Work from home: manager’s ABCs

This days many companies have to encourage people to work from home. Software development teams that are used to work in the office now have to deal with challenges of remote work. For team members occasionally working from home it is not a big problem. It’s ok to fall out of the routine for day and then get back into it.

For the managers it is a different story. The whole process is changing. Developing software is not only writing a code. It is a big challenge to adapt team behaviours and make sure the project work is going smoothly. Communication between team member is a crucial part of the successful work. In addition it is a challenge to keep the same team spirit when people (including manager) permanently work from home.

Sense of belonging

People working in the office are used to see each other faces, sit together, feel that they’re part of a ‘pack’. This makes people feel confident. Quickly switching to the work from home mode removes that element. People are not ready to be away from their colleagues. It takes time to adapt to the new reality. Manager’s goal is to make the transition as comfortable as possible.

Messengers are a good way to transfer information, but not feelings. Smile in chat window is not the same as a real smiling face. Regular group video meetings is a helper here. Video conferences is a must have for the teams that are used to work from office. As a manager encourage people to use camera, show up and be able to see others, make them feel connected.

Start a day with a standup. It reminds people they’re part of a team, not a lonely wolves. WFH requires more sync-ups and knowledge sharing meetings, have some other group meeting with everybody. Insist on switching cameras on. Seeing each faces and emotions will positively affect team morale.

There is a wide range of the tools available for this: Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts and so on. I’m sure you already use some or can choose what is best for you.

Directed efforts

Work in the office allows making corrections to tasks or priorities on the fly. Just say it out louder so that everybody hears and job is done. That’s is not a case when people are kilometers away.

When your team is working from home it is a good time to put your paperwork in order. For Scrum or Kanban, make sure the backlog is prioritised well and US’ quality is good. Importance of following definition of ready increases.

Information should be easily accessible and it should be there. Questions like ‘What have we discussed on the meeting last week?” will take 10 mins to answer in the office and half day for the remote team so write down all the discussions and decisions. For US/Bug discussion use a thread in the ticketing system. For the architectural decisions use Confluence or other online wiki. make sure everything is linked. It will save you time answering questions “Where is X?”.

Issue tracker is a must have: Jira, Azure Devops or free options such as Bugzilla, Redmine. Online wiki or other knowledge sharing system can be used: Confluence, Sharepoint, MediaWiki.

Development processes

There should be clear understanding in the team how things are running. Tests should be stable. Reports accessible and clear. If you didn’t have these before it is no easy way to catchup now.

In the remote working it is important for things to happen automatically. Every person to person communication takes much more time that when you sit next to each other. Unstable tests or unclear branching policy take a minute to resolve in the office. Remote team member will spend much more time resolving these issues in the messengers.

Monitor the discussions in the messengers to identify hot topics and give it a top priority. If the build outcome is not clear — make sure the report is generated and the failed build is highlighted with a bold red.

Each project requires their own tools and processes. This is just a reminder to keep them well greased.

Wellbeing

The whole reason of working at home at the moment is to stay away from other people and stop the spread of the virus. It doesn’t mean people should stay inside all the time because it affects motivation. If you live in a smaller town — walk outside, if you have backyard — enjoy some fresh air there. Or do some exercises on the balcony. It will keep your mind clear and mood up.

Conclusion

Sudden switch from office to work from home is not easy for the team. It is a big challenge for a manager to keep things going well.

The main issue is the time spent on communication increases dramatically and options to keep a team spirit high are limited. Focus on reducing waste of time on ‘unnecessary’ discussions like “What’s wrong with the build?”, “Where can I find X?”, “Who is doing Z?” by straighten up your processes. From the other side increase time when people use video conferencing making decisions on for example future work and architecture. That will keep people together and work going on.

What are you doing to make a work in a transition period more efficient? Which tricks worked best for you? Feel free to share these in the comments.