A Few Tips To Make Distributed Teams Work Well

An increasing number of startups seem to be building distributed teams, particularly in engineering. But making a distributed team work well isn’t easy. From what I’ve seen most distributed teams are less productive than their centralized counterparts. Here are a few things from my own experience that I think are crucial to the effectiveness such teams. If I had to summarize all of the below I would do it as: Remove synchronous communication, and when in doubt, over-communicate.

Hire people who thrive in remote environments

An otherwise excellent hire may underperform in a distributed environment. This has nothing to do with skill, it’s mostly a result of past experience and personality. Some of us enjoy the social atmosphere and tighter supervision of an office environment. Others thrive with little or no supervision away from all distractions. I found that the latter type of people tend to have experience with starting or managing their own projects, e.g. an open source project, side project, or startup. Explain the company’s goals and they will figure out the little details themselves, without the need for a lot of meetings. Look for these people.

Be proactive, not reactive, in giving access to resources

Communication in a remote environment is asynchronous, so your goal should be to minimize the need for synchronous communication. For example, a developer may be blocked by not having access to a code repository or SaaS service the company uses. In an office environment this isn’t a big deal, she can just walk over to a manager or teammate and get access. In a remote environment she may have to wait several hours to get it. If this happens frequently it adds up to a lot of lost time. Be proactive in giving everyone the resources they need to make their own decisions.

Don’t be a hybrid

It’s not uncommon to simultaneously run a distributed team and a “core” team in a centralized location. This is appealing, but it’s also difficult to get right. It only works if everyone follows the same procedures. It’s tempting for members of the core team to make quick decisions through in-person meetings and neglect discussing them with people who aren’t there. If everyone talks in Slack then the core team should do the same. Not doing so will result in an imbalance of information, or worse, frustration of people who are not “in the loop”.

Focus on process, not outcome

As long as a centralized team is small you can run it without a lot of formal procedures. Not so with distributed teams. An example for engineering teams would be creating formal procedures for Pull Requests. What should be in the title/description and acceptance criteria? Who should review/merge, and when? Defining all of this formally seems like overkill, but in a remote environment it ensures that everyone is on the same page and knows what to expect. More generally, your goal shouldn’t be to ship the next version of your product as quickly as possible (though that’s a nice side effect). It should be to build a* scalable process *, get out of the way, and make your team productive without requiring a lot of supervision. Formal processes help do that.

Have the right technology stack in place

There’s lots of software that makes working in a distributed team easier. It would be foolish not to use it. Use Slack for team communication. Blossom or Pivotal Tracker for task tracking . Screenhero for screen sharing. Google Hangouts for meetings. And so on. Of course the above are just examples, use any software that meets your needs. Again, make sure that you have processes in place that define how to use your software stack (e.g. how to manage and reviews tasks).

Get everyone on the same page

I found that many inefficiencies in distributed teams stem from the fact that team members aren’t on the same page about company priorities, or that they don’t know what everyone else is working on. This is absolutely crucial. Processes that I’ve found effective include using company and team OKRs, regular standups (either in Slack or via video chat), and doing weekly retrospectives of what has been accomplished, what didn’t go so well, and what the goals for next week are.

Consider Transparency

Buffer is probably the best example of a company that’s incredibly transparent. Transparency works well with distributed teams because it removes the need for communication. If something is open to everyone, employees don’t need ask around for access. You don’t need to become as transparent as Buffer is, but it’s worth considering what you could be transparent about both publicly and internally.