I’ve worked remotely for most of my career; as a designer, a developer, and now as a writer. I’ve also worked in an office, and I have to say that neither is more dynamic than the other — it’s about the individual effort you bring to the team and how effectively you include team members into the conversation.
Aside from carefully articulating your words, you also need to find ways to inspire informative, contextual, high-value responses that everybody in the team can benefit from.
Let’s take a look at 10 ways to ensure effective collaboration.
1. Be Available
Communication is the ultimate key to collaboration. More often than not, communication is nothing more than a simple question, a clarification, or a request for information. In a real office you would tip your head over your computer and simply speak to a colleague, but in remote teams it can be hard to determine if somebody is available, and in most cases, you’d likely forget about it and try to find an answer by yourself.
Your team should always try to use a core messaging app and remain “available” or “online”. You don’t have to be chatty at all times, but be available in case anybody else needs help.
2. Prepare Your Messages
You know that your time is valuable, so don’t forget that everybody else’s time is valuable too. Any time spent communicating is time spent not-working. One of the main reasons for “going remote” may have been to avoid meetings and have enough “alone time” to actually do some work — don’t waste those opportunities by sending vague messages back and forth.
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Because we’re not having face-to-face conversations, and even more so because of timezone differences, we can receive responses to our communications hours later. Always offer the correct information and be clear about what you’re saying or asking; too much information is better than not enough information. Send images, code examples and source files to supplement your messages.
3. Communicate When Necessary
Like I said, communicating takes you away from actually doing work. Don’t use your core messaging app to chit-chat all day, and only ever include others in the conversation when it concerns them. Other team members don’t want to be CC’d into every email, every response and every sub-comment connected to it.
Instead of trying to “read” the room, communicate facial expressions verbally, or when messaging online, use emoticons so that everyone is confident about the overall vibe in the “room”.
4. Schedule Non-Work Related Hangouts
Working remotely can be lonely and it’s totally natural to want to engage in some normal, work-unrelated banter. However, it can be terribly counterproductive to open up the core dialogue to free discussion. Instead, schedule some time on Google Hangouts or Skype (at certain intervals in the day) to facilitate free, healthy discussions. It’s a bonding moment for the team too.
5. Use Apps That Make Communication Productive
Slack has made a significant impact on the future of team communication. Some, however, have said that the “always online” approach results in far too much communication and day-long meetings. I don’t think that’s Slack’s fault, but there certainly are drawbacks to look out for.
Making communication too accessible can result in fruitless back-and-forth conversations, but many apps these days have a way to set up integrations — Slack included. Essentially, this is a way of taking data from your favourite apps (Wunderlist, Trello, Dropbox, Zeplin, InVision — the list is endless) and including contextual information with your messages.
HipChat is another option to consider, which has a tonne of integrations as well.
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