Working remotely has a number of advantages for both organizations and individuals. When hiring, you’ll have access to a much larger pool of candidates, while dealing with lower overhead expenses. As an individual, you can work anywhere (and in many situations, at any time). Accordingly, many software developers have turned to hiring remote teams to achieve their goals.
However, if you’re going to be successful managing a remote software development team, there are some additional considerations to bear in mind. Remote software development does have some disadvantages, but you can compensate for them with the right approach.
Core Concepts for Managing Remote Software Development Teams
Generally speaking, effective remote software development team management can be executed with respect to three main categories:
- Building the best team. Everything starts with the strength and abilities of your team. With the most qualified, best organized software developers on your team, you won’t have to manage much; they’ll take care of most responsibilities on their own. Additionally, with the right ongoing teambuilding and strategic development strategies, you can make your remote team even better.
- Staying organized. Even the best-trained, most knowledgeable candidates will struggle if they’re uncertain what their main priorities are, or if they don’t know where to find the information they need. Staying organized is about establishing proper hierarchies, organizing projects and tasks, setting goals, and keeping track of individual responsibilities.
- Communicating. Finally, there’s communication. Good communication can prevent the vast majority of software development problems from ever occurring, and quickly resolve all the problems that remain. Good communication is about relaying instructions properly, actively listening to your developers, and resolving conflicts.
We will examine each of these priorities in turn.
Building the Best Team
Your first job is building the best software development team, which won’t be easy. This starts with the hiring process, but will follow you indefinitely with ongoing education and training options.
Full-time, part-time, freelance, or outsourcing?
One of your first big decisions will be debating whether to hire full-time developers, part-time developers, freelance developers, or whether to outsource your software development needs to another company. As you can imagine, there are advantages and disadvantages to each.
Part of your decision will depend on the size and scope of your current projects. If you’re working on low priorities, or if you don’t have much to do, part-time developers or freelancers may be plenty.
Full-time developers will give you the greatest possible access to your team, but they will also be relatively expensive. Additionally, if you’re hiring part-time or full-time developers, you’ll need to vet your options carefully before bringing them onto your team.
For many software development projects, the best option is to outsource your work to a software development firm. Outsourcing gives you access to a full team of software development specialists, for a relatively low price, and gives you flexible scalability, so you can add more resources as you need them.
Culture fit
Whatever option you go with, you’ll need to think about the culture fit of your team.
Consider:
- Work ethic. You’ll want to hire people who genuinely care about the projects they work on. A better work ethic means your team will be more adaptable, more responsive, and more interested in making the best possible products.
- Autonomy and independence. Working remotely means having little to no direct supervision. Accordingly, you’ll need to find team members who can operate with autonomy and independence; they should be capable of setting their own personal goals, managing their own time, and completing projects without constant reminders.
- Collaboration potential. While some work can be done completely independently, you’ll also want to find software developers who work well together. You have to find team players who can share projects even when physically distant.
- Communication. Of course, you’ll also have to consider communication skills—we’ve dedicated an entire section to the topic.
You can judge some of these aspects based on a person’s resume; if they have a lot of experience working as part of a team, or if they seem to value teamwork in their self-descriptions, you can count on them being a good collaborator. You’ll have to discover other aspects during the interview process; for example, their communication skills should be self-evident.
Recruiting and training
Finding the best candidates and preparing them for success is also a challenge for remote development teams. If you’re outsourcing your work, you’ll gain almost immediate access to qualified candidates, so you won’t have to worry too much about it. Otherwise, you’ll need to invest in an inbound recruiting strategy, or proactively scout for candidates online who fit your criteria.
From there, you’ll need to give your remote software developers the best possible chance of success by training them in your desired workflows and processes. They should already be familiar with basic best practices for software development, but you’ll need to instruct them on how you want them to communicate, your expectations for their scheduling, and other areas that may vary by employer/manager.
Teambuilding
Teambuilding is difficult when you’re managing a remote team, since you won’t be working in the same location. However, there are steps you can take to reinforce your collective work culture, better acquaint your individual developers, and cultivate team bonds for better collaboration. For example, you can host remote lunches and individual teambuilding exercises.
Ongoing development
Finally, you’ll need to spend time investing in the ongoing training, education, and development of your team. Giving your team members access to resources, support in their ongoing education, and direct mentorship will not only make them better employees, but will also increase their morale and satisfaction. You may not need to consider this point if you’re outsourcing your software development needs.
Staying Organized
Staying organized is all about creating the hierarchies, systems, and structures necessary for everyone on the team to function well.
Team hierarchies and individual roles
First, you’ll need to spend time establishing a clear team hierarchy. Who will be answering to whom? What will each team member’s responsibilities be? The more direct and unambiguous you are in these assignments, the easier the work will flow in the future.
Goals
Remote team managers also need to set effective goals, both at the team level and at the individual level. For example, you’ll need to decide how you want to finish specific projects as a team, while also encouraging individuals on the team to improve their strengths and balance their weaknesses.
One challenge here is to stay focused on high-level and mid-level priorities; if you spend too much time focused on low-level priorities and minutiae, your team won’t be able to work effectively. Remember, you’ve hired people in part because you depend on them to work autonomously and independently; don’t get caught up in micromanaging them.
Time zones
Many distribute software development teams involve team members from different time zones. This usually isn’t much of an issue, so long as you acknowledge it. Allow your team members to work independently whenever possible, and rely on overlap between shifts in different time zones to schedule meetings. Most issues can wait a few hours (or longer) to be resolved, so rely on email, project management systems, and other non-urgent communication channels to handle the majority of your issues.
Project and task management protocols
You’ll also need to have some project and task management protocols in place. Who will be responsible for creating new projects, and who will be responsible for claiming and assigning tasks? Who will be responsible for setting and/or updating deadlines?
Additionally, what details are required for a developer to begin working on a project? What steps should they take if details are insufficient?
Formally documenting these protocols will make it easier for your entire team to be on the same page.
Leadership styles
Different people respond better to different leadership styles. You’ll need to use a mix of different tactics to keep your remote team motivated. For example, some people respond better to a leader with a strong vision and a clear sense of direction, while others respond better to a minimalistic leader who maintains a hands-off approach.
Flexibility
One of the inherent advantages of working with a remote team of software developers is its flexibility. You can allow your team members to work from anywhere, and hire people from all over the world. Maximize your potential by allowing even more flexibility; let your team work during the hours that suit them best (when possible), and give them more control over their assignments. They’ll gravitate to the work that is most fulfilling and most productive for them to do.
Communicating
Arguably, communication is the most important factor to consider when managing a remote team of software developers. If you’re proactive and clear, your communication should prevent most issues from arising. When issues do develop, you can use communication to resolve them.
Transparency
One key aspect of good communication in a remote team is transparency; it’s important to explain your high-level goals, motivations, and thoughts related to different projects and tasks. For example, if your developer thinks they can finish a project in two weeks and you want them to finish in one, explain your reasoning behind advancing the deadline. If your developer asks why you follow a certain project management process, enlighten them.
Transparency is great for building trust, and will help your software development team better understand the inner workings of your organization.
Clarity
The details matter. When you’re assigning projects, outlining scope, creating bug tickets, or handling any other kind of in-team communication, you need to be as clear as possible. Define every element in your message with specificity, and avoid ambiguities that could be misinterpreted. Additionally, you should keep your messaging as simple, concise, and direct as possible.
It’s also a good idea to outline a bit of backstory when assigning new projects and tasks. This way, developers will be able to work with context.
Accountability
Good communication demands that individual software developers accept accountability and acknowledge their responsibilities in different areas—especially when working remotely. If you send an email to a developer requesting them to work on a task, they should follow up with a response that they’re working on it.
Similarly, you’ll need to have policies in place for follow-ups and check-ins. Even if you trust your developers to handle the work, it pays to get regular updates.
Communication channels
Remote software development is possible in part due to the sheer number of communication options available to teams. You can email, assign tasks in a project management platform, instantly chat, video chat, conference call, or text to get a message across.
Much of your success will depend on your ability to utilize these channels effectively. For example, texts are great for short, one-sided communications or urgent matters, but conference calls and video calls are much better for extended discussions. Make sure your team members understand how to use each of these channels to their greatest advantage.
While you’re at it, avoid wasting time with unnecessary meetings and irrelevant communications. Cumulatively, unproductive meetings cost billions of dollars every year, and they can often be replaced with much cheaper, faster forms of communication.
Conflict resolution
Inevitably, conflicts will arise in your software development team. Working remotely, you won’t have the opportunity for a face-to-face resolution. Instead, you’ll need to employ a series of tactics to manage conflicts remotely. The first step is acknowledging a conflict has arisen, which may be difficult if you’re simply gauging the tone of a written email, rather than seeing the expressiveness in a person’s face.
From there, you need to take a proactive approach. Either party involved should take it upon themselves to address the conflict, explain the perceived grievance, and offer a suggestion on what could make it better. With everyone working together to resolve conflicts quickly, you should have little to no trouble resolving disputes.
Feedback and improvement
One of the most important elements in your approach to communication is gathering feedback and remaining willing to improve. Periodically (perhaps during regular employee performance reviews), take the time to listen to points of employee feedback, such as systems that could be improved or conflicts that could have been handled better. Use these as learning opportunities to improve your management approach.
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