Virtual team ideas?
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A lot of people in IT works in virtual teams even if most have an actual physical place of work. But some work almost 100% remote.
Now with the virus many people, not just IT people, are going to be working remotely. And not just one day here or there, but for extended periods of time.
Do you guys have any ideas to share on how to make a team work and be productive in an all virtual environment?
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Zoom and slack are very helpful tools for remote collaboration. Zoom free is good enough in most cases. I regularly work with remote people and am remote myself. Anytime we are trying to tackle something we setup a zoom call and do some screensharing. It actually works better than collaboration in person most of the time, tbh.
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@Pete-S said in Virtual team ideas?:
But some work almost 100% remote.
That's us. Two main US centers, plus teams in four other countries, and multiple location in three of those four countries! As remote as remote gets!
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@Pete-S said in Virtual team ideas?:
Do you guys have any ideas to share on how to make a team work and be productive in an all virtual environment?
Carefully planned chat groups are important.
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We've been doing a quick daily team video meeting (like Zoom) in the morning, kind of like a Scrum daily stand up meeting in a way, with a few minutes for open mic.
And all day, Slack is heavily used for chat, collaboration, etc. These have been key. Lots of company channels, as Scott mentioned, are very important for all kinds of communications, whether company wide, team related, department related, service or system related, etc.
I think about 70% of the entire company is working from home now, of about 10k total.... latest numbers I seen, and it's been going very well.
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@scottalanmiller said in Virtual team ideas?:
@Pete-S said in Virtual team ideas?:
Do you guys have any ideas to share on how to make a team work and be productive in an all virtual environment?
Carefully planned chat groups are important.
Could you elaborate on that a little more?
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Time sensitivity is important, people have a hard time showing up on time for a meeting physically. Making people wait with a headset on is just additional irritation that they won't take well.
I personally always show up early 1-5 minutes for a meeting. If I had to wait an additional 15 I'd be using collage rules and counting my attendance as there even if the host isn't.
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I've been on a couple different remote teams in my career, each with a different expectation for collaboration.
A continuous chat group can be helpful depending on the culture. Sometimes all it takes is for your manager to be in the chat and then it's a dead chat.
Weekly v.s. daily stand-ups: I definitely prefer daily. A week can be a long time.
What I think is most effective for building a virtual team together is having different people pairing off to help another or to tackle a task together while on a voice call/screen sharing. Chat doesn't always cut it when you're working, and you might have a very different experience with a co-worker when you're on a voice call than when communicating through chat or email.
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@DustinB3403 said in Virtual team ideas?:
Time sensitivity is important, people have a hard time showing up on time for a meeting physically. Making people wait with a headset on is just additional irritation that they won't take well.
I personally always show up early 1-5 minutes for a meeting. If I had to wait an additional 15 I'd be using collage rules and counting my attendance as there even if the host isn't.
I think putting a headset on is easier than going to room a people honestly.
