Communication In Remote Teams: How Far Are We?

 

Previously on Project Shrink ....

“Dear Project Shrink. At the end of the summer I will start a project with a remote team (my first) and we will be using an online project management tool to communicate and collaborate. What should be my number one priority to make a remote team effective?”

If you are starting out in the world of remote team management I would focus on two areas of communication. “What does done look like?” and “How far are we?”

.. part 2 ...  "How far are we?"

When I was a kid my family drove every summer from The Netherlands down to the south of France. I loved those three day road trips. Navigation systems didn't exist back then (yes, I am that old) so my father had written down detailed instructions on how to find our way to the Cote d'Azur.

The drill went like this. He had written down checkpoints we should cross. Like a crossroad, a town, or a specific highway. I would set in the back of the car, leaned forward between the front seats and looking for the next checkpoint. Seeing a checkpoint made me happy. Waiting for one made me anxious. Looking at an expected crossroad provided the confirmation that we were heading in the right direction for our summer holiday.

Time for an awkward switch ... the same goes for projects. Stakeholders and team members need confirmation that you are heading in the right direction towards "done".

This is not just about time and money, but also about the piece of software you are creating. Getting feedback on how far you are enables you provide an informed answer to the question: "How far do we still have to go?" And getting feedback reassures stakeholders that their interests are met. Without some idea of "how far they are", stakeholders get restless.

There are a lot of project management techniques and artifacts available just for the purpose of feedback. Not every time it is clear in these methods that it actually is a feedback mechanism handed to you. E.g. a prototype is feedback to the user how their requirements are translated to a new syste. A schedule: Feedback on constraint “time”. A budget: Feedback on constraint “cost”.

For virtual teams the mechanism of feedback to answer the question "how far are we?" are not really different than with co-located teams. However, because so much feedback is provided unconsciously in a face-to-face setting, it is recommended to discuss with every team member:

• what products are you creating?
• which constraints are you influencing?
• how do we know how far you are on product and process?
• how are you going to show this/record this in our online collaboration environment?

What do you think?