Coronavirus plan came down from on high today and mandated that anyone who does not need to be in the office to get their work done start working from home.
My group (about 10 people) is very much a "meet in person" team so this will be new to us.
We currently manage work through weekly planning meetings, daily check ins, a kanban board, and github. Lots of 1-1 and group meetings to talk through problems, review code, etc.
For communication tools, we have skype chat, conference call lines, and email.
What are the best practices we should get into to make this effective?
I previously worked at an "old-school" company where everyone on the team would work remote 2-3 times a week. We'd also collaborate closely.
One thing that we naturally did was pair off on projects, so on a given week (or month), two people on the team were working on closely related things. On days when we'd work remote, it was easy to switch to talking to your partner on video chat / slack /email. I found that coordinating with just one other person for most of the meetings is easier and more dynamic than trying to bring in everyone.
1. Communicate early and often.
You are so easily forgotten when remote, whether it’s on purpose or accident. Send lots of emails and slack messages throughout the day, even if they totally aren’t necessary. Most people’s thought of remote is “when I’m sick or lazy, I just say I’m working from home and take a day off”, by over-communicating you make them realize your situation is different
2. Set clear start and stop times.
When it’s your start time, sit down and open your laptop. When it’s your stop time, close your laptop and walk away. Every time. It’s too easy for work time to slowly bleed into life time, then you end up working 12 hour days with only 4 hours of output to show for it
3. Have a place to ‘focus’.
Everyone has different boundaries when it comes to normal work, but make sure you have an area that everyone understands you aren’t to be bothered unless the house is burning down. Doesn’t mean you don’t work where ever is comfy, just have a place you instinctually go that tells yourself and others “stuff just got real, I have to be heads down for a bit”