversations, email or chats.<\/p>\n With remote teams, you must ensure the free flow of accurate information by fostering a communicative culture with the right tools and practicing strong collaboration skills. Tools like Microsoft Teams<\/a> or Slack are vital to curating communication threads.<\/p>\n When it comes to best practices, it is important to explicitly explain how your teams should communicate. Remove the ambiguity in workplace communication by providing written guidelines that outline what kind of messages they should send through which mediums.<\/strong> Also, relay how you expect team members to interact with each other.<\/p>\nPromoting Transparency<\/h2>\n
Using Electronic Agile Boards<\/h3>\n
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Avoid Invisible Work<\/h3>\n
Encouraging Accountability<\/h2>\n
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Fostering Collaboration<\/h2>\n
We recommend the following practices for effective remote communication:<\/h3>\n
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