From a co-located office to a distributed culture.

Do you know the saying: ‘Think globally, code locally’? That’s the secret to remote teams if you work with ones.

Every day I start my work day by opening a page with all offices we work with in different cities and time zones. Then I try to get the most out of time when we are all online.

Nowadays more and more companies work with remote teams globally. The companies grow rapidly and open new offices in various locations. The times when we were all working in the same office have passed. In fact, I have never worked with all my colleagues in the same office.

The ideal situation is when all teams are based in the same office but obviously, that’s usually not the case. So how about adjusting our internal processes, tools and communication channels in a way, they allow us to maximise the value we deliver as well as create real-life environment?

Here’s a list of my top 12 tips I recommend from the Scrum Master’s perspective which I use in my daily work and which I believe could help you as well:

    1. Implement global structure with the same processes so that every office is self-sufficient.
    2. Build rapport and make personal contact as much as possible.
    3. Do regular casual face time or video conferencing.
    4. Organise regular development workshops to share knowledge and best practice.
    5. Define the definition of done. What do you expect to be delivered and how?
    6. Custom your online communication tools such as: Jira, Trello etc. and stop using emails if possible.
    7. Use sharepoint, wiki, confluence or any other platform to share all up to date documents, guidelines, templates or any other relevant information
    8. Use boards visualising Work In Progress to see the progress, bottlenecks and remove any identified impediments.
    9. Distribute work evenly to keep balance across all teams.
    10. Communicate effectively and grow a consistent culture globally.
    11. Encourage every team member to be open and available.
    12. Embrace ‘we’ rather than ‘us vs. them’ culture.

Finally, remember every office is remote so all teams need to adapt and learn how to work together.