{"id":697,"date":"2020-06-22T20:40:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T19:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/?p=697"},"modified":"2020-11-15T14:14:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T14:14:30","slug":"4-remote-working-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/4-remote-working-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Remote Working Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We’re now months into an unprecedented, worldwide, working-from-home experiment. So what have we learned about working remotely? I thought I’d note some lessons learned and best practice which I and my teams at SAS have found useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to recognise Graham Allan<\/a> for his part in this. Graham has been working remotely for a long time, so as soon as the prospect of WFH on a permanent basis raised its head, he very kindly jumped on a Hangouts chat to coach me through the prospect, and shared the benefits of his experience. Some of these lessons are variations of ones he passed on to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One final note. I take part in, and lead, a number of software development teams. So this advice comes from that place — but I believe the lessons here can apply more broadly to any group of people who need to share information and coordinate efforts towards a shared goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesson 1 – If a conversation would benefit from being public, make it so<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The timely and successful dissemination of information has been one of the key challenges we’ve faced as a historically office-based organisation thrown into our homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re talking to someone about a problem, design, etc, and you realise that in “real life”, someone who was overhearing your conversation would have benefited, then maybe make that discussion public on your team’s MSTeams\/Slack app instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though private conversations are sometimes useful, the reflex should be towards making information public. As Crucial Conversations<\/a> would remind us, shared meaning should not be withheld. It robs people of the opportunity to learn, help, or take part in the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesson 2 – Report back on off-channel conversations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A corrolary to the above. Sometimes a conversation will start in a 1-1 meeting, or voice call. Or God forbid, from an in-person chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes a conversation will start on MSTeams\/Slack, but move off-channel to a private conversation. It is polite to post “This conversation has gone private” so others aren’t confused by a conversation that just ends mid-way through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all these situations make sure you eventually report the results back to your team’s comms app of choice. “FYI Bob and I discussed off-channel. I’ll get started on xyz and Bob will investigate abc.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesson 3 – If a conversation needs to be synchronous, make it so<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By all means, make discussion asynchronous when it makes sense. This helps maximise flexibility, and in a global organisation where timezones overlap to varying degrees, this may even be necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sometimes, a conversation needs to be synchronous. Recognise those situations and act on them. You can save hours of misunderstandings or back-and-forth by picking up the phone (metaphorically) and talking something through in real time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you do…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesson 4 – Cameras on<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Humans are, pretty much, social creatures. Remote working at its worst can be isolating and reinforce negative ways of communicating. One habit to get into immediately: when you’re in a meeting, cameras on. It’s a facsimile of a real-world meeting, but it’s far far<\/em> better than just listening to someone’s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have the technology to look into each others’ eyes as we talk. Make use of it, and watch your interpersonal interactions benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re now months into an unprecedented, worldwide, working-from-home experiment. So what have we learned about working remotely? I thought I’d note some lessons learned and best practice which I and my teams at SAS have found useful. I want to recognise Graham Allan for his part in this. Graham has been working remotely for a… Read More »4 Remote Working Best Practices<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[201],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebcharrot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}