Quick Summary:
Remote work has become a trend in all industries, and companies constantly need a remote software development team to manage several projects. But handling remote workers can be challenging at times. The blog will help you know about the 21 best practices to manage remote teams and environments in a way that brings out the best productivity.
Operating with a remote software development team is a winning opportunity for startups, small businesses, and established enterprises. It has become such an advent that 82% of employers expect to allow remote work options.
Hiring remote developers has become more of a need than a trend as there are many benefits of hiring remote developers. Businesses have several projects in hand, which cannot be achieved solely by in-house teams. In addition, studies prove that companies could save up to $11,00 per employee annually by going partially remote.
Finding and hiring may not come as a challenge, but handling a software development team remotely often acts as a hurdle for businesses. On the one hand, remote work provides a productive environment for the employees working remotely; on the other hand, it leads to difficulty in coordination.
Looking for strategies for managing remote software developers? If yes, this article will help you discover the top ways to manage remote developers with ease.
Key Takeaways
- Communication is key. Make sure you are communicating clearly and regularly with your remote employees. This includes setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback, and using technology to your advantage.
- Build trust. It is important to build trust with your remote employees. This means being transparent, honest, and reliable.
- Create a strong company culture. Even though your remote employees are not physically present in the office, you can still create a strong company culture. This can be done by sharing company values, holding regular team meetings, and creating opportunities for employees to connect with each other.
- Be flexible. Things don't always go according to plan, so be prepared to be flexible and adaptable.
- Celebrate successes. It is important to celebrate successes, both big and small. This will help to keep your team motivated and engaged.
- Empower your team. Give your remote employees the autonomy and resources they need to do their jobs effectively.
Remote Software Development Team Trend
After realizing the need for remote workers and adopting this business model, a lot of other industries are now engaging themselves with the remote work culture.
Still, the exciting part is that the outsourcing/offshore software development/remote development trend started a long time ago than we can imagine. Also, if you closely analyze the facts and statistics released after 2016, the trend has thrived for the past couple of years.
And why not?
Working with remote teams offers a lot of perks. Some of them include filling the talent shortage gap, increasing productivity, reducing time to market, staffing flexibility, project management tools, etc. That’s how many small businesses survive in this competitive world.
So yes, if you are on the path to scaling up your business, working with remote team members can prove beneficial. You only have to know the process of remote team management well to make this business strategy a success.
Though there’s not much difference, many entrepreneurs get confused with the terms “remote team and distributed team”. Therefore, before moving ahead, it’s important to clear this confusion.
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Remote Team vs Distributed Team
Remote Team: A remote team is a small group of people having complementary skills that are dedicated to achieving one common goal. They share responsibilities to make the company outshine. Usually, a remote team is when you hire developers or software engineers from an offshore company, wherein the employees work from a physical office.
And most of the companies prefer working with different teams in different countries. Therefore, team members may belong to other races, cultures, and countries.
Distributed Teams: Such a team doesn’t have a physical office or headquarters to carry out their work. Instead, they are spread across various geographical locations and time zones. The distributed team may or may not consist of freelancers and has flexible working hours because of different time zones.
Recommended read: 6 Reasons to Stop Thinking about Freelance Developers!
21 Best Practices to Manage Remote Teams Effectively
Thanks to the Internet evolution, the world has become a global place where it has become easy to connect with each other and find software developers from around the world. Therefore, the concept of hiring a dedicated remote development team is fantastic as it is not limited to time or distance.
It’s like working with a team of developers from a different country on one project and completing it effectively. However, because every country has a different culture, it becomes challenging to grip employees and manage a remote team. And to produce quality work, you must work hard to gain your team’s trust and respect.
To give you more guidance, here are some tips for managing remote teams:
1. Standard Onboard System to Welcome Remote Employees
Hiring someone new to your team is always exciting as they bring new ideas and perspectives.
One of the primary objectives of an onboarding process is to assist new remote employees in acclimating to the expectations of the new work environment. This way, they can proceed comfortably and effectively in their respective roles.
The beginning days are very crucial for the team members. At that time, the remote staff learns and embraces the corporate culture.
Provide them with a Playbook.
As soon as you intend to set up an offshore development center, creating a few pages of the document will help your remote developers get started. They should be aware of what tools they will be working on, what resources are available, and what policies are in effect related to their tasks.
2. Systematic Work Environment for Team Members
Just because you are connected with remote team members and not meeting them doesn’t mean the team spirit won’t feel united. In an effort to make the office space more welcoming for the remote team, foster friendly feelings by encouraging individualism.
To have remote software team members combat the issues of isolation, keep the process as transparent as possible, and encourage leadership. You should have an excellent grasp of their relative strengths and weaknesses. For each remote developer you add, spend time getting to know them.
Discuss their goals, personalities, beliefs, and work habits. Make the business objectives clear, but not in a polite tone.
3. Hire a Remote Development Team
Instead of hiring freelancers that turn out to be costly in the long run, working with dedicated offshore developers is way better. There are various reasons to hire a remote development team, from productivity to diversity. Here are the major reasons:
- Reduce cost
- Increase employee engagement
- Boosts productivity
Recommended Read: Step-by-step Guide to Hire Remote Developers
4. Communication and Collaboration for Better Team Spirit
According to a Forbes report, 97% of employees believe a lack of alignment and sync within a team impacts the outcome.
Communication is all about prioritization. Unfortunately for managing developers, there are many communication pitfalls that can befall remote development teams. For example, without having the ability to have organic, in-person interactions, developers can easily fall victim to "out of sight, out of mind."
First of all, arrange and schedule meetings for the appropriate number of weekly formal “report-ins.” Second, set specific guidelines about the daily requirements of the remote development team.
Zoom, Slack, Google Calendar, Yammer, Skype, Google Drive, Jell, Jira, and Formstack are essential communication and collaborative tools that help strengthen your team, foster bonds, and produce great results.
If your offshore team or remote software development teams work in different time zones, ensure there is an overlapping period where everyone is working and