The recent response to the COVID-19 outbreak from many global companies is to mandate working from home for their employees as a means of limiting the spread of this contagion in what is called social distancing. At the time of writing this article, the COVID-19 virus has been characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). You can find the latest updates on the CDC website and by checking out the statistics from the WHO situation report page.
Companies worldwide are strongly encouraging employees to work from home (WFH), especially in companies whose primary means of production is through knowledge work. These companies will be looking to replicate nearly the same productivity and outcomes that they were getting from employees in the office. But let me assure you, this is a major shift in the world of work. It will leave organizations scrambling to adjust their ways of working, and teams and individuals like you, dear reader, trying to make sense of this sustained WFH environment. As an agile coach who has worked with dozens of distributed teams around the world, I would like to provide some tips and ideas from my experience. I specialize and have a personal passion for facilitating distributed meetings. I believe that the future of work is remote, and I am a champion of work from anywhere. I will illustrate a few key principles that will help you be successful in the coming weeks as you adjust to life as a remote worker.
As you settle into your first full week of work, the honeymoon period will wear off quickly. When you first heard about your company’s WFH policy, you were probably elated. You likely recalled with fondness all those times that you took that conference call while washing the dishes or folding laundry with your cell phone muted. Or maybe that time you joined a video call but kept your camera off so you can scroll your Facebook newsfeed or see what’s new on Instagram. Maybe you were on video but took advantage of being in the comfort of your own home and decided to rebel a bit and not wear pants. But this will all fade in only a few days, I assure you, as the reality of not having an office full of coworkers sets in. Allow me to share some perspective on what the next few weeks can and should look like to help you be the best remote worker possible.
Coming to Terms
Let me first take a minute to clarify some terms. The image below shows four possible work environments for knowledge work in the modern office. The first option, in the upper left, shows cross-functional groups (or teams) that are co-located. This is likely only a luxury for very small companies in our global economy. The second option, in the upper right, shows cross-functional teams, distributed to multiple locations. This may have been quite common for you before the COVID-19 outbreak. The third, lower left, is what we call dispersed; single-function teams working in the same location, spread geographically. And finally, the fourth, lower right option, is dispersed — everyone is spread out and working remotely. This is where we find ourselves amidst this global strive to create some social distancing.
If you have ever worked from home in the past, say one morning to give yourself some flexibility for an appointment, or to drop your kids off at school, you were what is considered a satellite. You were remote, and the rest of your team was likely in the office somewhere, perhaps even all co-located. Perhaps you dialed in to a conference line. In the best case, you were able to join them on a video-conferencing system and actually feel a part of the social interaction and part of the work. But being a satellite on a team that is mostly co-located can be quite challenging. When I facilitate distributed meetings (where team members are in more than one location), I strongly advocate for everyone to be on video and remote. This is to create a sense of equality and to put everyone on the same playing field when it comes to collaboration. My mantra: If one is remote, all are remote.
Now what?
So now everyone is remote! What does that mean for you? Take some time at the start of this journey to think about what kind of remote working environment you will need to have. How can you create a home office that gives you the comfort and focus you gain from the office? Also, how can you be your best self at work every day? I would recommend changing very little of your daily routine at the start, regarding preparation for the day. Wear similar attire, follow your same routines, and sit down to start working at the same time. The only thing that will be missing is your commute. Try this for at least a full week until you have had some time to experiment and try new things. What preparation do you do for the office that makes you feel confident and successful, and how can you continue that practice at home?
As you embark on this journey, there will undoubtedly be some discomfort. It will seem strange to lose all the little interactions and serendipitous bits of human contact you get throughout the day by being in an office. You will likely feel a bit disconnected, either from your co-workers, the usual office scuttlebutt, and surely the work itself. Finally, working remotely for a prolonged period can even make you feel a bit disembodied. I know when I work a full day from home, or worse a few days in a row, I come down to my family at the end of the workday and feel a bit odd for some time. For one, I have been sitting in the same position nearly all day, talking to my computer for most of it. And secondly, I do not have the normal routine of closing my laptop, packing my work bag, saying goodbye to a few colleagues, walking to my car, then decompressing to the radio or a podcast on the drive home. When I work from home, I step out of the virtual world of work and I am immediately at home. That sudden change of context can be disjointing.
A Useful Model
To help us grapple with these challenges, I would like to share some ideas from three perspectives: task, team, and individual. John Adair’s Action Centered Leadership model from the 1970’s outlines these three elements of leadership. We can apply this model to virtual teams who focus on: the task, the information to be shared; the team, the collective good that can come from collaboration that is greater than the sum of its parts, and the individual, the personal needs and perspectives from each. Each of these three elements must be held in a harmonious balance in a remote setting. Let’s explore them each in turn, with some key ideas highlighted for you to incorporate into your remote work.
The Task
The biggest idea I would ask you to hold as you engage in persistent remote work is to endeavor to bring your work to life, even more than you do in the office. Without a team sitting nearby to keep us accountable for staying on task on a project, it can be easy to get lost in emails or checking social media rather than staying on task. In a co-located setting, work is the primary focus in the office, and peer accountability is a powerful motivator. So, when you are engaging in remote work, it is important to keep the task at hand and at the forefront.
Invigorate your backlog of work. If you are a scrum team, working on a sprint backlog, or if your team uses some other method of working, think of ways to make the backlog come alive. This is the single source of truth for current and upcoming work. It is even more important now that we are geographically distributed that we understand the why and the what behind our work, and we communicate and collaborate to determine the how.
Work out loud using whatever tools you have, as if you were sitting right next to each other. Take a minute to reflect on the type of things you share with coworkers on any given day. How would you share that same information now that you are remote? This may be project-specific. Create channels in your asynchronous communication platform (Slack, Microsoft Teams, others) for these topics. Try some, and let it evolve over time.
Visualize everything related to your work. Mural is the best that I have used. It is highly dynamic, and allows for whiteboard-style collaboration in real-time. You can see who is in the board, where their cursor is, and you can even summon people to your place on the board. It works great on mobile, allowing me to sketch on the whiteboard with my tablet and stylus. There are many competitors (Miro, Stormboard, LucidChart). What have you tried? What do you like about it? Please share in the comments. If you are new to this type of tool, do some research to find what is right for you and your team.
The Team
Our second major focus area is the team. This is the real challenge of a distributed work environment: how to stay connected and collaborate as a team to achieve results. Sure, I can be quite productive when I work from home. No distractions, right? (Actually, I do get some great individual work done at home, but if I want to really collaborate with others I need to be in the office). In order to maintain an effective and productive team environment while working from home, you have to work in partnership with your teammates to establish new norms and working agreements.
Share your thoughts as you are working through problems, as you would if you were sitting next to your team members. Ask quick questions as they come to you, and be willing to send private messages to someone for a quick chat. Many team chat tools show status in real time of “available, away, or busy”. If someone is available for a quick question, either ping them for a quick video chat, or better yet, develop a working agreement where available means you can call straight away using video. Many of these applications have a desktop and a mobile version. Make it safe for folks to answer on either, even if they are “on the move” in their home. Work together on docs or a whiteboard, share files. Figure out what tools and platforms you need to keep track of your work as a team, and maintain them together. Finally, share your progress as these conversations evolve. If you are using a work or project management tool, make comments on work items along the way. Otherwise, find some way to keep each other updated.
Use video. This is a must. Everyone has to be on video and be available for video all day long. You would not send just your mouth and ears to a meeting, right? Bring your whole person. Join the video call and be fully present. Take a look at your self-view — are you centered, comfortably close to the camera, well-lit, and clearly visible? Could someone read your nonverbals almost as if you were talking face to face? Then consider experimenting with turning off self-view (most video tools allow you to either turn it off or move it around). I have found turning off self-view allows me to focus more fully on other people, instead of just looking at myself (call it vanity). Also, adjust the view settings to find what works for you. Zoom, for example, has a speaker view and gallery view. I prefer the gallery view, especially as a facilitator, as that allows me to see all participants in a mosaic, with each as a thumbnail. When people speak, their thumbnail lights up. If you learn to watch for this it is a great indicator to allow for equality in conversational turn-taking (one of the key measures of psychological safety, as shown in Google’s Project Aristotle 2012.
Manage microphones. Unmute them. If you need to cough or sneeze, of course, you can mute yourself and avoid blowing out everyone’s speakers. And of course, you are going to have the usual background noise that fills your house during the daytime: kids coming home from school, the dog barking, the phone ringing, or the neighbor’s lawn mower outside. In that case, just let folks know there is some background and you need to mute for a bit. Everyone is in a similar situation during this global crisis, so don’t feel ashamed to have some noises in the background. But otherwise, stay off mute. Work in your team to normalize everyone off mute through friendly reminders at the start of meetings. This one will take some getting used to and seem very counterintuitive. But trust me, it will go a long way toward recreating the types of natural interactions you have face to face. After all, you cannot mute yourself in a co-located, conference room meeting! People rely on subtle audible reactions “ahh” “hmmm” “mmhmm” as an indicator during dialogue. Do not rob the group of your engagement and natural human interaction.
Have a co-facilitator. For less straight-forward collaboration, involving multiple tools use a co-facilitator to help you manage the tools (let’s say: Zoom video with chat, a mural for brainstorming, based on a backlog of work in JIRA and some reference documentation in progress in a shared document – whew!) This will allow you to focus on the container around the conversation and make sure every voice is heard. Experiment with multiple facilitators and see what works.
Keep a backchannel. Consider having a chat open while you have virtual meetings. Many video collaboration tools have this feature. Or you can keep it in your team communication platform, which has the added benefit of people who missed the meeting being able to get a gist of the conversation. A backchannel for chat will allow your more quiet team members a space to contribute. The team can then choose to bring that voice forward for verbal elaboration or just acknowledge what they said in chat. Also, be mindful of the dominating personalities on video. Some folks will naturally be quite comfortable on video, others may be reticent. Work through it.
Use breakouts. For larger meetings, or even for you just your team as a way to break up the routine and get some intense conversation going, use breakout rooms. Zoom has a great feature for this, allowing you to send participants into their own breakout video room and come back after a set period of time. They can then share what they learned for the whole group. This is easy to do and can yield amazing results.
Standup (or Scrum) Daily. Yes, every day. For 15 minutes. Even if you are not on an agile team and do not use an agile framework like Scrum, I would highly recommend you adopt this simple practice of a daily Scrum. Take time each day to meet and put the ball back in play. Discuss what was accomplished yesterday, what the plan for today is, and what the impediments to work are. This is a focused meeting that helps the team gain alignment and clarity on their work. (I recommend a time in the morning, toward the beginning of the day, that works for everyone, but you will have to adjust if you are in different time zone). You may also want to consider a touchpoint later in the day, after lunch but before it gets too later in the afternoon, to touch base one more time. This will give team members an opportunity to refocus in the afternoon period where our productivity and decision-making tend to slacken. Again, discuss with your team how you will stay connected and keep up-to-date on work in progress.
The Individual
The final and arguably most important thing to strive for as you embark on this endeavor is to remember that you and everyone on your team is a person, with hopes, fears, and needs. Remember earlier when I said bring your whole self? This is where we give that whole self some attention.
Learn more about your teammates lives’ outside of work. Use this as an opportunity to get to know your team on a deeper level. Make it safe to have any background. The backgrounds and scenery of our WFH offices tell a story about our lives. I happen to have my WFH space set up as a desk in the corner of my bonus room. On the wall of that corner, I built some floating bookshelves for my books. When people ask about all the books behind me, I can tell stories about being a bibliophile, all of the unread books I wish I had time to devour. I also share about my love of a project I can work on with my hands. It took me two weeks to build those bookshelves with plywood and door trim, mount them, then paint and caulk for a seamless finish to give my bonus room the look of a study. These are the ways we can connect with others and not only learn about them, but give them a chance to share a personal story. As we WFH, you are inviting others into your home, into a very personal part of your life that may have been previously left separate from the office. Be honest, and be real, and welcome the opportunity to share more about yourself. I am sure your team will emerge from this chapter of your work saga stronger and more connected than you were before.
Use check-ins to start your meetings. There is going to be substantially less ad hoc interaction in the office, so create space for some of that to emerge at the start of your meeting. Something simple like “what did you do this weekend” or “what did you eat for lunch” can help make some connections. Consider getting a second monitor so that you can see everyone on one screen and your virtual collaboration tool (whiteboard or work management tool, doc, whatever) on another screen. Then get some feedback as you switch focus back and forth. Find a way to keep work light and enjoyable and continue to get to know your co-workers.
Avoid Distractions by keeping other devices away. Resist the temptation to have your phone, tablet, or other distractions out while you are in a virtual meeting. If you would not have them as a distraction in a conference room in the office, you should not have them as you WFH in a virtual meeting. Keep the same focus and respect for others that you would have if you were co-located.
Look out for one another as you navigate this as a team. This “new normal” for work is a chance to completely reset team norms and working agreements. Work together to establish some ground rules for how you want to be together. Ask for feedback from each other throughout the week. This may seem awkward at first, but this is new for everyone in the same way that it is new for you. There will be some discomfort, but you and your team are in this together. Make it safe for others to share how you appear or come across on video. Check in on the tone of that private message you just sent (and maybe next time throw in an emoji or two just to lighten it up). A coaching peer of mine has pointed out to me recently that I didn’t smile or seem pleased during a few remote sessions I was facilitating. I realized it was because I was thinking about something and looking ahead to the next phase of the exercise, and not fully present in the meeting, This was great feedback for me to remind me to be present and fully engaged in the conversation. Be vigilant, and look out for people being distracted or disconnected. Be kind while you deliver this feedback and everyone will grow together. And don’t forget to have a little fun while you do all this. Distributed meetings can be a bit dull, particularly as people tend to want to get down to business so they can go back to whatever they were doing in the privacy of their home. Appreciation, gratitude, and celebration may be the first things to fall off during the next few weeks. Be sure to weave them into your meetings. Consider a “lunch and learn” one day to share or learn something new. Try a BYOB (bring your own beverage) Friday afternoon meeting to close out the week.
Practice continuous improvement in what is likely a completely new context. Take time during the day to notice what is working and what is not. Consider a new team channel for “remote work insights”. Keep a journal. Do a short retrospective at the end of longer meetings. Ask something like “the next time we collaborate like this, what could be better?” and ask people to drop a few stickies on your new digital whiteboard tool. Inspect and adapt your process for working as a remote team.
Finally, be more diligent with your practice of self-care while you WFH. Take breaks. It can be stifling to be stuck in the same position all day. In the office, you move from meeting room to meeting room. For someone who takes meetings all day, either as an observer coach, or facilitator, this at least gives me a chance to stretch my legs, grab a quick bio break, or fist bump a coworker in the hallway. Develop a working agreement around meeting start and end. It will be tempting to have meetings run right till the top of the hour, as all you have to do is leave the virtual meeting and double click to join the next. Give yourself at least five minutes to transition. Get up, stretch your legs, move to another position. Consider taking a walk. I have started taking at least one walking meeting a day. I find the sunlight and fresh air invigorating, particularly in the afternoon as my body clock tends to get a bit sluggish. For 1:1s in the office this is easy. While you WFH, gain agreement in your team for this to be okay. In a meeting that is more conversation and less product output-based, (does not need collaboration tools), go for a walk and let your brain and body recharge.
Wrapping Up
This time of crisis and global uncertainty may challenge your organization to revisit its approach to collaboration tools. In today’s modern, often quite flexible work environment, you must be investing in the latest video conferencing and remote collaboration tools to keep a competitive edge and help your employees keep pace with their work. There are many options out there. I have recommended a few, but do your own research. See if the tools you have can support the principles I have outlined.
This is also a great time for you to learn new skills as a remote worker. At the end of this, if you go back to a desk in an office, you will have learned more about remote work, and made yourself more future-proof and ready for the next challenge in this modern world of work.
While this global health crisis is anxiety and fear-provoking for many, it is also an opportunity for knowledge workers to prove to organizations that we can be equally, if not more collaborative and productive when we are given the freedom and responsibility to work from anywhere.
What are your tips for working remote? Or, what did you gain from this that you can take back to your teams next week? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
You can check out this post on my blog, iterationsofjason.com, as well as all my other musings.
Until the Next Iteration . . .
Jason