Tips For Leading Remote IT Teams Successfully

Remote IT Teams are relying on geographically dispersed workforces to work in an increasingly talent-starved and competitive IT world. Such organizations build IT teams providing the best operative expertise, regardless of each individual’s physical location. While collocated teams (every member working at the same physical site) may have benefits over-dispersed teams in some respects, there’s a developing consensus that a well-planned and organized dispersed/remote team may give adopters the upper hand.

Managing a dispersed IT team to long-term success demands commitment and special leadership skills, including the ability to organize, motivate, and encourage members to operate as creatively and adeptly as if they were based on site. Top IT seven secrets leaders use to get their remote workers to excel and succeed.

1. Exert robust and transparent leadership

Firm leadership is fundamental, whether team members are located down the hall or several time zones away.

Active leaders should proactively identify potential goal conflicts and guarantee that the goals of the team are clear and aligned with other responsibilities that team members may possess. A leader’s top preference is establishing clear and aligned project objectives. Some remote IT teams fail because there isn’t a clear direction from the leadership, or if there is a clear direction, it fails to take into consideration the perspective of employees in remote environments.

Without strong leadership and defined goals, remote workers may begin to feel isolated. They decrease their communication and become less collaborative. Over time, the team grows increasingly less efficient and productive. Distance does not make the heart grow fonder, it provides room for assumptions to grow frequently, and human nature and the human mind will naturally create negative assumptions about people or situations.

2. Encourage Feedback

Collaboration is a two-way street. While team members require clear, direct instructions from their project chief, the leader also needs to know what each team member is up to and whether they are making meaningful progress.  The leader should establish a feedback process to deliver this capability; manage the feedback to make sure it’s useful, and it’s making the products better. The mistake many leaders make is assuming that no news is good news. Some remote team members will drift toward silence. They won’t always tell you if they’re struggling with something. Scheduling one to two daily check-ins, with webcams turned on, to pose open-ended questions to quiet team members. “Things like: ‘How’s it going on X?’ ‘How can I help?’ and ‘Is there anything you need me to do to make your job easier?'”.

3. Locate the Right People

Recognize that a certain number of people, regardless of talent and experience, aren’t cut out to be remote workers. It’s not a position they feel comfortable in, preferring instead of the individual interactions, events, and bustling environment a disposed staffer typically experiences. We understand that some individuals maintain higher levels of collaboration skills than others. We repeatedly find that social perceptiveness being aware of others’ reactions and knowing why they react as they do, is a strong predictor of corporate intelligence in both face-to-face and separated teams.

Some people also have difficulty adapting to remote schedules. Such individuals who are accustomed to a regular nine-to-five work routine, often have difficulty handling time-zone differences. This is an issue that affects many dispersed teams, particularly those with members scattered around the world. We recommend creating a plan to share the project, such as having team members take turns on establishing meeting times.

4 Book Some Face-to-Face Time

While collaborative technologies enable dispersed/remote organizations to work efficiently, their capacity to develop close rapport and camaraderie between participants remains limited.

 In-person communication allows teammates to learn more about each other, such as culture, background, interests, and motivations. It’s a short-term investment that leads to long-term cost-savings by nurturing trust between team members.

Whatever creates sense for your culture and project goals, be proactive. Don’t wait for queries to surface before organizing a get-together. Secure your teams and celebrate meaningful moments together.

5. Cap the Team Size

Team size can play a vital role in how great it operates. It’s just more challenging for high dispersed teams to participate effectively in real-time meetings and make the asynchronous conversations more complex. Breaking companies into small groups, with each focusing on a specific project area, generally lead to higher productivity.

6. Value all Team Members Equally

Therefore, to guarantee long-term team success, each member should feel appreciated. Some leaders, for example, make the impression of having the team location with the most members set workday rules and procedures.

This has the potential of sending the message to team members in other areas that their participation is not as valued. Therefore, to ensure consistency and cohesiveness, the whole team should collectively come up with mutually beneficial rules. Making everyone experience the burden creates a sense of understanding with what other team members have to endure.

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7. Utilize Multiple Communication Platforms

Information is the key to successful team collaboration, and its importance can’t be underestimated. There is no such thing as over-communicating when it comes to dispersing and remote teams, Applying technology with video and whiteboard capabilities during team meetings goes a long way in having that in-person feeling when you’re virtual.

Most Importantly, magic that allows dispersed/remote teams to function at levels matching or even exceeding their collocated counterparts is productive communication technologies, such as Zoom (video conferencing), Slack (collaboration/messaging), Trello (project organization) and WebEx (video conferencing/whiteboarding).

Therefore, essential communication methods such as texts and emails can be useful for keeping team members up to date and solving simple problems. But try not to rely too heavily on these simple tools. The biggest mistake leaders make is thinking that email/chat communication is enough when, in reality, it takes far more to have a thriving environment.