Binnur in Philosophy 5 minutes

Wisdom From the Trenches: Managing Remote Teams

As I was cleaning up my drive, I ran into these articles I wrote back in June 2007 on my Kitetail Blog. Given our current times, it feels timely to repost. I should also acknowledge, these reflections were based on managing a globally dispersed team. And, with all its challenges, it was a simpler time… Now, teams have switched to working remotely overnight, often with a house full of distractions and a reset on all known and familiar routines. Reminds me of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity</br> to accept the things I cannot change;</br> courage to change the things I can;</br> and wisdom to know the difference.</br>

Note, the initial inspiration for the article came from the Wall Street Journal article I read: “Working Together… When Apart: As employees scattered around the globe, virtual teamwork has become crucial. Here are 10 rules for making it work” by Lynda Gratton (June 16-17, 2007).

8 Rules for Building Globally Dispersed High-Performance Teams

After managing a large team of globally distributed developers, I also came up with my rules for making virtual teams work. So, if you have to play the hand that is already dealt with, here are my rules for building high-performance virtual teams.

Align organizational values to support virtual teams — Just do it! might be a great slogan for encouraging employees to act, but not as effective when the goal is to improve teamwork and communication between your dispersed teams, especially at the early stages of team forming and storming (reference: Tuckman Model of Team Development). Along the same lines, e-mail might be your preferred mode of communication, but it can also be a challenge for teams where English is their second language. You’ll be surprised to see how a simple phone call can improve team productivity, communication, and morale.
Think local, act global — Not everyone can work productively in isolation, i.e. limited face-to-face contact, work is done mainly through e-mail, IM and some phone conferences. So, where possible look for ways to establish a small team working together at a given location. It will improve trust, build a sense of commitment and support the feeling of being part of a larger team. Also, support diversity by encouraging each of your locations to have their own culture. However, make sure they all share your common organizational values.
Practice transparency and objectivity — This is a good rule to follow regardless, but even more important if you are managing a virtual team. Remember, someone’s perception becomes another’s reality. Transparency enables interested parties to understand what and why, while objectivity brings facts, diverse perspectives and a sense of fairness into the discussion.
Agree and enforce team processes — The last thing you need is an unexpected check-in right before a major build and release cycle. Make sure your team understands and follows the agreed-upon procedures and tools.
Promote leaders with good facilitation skills — When bringing diverse teams and experiences into a new project, it helps to have a good facilitator that has everyone’s trust and respect. See ~~the previous post~~ bottom of this article on the characteristics of a good facilitator.
Risk manage your project — Vacations, sick days, and unexpected issues are inevitable. However, these emergencies are ever more heightened when dealing with differences in time zones and communication gaps. With that, risk manages your project by identifying and assigning backup individuals to risky areas or dividing up the work among different sites.
Rotate meeting times and locations — Working across different time zones and locations is disruptive to personal life. So, share the load by rotating meeting times and face-to-face meeting locations.
Mandate a day of silence — Although it is great to have a team that can virtually work 24×6, and maybe even 24×7, the overhead associated with working in a virtual environment can be wearying. So, depending on the intensity of the interactions, declare a day, such as every virtual Friday, as a quiet day. This will give everyone a break, and allow people to recharge their batteries.

Reflections on Managing Globally Dispersed Teams

Note: This article was posted in April 2008.

I was recently pinged regarding the challenges of managing geographically dispersed teams. The wisdom below is based on my experience. How about you, are your observations different?

Overall, I found the leadership and management challenges of managing geographically distributed teams similar to day-to-day leadership challenges. However, distance, cultural diversity and communication differences make it even more challenging to ensure your teams are aligned with your values, processes and are working together towards the same goal with the same level of urgency. In my experience, I learned that I can’t assume that I am understood (even if I hear “yes, I understand” from the other side). I need to make sure to take the time to educate my teams on our processes, explain the context of my decision-making process, discuss my values and how we do business in general. Establishing trust and good communication is essential in managing global teams.

Managing people, regardless of location, is a great reminder that I am in the people business, and not necessarily the technology business. With that, once the processes are understood and a few glitches are dealt with, the coordination process becomes smooth. However, when you are dealing with people, you will always have misunderstandings, miscommunications, etc. These tend to cause the coordination problems and make the most effort to iron out since you need to solve the root of the problem and not just deal with the symptom (such as coordination issues, misunderstood expectations, etc.)

Culture and language differences are yet another challenge to deal with. It is important to be aware of cultural diversity, as it can cause unnecessary tension and problems. Language and method of communication tend to be the bigger challenge. As an example, e-mail distribution lists are a great way to convey information and can be used heavily for decision making. However, the quantity and verbosity of email can be quite difficult for non-English speakers. So, your main issue is how to structure your communication such that your audience can understand and act on it as you intended.

When dealing with distance, I think there is always an aspect of out of sight, out of mind, which applies to both sides. Distance and time zones contribute to the challenges of communication and trust. In my experience, a few hours of difference (such as the case of neighboring US States) wasn’t an issue. However, when you are dealing with differences of culture, holidays, workdays (M-F vs. Su-Th) as well as large time zone differences (8+ hrs), you need to be aware of potentially burning out your teams. Active management of these issues (such as rotating meeting hours, face-to-face meeting locations, establishing quiet days, etc.) certainly helps.

I am a believer in over-communicating. I use face-to-face meetings (crucial, especially with very diverse teams and at the beginning and the middle of projects for best coordination), phone calls for 1:1s (personal updates), conference calls (web, video, phone, …) with my management staff, conference calls with all my teams, emails and instant messaging. Agendas as well as clearly stating the context of the issue and outcomes expected (including any boundaries, etc.) are key to good communication on both sides.

Characteristics of a Good Facilitator

Should have some level of experience as a group leader;
Recognizes that it is about the goals and accomplishments of the group, and objectively separates her personal opinions;
Continuously drives shared responsibility and ownership in the group, but not afraid to jump in to get the ball rolling when needed;
Quite comfortable with different personality styles, and not afraid of tension and conflict; understands the processes, and utilizes available tools when needed to help the team with idea generation, creative exploration, consensus building, team building, …
Effective listener, careful observer, good communicator, and motivator;