With telecommuting becoming more popular throughout the technology world, many companies’ IT staff are located in different cities, different time zones – even on different continents! In an era of increased collaboration ushered in by Agile, DevOps and other modern project methodologies, managing these disparate teams is a challenge for many businesses. Keeping a remote team working efficiently and productively needs to be your goal.
Here are a few ideas on how successfully manage an IT staff working outside the office. Leverage these insights to ensure your projects get finished on time.
Project Planning Becomes Even More Necessary
Creating a detailed project plan and communicating it to your team is even more important when managing a remote staff. Everyone needs to understand their own responsibilities as well as those of their fellow team members. Most importantly, make sure the plan includes a meeting schedule – likely using video or phone conferencing – that is known by all.
Regular Meetings Are Vital
Speaking of a meeting schedule, getting together on a periodic basis is a must for remote projects. Daily meetings are essentially a requirement for Agile projects – Scrums still need to occur in the same fashion as when a team is in the same office. Closely follow each meeting’s agenda as to not waste the time of your valuable technology staff.
Leverage Chatbot Technology
Text messaging keeps your staff collaborating in an efficient manner. Try to take advantage of some of the more esoteric chatbot functionality, including the use of ChatOps. In addition to text-based communication, ChatOps is a technique allowing team members to run builds, automated tests and other functions using chatbots.
Chatbots offer the potential to make all IT teams – on-premise and remote – work more productively. It is especially a boon for a widely dispersed project staff.
Let the Communication Flow!
In addition to regular meetings, ensure the entire team keeps their communication channels open and flowing. This is another reason chatbots and ChatOps make sense for managing remote projects. Anytime a build fails, an automated test has errors or an important piece of technical infrastructure crashes, all team members receive a text message and are able to react to the problem using the chatbot.
In short, there is no reason a remote team can’t be as productive as one located in the same office.
When you need additional advice on building and managing a talented IT team, talk to the experts at Synerfac. As one of the top technology staffing agencies in Somerset, NJ, we provide great candidates able to contribute to your organization’s success. Schedule some time with us soon!
