A Guide to Managing Remote Teams • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#21

Post by SirLJ » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #14

SirLJ wrote: post #11

Here is my advice, based on many years managing a remote ops team across the continent: you do not need another tool! The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) Ask to be cced on the the important problems/projects and have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon, so everyone can share not…

>The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) This is the crux of things. If you haven't hired people who can be trusted to work remotely, there's nothing you can do to manage/lead them.

Thanks, that was the point to be made, but the amateurs got stuck on the phone/email comment and the need to use the best new shiny tool...

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#22

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

SirLJ wrote: post #11

Here is my advice, based on many years managing a remote ops team across the continent: you do not need another tool! The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) Ask to be cced on the the important problems/projects and have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon, so everyone can share not…

>> have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon

This is really old-school (coming from a 40-plus!) and just doesn't work anymore.

What if I have more than a few direct reports or multiple teams?

When exactly is "Wednesday afternoon" for global teammates?

How do I share this temporal, ad-hoc conversation with team members who can't call in when I decide "n O'Clock on Wednesdays is forced bonding time"?

The overall sentiment is good and I completely agree of about geniunely caring for your team members, but synchronous, in-person communication just doesn't scale for remote teams.

This advice also seriously conflates all the different roles a manager fills into combined interactions. You shouldn't be discussing status reports, career planning, personal issues and shooting the sh!t in the same forum, especially all-hands.

Finally, email is terrible for surfacing actionable steps from meetings. There's no ownership or deadline and you will already be buried under a huge mountain of emails.

Will another tool solve structural issues with your remote team? Absolutely Not.

Do you need another tool to manage remote teams? Maybe; at the very least you need to tweak the tools you already use.

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#23

Post by nogabebop23 » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

SirLJ wrote: post #21

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) This is the crux of things. If you haven't hired people who can be trusted to work remotely, there's nothing you can do to manage/lead them.

Thanks, that was the point to be made, but the amateurs got stuck on the phone/email comment and the need to use the best new shiny tool...

OK, but your "people you trust" was one partial sentence out of several recommendations.

I'll go further: if you have entire teams of "people you trust" they will make it work regardless of your tooling and in spite of your management techniques.

This really avoids the challenge though; it's like when you have talented, experienced development teams they can make it work if you use agile, waterfall or little planning at all

Your approach relies on having the rare quality (experience, talent or trust) vs. approaches that try to grow these qualitites over time.

And appreciate the "amateur" shot - is that how you show someone you don't know well how empathetic and caring you are when they disagree with your opinion?

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#24

Post by SirLJ » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

nogabebop23 wrote: post #22

SirLJ wrote: post #11

Here is my advice, based on many years managing a remote ops team across the continent: you do not need another tool! The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) Ask to be cced on the the important problems/projects and have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon, so everyone can share not…

>> have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon This is really old-school (coming from a 40-plus!) and just doesn't work anymore. What if I have more than a few direct reports or multiple teams? When exactly is "Wednesday afternoon" for global teammates? How do I share this temporal, ad-hoc conversation with team members who can't call in when I decide "n O'Clock on Wednesdays is forced bonding time"? The ov…

How many people you are supporting in the organization you are leading? Do you micromanage them all or you fo you have team leaders/department heads? How about hiring few project managers and forming a PMO office to take care of all the deadlines and actually manage the projects? I am sure there is a new shiny app out there for all this...

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#25

Post by SirLJ » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

nogabebop23 wrote: post #23

SirLJ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that was the point to be made, but the amateurs got stuck on the phone/email comment and the need to use the best new shiny tool...

OK, but your "people you trust" was one partial sentence out of several recommendations. I'll go further: if you have entire teams of "people you trust" they will make it work regardless of your tooling and in spite of your management techniques. This really avoids the challenge though; it's like when you have talented, experienced development teams they can make it work if you use agile, waterfall or little planning…

What development teams, please go back and reread my original post, I am talking about operations, not development.

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#26

Post by SirLJ » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

thawaway1837 wrote: post #17

SirLJ wrote: post #11

Here is my advice, based on many years managing a remote ops team across the continent: you do not need another tool! The good old email and phone is just enough, providing you trust the people you work with (if you don't then this is on you as a manager an no tool will help you) Ask to be cced on the the important problems/projects and have 1 team meeting for few hours Wednesday afternoon, so everyone can share not…

I was a phone hater, and always had good reasons why. It’s synchronous, requires meetings to be setup in advance, is cumbersome, and is painful. But I’ve come to the realization after having the company switch to alternative means (slack) that these issues are its greatest strength. The universal annoyances of setting up a phone call means that people only reach out for it when it’s absolutely necessary. Instant mess…

Amen!

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#27

Post by eric234223 » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

rooam-dev wrote: post #8

wahlis wrote: post #4

Free for the price of my email address?

What would be an acceptable free for you?

Asking for email address is asking for a huge favor. Its not free. Just because a product took hard work to create does not get the right to call it free when asking for email address. Let that sink in.

Re: A Guide to Managing Remote Teams

#28

Post by AndrewKemendo » Fri, Mar 13, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

nogabebop23 wrote: post #23

SirLJ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that was the point to be made, but the amateurs got stuck on the phone/email comment and the need to use the best new shiny tool...

OK, but your "people you trust" was one partial sentence out of several recommendations. I'll go further: if you have entire teams of "people you trust" they will make it work regardless of your tooling and in spite of your management techniques. This really avoids the challenge though; it's like when you have talented, experienced development teams they can make it work if you use agile, waterfall or little planning…

My perspective is that if you don't have competent people you can trust, then you might as well just pack it up.

Any technical or non technical person with any skill level can be competent in their role and trustworthy. It doesn't take years to develop that, it's a personality trait.