This year presented many challenges and unique adaptation strategies that needed to be developed across multiple industries. Ours was no exception. We had been running a hybrid office for about a year now, and we seem to have been prepping our way into a fully remote workflow.
We had been experimenting with various workflows and tools, but we were still missing some key pieces. We knew that our team needed more autonomy and empowerment to manage their own work. And we also knew that remote teams need a lot more communication than co-located ones.
So we started experimenting with different workflows, tools, and communication methods. We tried some things that didn’t work very well, and then we tried some things that did! Here are three things that helped us find our rhythm as a remote team.
1. We started using a shared task management tool
2. We began building a culture of autonomy and empowerment
3. We set clear expectations for how we communicate as a remote team
We still have our weekly meetings, but we also created a forum for team members to ask questions and share feedback. This has been really helpful in building relationships with each other outside of the regular stand-up meetings.
But perhaps one amazing thing is gradually limiting the number of meetings we have within the week. It’s amazing how much time and energy you can save by just having a few fewer meetings every week. We started by eliminating low-value, recurring meetings that didn’t add much value to our team or company. We also killed off the daily stand-up meeting for individual teams—they were only meant for us all to get together in one room, which wasn’t very practical when we were spread out across three different locations.
Our current tool set gives us the flexibility and room to handle large and medium scale projects across multiple regions and we are setting up for a more dynamic workflow for the next two years as we expand to working with international freelancers too. The key to maintaining a high-performing team is to constantly evaluate your workflow and make changes based on what works best for you. Every company is different and I’m sure there are many ways to improve the way we work together.
