Remote working or working from home has become more than a trend because of the pandemic.

Thanks to the pandemic by the end of 2021, the number of remote workers can mount to 51 percent. It would be fair to say that it has now become a global necessity. Managing an entire team and working remotely can be scary in beginning. While remote working your team can face tough challenges such as lack of face-to-face supervision, social isolation, lack of coordination, network issues, distractions at home.

If you are new to remote working or have been doing it for some time now but still get frustrated, you should read this blog.

Managers Should Act as Better Leads

It all depends on the team lead or managers, how they are themselves when it comes to working from home. If the team lead or manager is lazy or indisciplined then the entire team will lose interest and follow the same. Following are tips for managers to make remote work more happening;

Schedule Daily Check-ins

For remote working to be really ‘working’, as a manager you need to schedule regular check-ins most probably every day. This may seem irritating and tiresome at first but it is the definite key to making remote working a success.

These days there are many tools that are used for remote working such as Slack, Skype, Chanty, Flock, and many others. Calls and emails are handy but they are not suitable for long-term communication. More and more team leads are depending on video conferences tools such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting.

Over-communication is the Key

Yes, that’s true. I know you must be wondering how talking much can help my team? Wouldn’t this be time-consuming? At the office, it can seem distracting but while working from home over-communication can really improve your team coordination and work quality. The reason behind this is the clarity of any project, the more you have discussions- the more clear idea.

Prioritize Tasks

Make sure as a manager that your team is on the same page, you can divide tasks among your team. Have a conversation with your team about which projects are significant for your company. Comparing can be good in this situation, set clear expectations, set goals, and practice time management.

Be Flexible

Here is a situation- every person’s home environment is different. To make remote working enjoyable, you need to be flexible with your employees’ needs at home as well. Listen to your employees’ issues, give them reasonable solutions.

Show Trust in Your Employees

The best thing you can do as a boss or team lead is show trust in your employees and don’t focus on your disbeliefs. I know it can be frustrating to a point when you are no longer able to monitor everything. But viewing the situation as it is a pandemic, you must put all your insecurities aside and show trust to keep going on peaceful and progressing remote working.

Focus on Outputs not ‘Processes’

The situation we all living in is not ‘fantastic’ exactly instead it’s stressful. We hear news and the number of increasing cases, we get panic. In a remote landscape, where people are juggling work and family, you should give credit to outputs rather than process behind.

Enable your employees to work in a way that is easy for them, let your team manage their schedules. To apply your authority, you can share a goal with them which should be achieved and monitored on weekly basis. Try to find exercises that can make remote work smoothly for everyone in your team including you as well.

Set Time Boundaries with Your Team

Most people after experiencing remote working fuss about how many extra hours they ‘have’ to spend. Lots of people raise the issue of working late hours to complete a project or deadline. As a team leads you can contribute and set specific time boundaries after which no one should work. You can guide them with effective time managing tips and help them out to implement.

In the End

No doubt because you are the boss or team lead a lot of pressure to keep the team glued falls on your soldier. Keep in mind that this time is limited and is for the betterment of your company. Each of these tips is basic, make sure to follow each of them with faith and confidence.

Which factors make a project successful?

Is it working 24/7 till the project is delivered or hiring outsourced talent?

Let’s take a step back and think again.

Where does communicating with your developers stand on your list? I am sure it did not make the top two. For developers, effective communication is without a doubt the most important aspect contributing to the success of a project.

However, a lot of times communication between developers and other teams can be destructible (putting it mildly).

A project manager can give you a task thinking it would take a few minutes, but when in reality, the same task can add many hours or think of a complex idea that can be solved within a few minutes. Ideas interpretation differs between developers and other teams from another angle.

Following are some tips that can help improve communication between you and your development team;

1. Do Planning and Documentation

This is the most significant part of software development; before starting work on any project — a developer must know all requirements and all details should be properly formatted.

It would be great if you continue the discussion with the rest of the team while you prepare the document. This will help you understand the complexity and core requirement of the project that you put in the end system. Once you finalize all the requirements, you can add all those to a structured document.

2. Wireframes and Mockups

Wireframes help communicate UI/UX requirements more effectively, although designers are responsible for creating wireframes. But you can also use easy-to-use online tools available these days; Mockflow is a website you can check out to create wireframes.

After you create wireframes, a designer can help you convert those concepts into clean and formal mockups. Developers then use these mockups for coding out the user interface. It is salient to take this step seriously with the same care and attention because it can reduce the number of revisions by a great deal.

3. Get Logins and Access to the System

You must request login details from the admin to check the progress of the project on your own. This will help you stay updated without asking the development team.

Also, you can identify bugs or any issues you may find from the development stage. Why? So that you can get hold of them and correct them before the final development stage. Always remember that developing a project is a team effort; we all are humans at the end of the day, and helping each other can benefit both sides.

4. Be Present

It does not matter if you are handling multiple projects or are busy; you need to involve as much as possible. A developer can still have questions regarding the project during the development stages. It can be helpful if you have a continuous group chat. There are many great options, such as Hangouts, Slack, Skype, and Teams.

5. Frequent Review Meetings

Review meetings can be a great help — you can keep track of the progress made to date. Following are some of the benefits of review meetings;

• Can help in bug identification
• Identify the limitations of the team
• The team can brainstorm new ideas

6. Do the Test Yourself

Testing is also one of the most crucial factors in the development process. The QA (quality assessment) team tests the product as per the requirement, but performing a QA by yourself can help detect some last minutes changes, or you may find a bug.

How to Communicate Better with Your Team

The first thing to keep in mind is that communication is two-way!

If you work in an organization where a communication gap exists, no need to worry some solutions can help overcome these challenges. Check out the following;

Mutual Respect is the ‘Key’

When you interact with a developer, ensure you do it in a way that shows you value their work. Do not burden them with more tasks; let them complete the tasks already given, or give them enough time to complete all tasks without too much pressure.

This depends largely on you; you must keep work pressure under the tab as a project manager. Ask your team whether you are having issues or not. If you don’t respect their work enough, it will most likely cause disturbance later on.

Tell the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ Also

When telling to add a new feature, do not just tell the what make sure to tell the ‘why’ as well.

You must tell a developer what feature you want to add, mention why this feature is necessary and make users happy. This can be beneficial for two reasons– first, it makes technical staff more included, and second, if adding new features requires more time, it gives the team/ developers to propose a modification.

In the End

Planning and building a project is tough and consumes time, to say it in simple terms it is a complicated process. But the journey can be smooth if you learn how to communicate properly with your developer.