How to Work with Remote Teams

The rising popularity of remote work and working with remote partners has increased significantly since the pandemic. Yet, some people are still skeptical about it. Let’s take a closer look at how to work with remote teams.

Here are the main pieces of advice on how to work with remote teams:

• Use task management tools
• Build trust with your partner
• Focus on effective and assertive communication
• Have regular meetings with the team
• Set expectations for the overall project
• Embrace cultural differences and other points of view

Although there are many other aspects that could be taken into account, these are the main tips we use and give to our partners! If you want to discover everything you need to know about working with a remote software team, keep on reading!

Use task management tools

When you work with remote teams, you need a way to follow the work they are doing effectively. You will not ask every 10 minutes what your team is doing. Instead, there will be asynchronous communication through task management tools!

At Bixlabs, we use ClickUp, and we give our partners full access to our dashboards. That way, our partner can be on top of the work and have a better understanding of the progress.

Without task management tools and full transparency on the work, you could become anxious and not quite understand the stage of your project. Task management tools help control anxiety and expectations.

Build trust with your partner

Trusting your partner is one of the keys to having a successful remote partnership. If you don’t trust the people you have hired to work with you, why even hire them?

When you trust each other, there’s a better chance for success. Communication flows naturally and ideas are shared without fear. In this environment, the best projects and product ideas can thrive.

You don’t want to feel you are being wrongfully second-guessed or that the partner is losing time on purpose just to charge you more at the end of the day. If this situation happens, you will have a stressful time when creating your product.

Try building trust and getting to know your partner in order to have better communication and thus better results.

Focus on effective and assertive communication

You need to work with people who can communicate. When you work with a partner remotely, this need increases. Communication needs to be fluent between all parts included, and you need to have a strong point of contact in order to feel reassured.

At Bixlabs, we like to include our partners in our Slack channels in order to have a better flow of communication. Email can sometimes be a bit slow, and having a direct messaging platform at the disposal of our partners has proven to be a nice way to keep in touch.

If you cannot communicate timely with your partners, or if the communication is neither effective nor assertive, chances are that the project will fail. Even if the team is as talented as it gets, you need strong communication skills for a project to succeed.

Have regular meetings with the team

One way to feel reassured and have a better understanding of where your project stands is to have regular meetings with the team. This subject also relates to the previous one. You need good communication with your team.

When you have regular meetings, you can set expectations, see the progress, and provide feedback when needed. At Bixlabs, we like to include our partners in different types of meeting to have a more integral exchange of information.

We start the week with a planning meeting where you are briefed about the tasks that will be completed during the week. That way, you understand the organization of the work. We also have retro meetings where you can express any uncertainties or discomfort you may have.

If your partner doesn’t offer regular meetings and prefers to stay in the dark, you will not feel as comfortable. You need to create a relationship with your partner in order to reach success, and the best way to do that is through synchronous communication.

Set expectations for the overall project

Imagine you want a cheeseburger with fries and coke but the person taking the order misinterpreted your order. When you receive your food, it is something completely different and you are upset.

Well, this example is a simplified version of what happens when there are misinterpretations in software development. You think the outcome will be one thing and your team has a completely different way to see it.

One of the main reasons for failure when developing a digital product with a partner is misalignment with expectations. You and your partner need to be on the same page regarding times, functionalities, budget, and more.

Once again, communication and well-refined processes are going to be key to reaching a state of full understanding. If you are not able to agree and compromise, the digital product will not satisfy your expectations, and you will feel everything was a loss of time and money.

Embrace cultural differences and other points of view

Teamwork always involves differences. Different points of view, different ways of thinking, and different angles from which to see a problem. If you are lucky enough, it will also involve cultural differences!

Although it may sound daring to some people, having a multicultural team is one of the most efficient ways to have creativity in your project. When you have partners from different cultures, you can have new ideas and new solutions added to your digital product.

Embracing cultural diversity will allow you to partner with the best talents of more than one place. If the world is so big, why would you corner yourself into looking for partners only in the vicinity? 

Your project will enrich by the different perspectives your partner will bring to the table, helping you reach success. 

Wrapping Up

Working with remote partners and teams can be a wonderful experience and an effective way to reach success with your project. However, choosing your partner wisely will impact the outcome.

Look for a partner that can offer you the elements you have just read and you will increase your chances of success!

Why Bixlabs?

Bixlabs is a software development company with over 8 years of experience providing individual devs as well as ready-to-work teams for startups and large companies. If you have a project and want to start right away, we are the solution you’ve been looking for.

Want to know more about how we can help you reach success? Schedule a call now!