A Manager's guide to working Remote

When I was an individual contributor, working from home used to be fun and productive. Start your day early, avoid unnecessary meetings (less face time means more focus), take regular breaks, get all your grunt work done, end the day on a high. Working from home is that medicine that cures distractions and enables productivity.

But as a manager, it is exactly the opposite. With no team members to interact with and me not sitting among them, I don't get a sense of what is happening, what is blocking them, what is our progress, bunch of similar questions pop up. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to self-isolate and be productive within the four walls for our homes.

This adds a unique set of challenges to be a manager, especially if you have to be "productive". A Remote manager has to tread that thin line between being a micro manager and an unconcerned one. Too many pings or meeting means less maker's time for your team. No contact means no updates and heart burns later.

It took me a while to find the balance and here I list some practices followed in our team to stay connected and productive.

• Be more available: Letting your team know you are available for them goes a long way in establishing trust. #protip: setup a meet link or a zoom link. Let the team walk into the room like they would walk to your desk physically.
• Set meetings with a well defined agenda: Everyone will be moving across meetings throughout the day. A well defined agenda will definitely help decide on the need to take these meetings. After all every meeting is a context switch. Apply the law of 2 feet generously (the law of two feet states that if you are neither contributing nor learning, use your two feet to respectfully walk out)
• Have regular catchups that extend beyond catch ups: Everyone needs a little face time. After all this is their time to see each others faces too. #protip have a virtual coffee conversation with the team in regular intervals. Goes a long way in bonding.
• Define a call for help window: If anyone in the team is blocked for more than 30 minutes (depending on their role and complexity of the work), call for help. This helps resolve dependencies between teams faster. This also keeps you informed of the challenges faced.
• Profess the use of collaboration tools liberally: Maintaining a single source of truth and using that for all discussions helps reduce knowledge pockets and enables the right decision.
• Acknowledge the need for maker's time: Everyone needs contiguous time slots to work. Try and avoid non-contextual meetings during this time.
• Proactive prioritisation: If there are multiple pieces of work to be done, help the team proactively in prioritisation. Walk through various unknowns and help them the understand the end goal. This enables the team to pick items from the list and knock them off. This will also help team stay less dependent on you.

These are just pointers and there could be more. The lockdown defintely gaveme a different perspective to working from home and this will be a good lesson to follow even during regular times when working from home is a liberty and not a compulsion.