August 19, 2020
It’s good to take a day off here and there. Not only to recharge your batteries but to see what your team is able to do in your absence. What do they pick up? What do they own? What gets dropped? What falls through the cracks? How many emails do you come back to needing an urgent reply? Where does the team need more support? In short, where are the gaps and what do you need to do to fill them in so you can find the new gaps.
August 18, 2020
Right now in 2020, there are more meetings happening in the world then have ever happened in the history of the world. Why? Because it’s the only medium we have left to talk with people. Or rather, it’s become the medium we default to when we need to talk to someone. We eschew random 5-minute calls because “we don’t want to interrupt someone” but a 30 minute pre-scheduled meeting won’t disrupt them? We’ve spent the last five months adjusting to working remotely, defaulting meetings that have all video streams firing consuming as much bandwidth as possible. It’s not perfect, but
August 14, 2020
When people work remotely, it becomes clear – immediately – who is leading the team and who is managing it. Managing a remote team is easy – you check the presence icon and make sure it’s green and work is being done in the ticket system. Leading a remote team is a whole other endeavour and involves checking in with the team, seeing how they are doing, inquiring as to whether they need help, encouraging communication with the team, trying to find new ways to keep things fresh and most importantly rekindling those moments and culture you had in the
August 13, 2020
When Agile works, it is because everyone is working towards it. It won’t work if you have one group using it and four others looking in and going – “oh that’s nice”. Does that mean you need to follow the agile manifesto to the letter? Never – pick what works and start from there. Regardless of what you pick and what you apply, it’s a mind shift and one that doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t need to get all those four other teams to use it as you are, but you do need to get them to buy into the
August 12, 2020
Season One of Remotely Prepared is almost in the books and it has been a great season. We are winding down with some fantastic content and great interviews. I would have liked to have published all the content in one day because it’s all so great. As we gear up for Season 2, we’re honing in on one singular topic that I think we’re all starting to deal with in a greater capacity and that is Remote Leadership. How do you lead through a camera? How do you motivate your team? How do you keep the going? How are you
