Management of virtual work environment requires a variety of real-world skills and tools. The following is to stimulate creativity and productivity strategies. To succeed in the increasingly fierce competition and a lack of talent in the IT world, more and more companies come to rely on geographically dispersed workforce.
Author: John Edwards
Management of virtual work environment requires a variety of real-world skills and tools. The following is to stimulate creativity and productivity strategies.
To succeed in the increasingly fierce competition and a lack of talent in the IT world, more and more companies come to rely on geographically dispersed workforce. These organizations that can provide excellent functional expertise IT team, regardless of each person's physical location. Although juxtaposed team (each member working in the same physical site) may in some respects than dispersed teams have an advantage, but there is a growing consensus that a well-planned, well-organized dispersion / actual remote teams It may make the adopters have the upper hand.
Any team dispersed in multiple locations face a bigger challenge is how to make the isolated individual as a unit of solidarity work together. "Remote teams can not be exactly like the juxtaposition of the team to discuss the status, objectives, risks and problems in team meetings, lunches and drinking as freely," Joe Wilson explained that he is a Denver-based custom software development company volare systems boss. "When you manage 100% of remote teams, you have to abide by the discipline of communication, because there will be just like you encounter in the office hallway," Wilson said, he has been building and managing remote teams in the past decade .
A decentralized IT leadership team and long-term success requires dedication and exceptional leadership skills, including organization, the ability to motivate members to enable them to creatively and skillfully work the same as in the field. The following are IT leaders to let their remote employees come to the fore and the success of the seven secrets.
1. to play a strong, clear leadership role
Whether team members are still out of several time zones, strong leadership is crucial in the hall.
Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in organizational behavior and theory, Associate Professor Anita Williams Woolley said: "The wise leader will take the initiative to identify potential target conflicts and ensure a clear overall team goals, and may assume other responsibilities with team members be consistent."
The primary task of the leader is to establish a clear and consistent project objectives. "The reason why remote IT team will fail because there is no clear leadership direction, or even have a clear direction and does not fully take into account the remote environment where employees," Helen Dayen said she is a coach and career development company Dayen Group executive coach and chief executive officer.
Lack of strong leadership and clear objectives, remote workers may begin to feel isolated. "So they reduced communication, reduce collaboration," Dayen explained. Over time, the team will become less and less efficient and productive. "The distance does not make the mind becomes warmer," she said. "It provides for the assumption that the growth of the space, in general, human nature and the human mind will naturally to humans or the environment to make negative assumptions."
2. Encourage feedback
Cooperation in both directions. Although the team members need to project leaders clear, direct instructions, but leaders also need to know what each team member is doing, and whether it has made significant progress. To achieve this capability, we should establish a process of feedback. "Supervision feedback, make sure it is constructive, and to ensure that the product can make better, not to show off or win the argument," Wilson recommendations.
A big mistake many leaders make is to think that no news is good news. If for some remote team members alone, they will eventually go silent. Wilson observed: "They will not always tell you what they are entangled." He suggested that once or twice a day to arrange check-in, open the network camera, Ask open-ended questions to quiet team members. "For example, 'how about recently?' 'Can I help you?' And 'Do you need me to do to make your job easier?'" He said.
3. Find the right person
To understand that some people, regardless of talent and experience, not suitable for remote workers. This is not a role makes them feel comfortable, on the contrary, they prefer a juxtaposition of experienced employees often have a personal interaction, events and busy environment. "We know that some people have a higher level of coordination skills than others," Woolley said. "In our study, we have repeatedly found that in face of the team and distributed teams, social awareness - aware of others' reactions and understanding why they would make such a response - is a powerful predictor of collective wisdom . "
Some people are difficult to adapt to unfamiliar schedule. These people are used to the traditional work program towards nine to five, often difficult to deal with time zone differences. Woolley pointed out that this is a problem affecting many dispersed teams, especially those team members scattered around the world. She recommended the development of a plan to share the pain, such as team members take turns setting meetings. "Most types of IT work can be planned, so most of the work can be completed asynchronously, so the key question is very important how to use Live Meeting wisely and targeted discussion."
4. Reservations face-to- face time
Although the ability collaboration technologies allow dispersed / remote teams to work efficiently, but they establish close relations and friendship among the participants is still limited.
Christopher McFarlane, a Canadian large retail chains Scrum Master and Agile Coach, he believes personally visited regularly for the establishment of social relations is necessary. "Face to face interaction can let teammates know each other more, such as culture, background, interests and motivation," he explained. "This is a short-term investment, by cultivating trust between the team members, we can achieve long-term cost savings."
Adam Vazquez, vice president of HP's Enterprise IT is responsible for business analysis and data management agrees. "You need to build a strong face to face with the rhythm - quarterly, monthly, or every two years - no matter what your culture and sense of project goals," he said. active. Do not wait until the problem surfaced only party schedules. Vazquez proposals to ensure that your team can celebrate a meaningful time together. Open video conferencing, so everyone can celebrate in real time. "Simple things like get together to celebrate a birthday, let each person has a sense of belonging," he said.
5. limit team size
The size of a team plays an important role in the quality of its operations. "Smaller teams, about up to 10 people, may be much more flexible than twice as large as the size of the team," Peggy Smith, CEO Trade Organization Worldwide ERC labor mobility for professionals services commented. "For a large and disparate teams to make an effective contribution to the conference in real time will be more challenging, but also makes the more complex asynchronous dialogue." The team is divided into groups, each group will focus on specific areas of the project, which is usually It will increase productivity.
6. equal treatment of all team members
To ensure long-term success of the team, each member needs to be appreciated. For example, some leaders often make the mistake that most member of the development team working location rules and procedures.
"This is likely to convey the message that their contribution is not valued to the rest of the team members," McFarlane said. In order to ensure harmony and unity, the whole team should work together to develop mutually beneficial rules. "Let everyone be able to share the burden of the other team members will generate empathy," he said.
Another potential morale killer when some team members and team leader at the same time position. "Those close to the leaders naturally have more opportunities to reach him / her," Smith said. "Even good leaders handling of the neighboring difference, the rest of the people may feel they are not getting the same attention or feedback," she explained. On the same team have both remote and collocated might lead to dysfunction.
7. The use of a plurality of communication platforms
Communication is the key to team success, its importance should not be underestimated. "In the remote and dispersed teams, the situation of excessive communication does not exist," Vazquez said. "I found that the use of technology with video and whiteboard functionality in a team meeting, to create intimacy in a virtual environment such great help."
Allow dispersed / remote teams to have matched or even exceeded the magic of its operation on the level and set opponents need a wealth of communications technology, such as Zoom (video conferencing), Slack (collaboration / messaging), Trello (project organization) and WebEx (video conferencing / white). At the same time, the basic mode of communication, such as text messages and e-mail can also be effective team members learn about new situations and solve simple problems.
But Dayen warned not to be too dependent on these simple tools. "Big mistakes leaders can make is that the use of e-mail / text chat to communicate is enough, in fact, to have a successful environment, need more."
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