The reality of modern business is that many of our teams are not co-located. In some cases this is because we live and work in different locations; however, it can also be due to flexible work arrangements that help us balance our lives. This series covers the trade-offs we make to build active, efficient and engaged teams across the divide of location and time.

Tip # 9 Record events for sharing

Few things build a team like sharing an experience. Unfortunately, it can be hard to get everyone together at the same time – let alone the same space. Whilst it might sound obvious to record events, it is something which is still rarely done.

What to record?

Showcases

The Showcase aims to get everyone together at the same time, even via video. Keeping the immediacy of the event drives attendance. However, where team members, or key stakeholder, cannot be present for structural reasons (time zones, leave, immovable schedule clashes) recording has high value.

Cross-team planning sessions

Some large-scale (e.g. cross team or quarterly) planning sessions may have outcomes where a stakeholder is scheduled to share their views on a topic impacting the team, such as overall goals or business value. Recording and sharing these insights and other relevant introduction and wrap up statements has high alignment value.

“Town Hall” alignment sessions

Hearing stories about issues that impact the whole team together, contribute to collective identity and build alignment. Seeing facial expressions, body language and hearing a presenter’s voice, conveys more information than an email or intranet update. In some cases, being witness to storytelling leads to new meta-stories: stories about how passionate, excited, or perhaps disappointed someone was. Recording these sessions when everyone cannot attend, provides the ability for someone working part-time, or remotely to catch up on both what was said, and how – to connect with the work and the culture.

What should we not record?

Team, content, retrospective and frequent discussions

Outcomes of regular, short discussions and ceremonies can effectively be communicated by updating a web page, distributing minutes or making a phone call. Any absent team members will be seeking summary information like an overview or a list of outcomes. Watching a real-time dialogue would have little value to them.

What to consider with recordings?

Even a smartphone can be a great tool to capture and edit a session. If you miss out on the live recording, perhaps record a brief message recapping the highlights for those who were not present.

Get the video and sound right.

Often the decision to use video to stream, or record a session, is made with little inclusion or agreement with presenters. This provides little opportunity for them to consider how to adjust their behaviour to cater to the video. Engage with the presenters early to let them know your plans and discuss how best to capture them on video as they present in the room. Talk about where the microphones are and where to stand – a taped “X” on the floor is a great way to help presenters be in the frame, roaming microphones help capture the different voice levels.

It is essential that the sound quality is good enough to understand who is talking and what they are saying. Test the audio before the session. A clear recording can bring a team together, a poor quality recording is a source of frustration and can lead to remote team members feeling even more left out.

After the recording, edit and share

To watch a presentation in real-time, takes real time!

With video, less is more, if a video is going to be seen by multiple people or viewed repeatedly, take the time to do at least some basic editing. Simple edits like starting and stopping the video, capturing only the interesting parts, lets viewers access the message and experience quickly. The longer a session, the more critical editing is.

• Consider putting the video on a streaming application, apply security where needed and share the links widely throughout the team
• Ask for feedback
• Check the view counts

If it is not being watched find out why. It could be an indication of poor content or deeper engagement or workload issues within the team. Either way, you will gain useful information for action.

What happens when we don’t record?

Team members who are not included in live communications, or don’t get to experience stakeholder feedback, will not be up to date. Excluding these people, even passively, sends a message that everyone else is OK with them not knowing what is going on in the team or how their work is being accepted.

Any information passed on “second hand” is done so with an interpretive layer. The listener loses the ability to put their own interpretation on the original messaging. By contrast, gathering people to hear the same thing at the same time has power in aligning people with a singular message, a consistent voice.

It’s a wrap!

Have some fun, large groups are likely to have a budding director or someone who loves to share their technical prowess. Accept that the first few attempts recording will be clunky and welcome the inevitable issues as learning opportunities. Sharing the reasons why you are recording, that you want to include everyone in what is going on will be appreciated.

The reality of modern business is that many of our teams spread across locations and timezones. In some cases this is because we live and work in different offices; however, it can also be because due to flexible work arrangements which help us balance our lives.

This series covers the trade-offs we make to build active, efficient and engaged teams across the divide of location and time.

Tip # 10 Remote First Culture

The feeling of separation is similar regardless of whether people are working from home, from another building or another country. Taking steps to enable connectivity and inclusion across the whole team, will help. Remote first culture is a good step in bringing your dispersed and even local team together. These ideas are not unique to dispersed teams and can help to coordinate busy people, even when located together.

These are not novel ideas, it’s just good management.

What makes a Remote First Culture?

No one is remote; there is no “home” location

Thinking in terms of a Home location instils an attitude that including others is an additional overhead. Language often creates this concept by indicating that the team has a central, home, or head office and any other team member is a spoke to their hub. This can lead to a Us and Them way of thinking.

In teams which have a “Us and Them”, the “Us” is considered valid, the “Them” considered invalid outsiders, who by definition are not to be immediately trusted. This situation pressures each group to reassert competence and validity with every interaction. The more we remove barriers, the more we build trust and become one team who consider each other worthy of each other’s time.

Switching to thinking of Home as being your team, not a location, normalises considering the inclusion of others outside your own office.

All meetings are designed around people not being in the same room

While the opportunity to have impromptu meetings is great, we often lose time by not considering meeting objectives. The effort and time taken to schedule a meeting that includes remote team members, notifying of time and sharing an agenda, is returned through productive discussions.

A change occurs when team members move from, organising to include remote people as an exception, to including as standard practice. People go from exerting energy figuring out how to include everyone, to doing so incorporating effortlessly. The awkwardness associated with the connecting infrequently – wasting time due to people dropping in and out, technical issues with presentations and equipment – dissipates through practice.

People consider everyone’s schedules and local time by reflex

You expect me to be in a meeting at 9pm???? No I don’t, I didn’t think…

It is easy to consider other people’s time zones and working arrangements, however it requires consideration to become a habit. A remote first team has a good understanding of when people work, and what time of day works best for which discussions.

There are three ways that people can build this into their daily behaviour.

• Document who works when on what day – put it on a wall in each location. Some low-tech solutions are highly effective with little effort to use.
• Update your tools to include time zones – most calendar apps can have multiple time zones. Get individuals to show when they are unavailable – this can consist of where people start or finish at different times. The result is that any free time is available for booking. Don’t leave your teammates guessing!
• Get together at least once daily – quickly confirm when a good time for side conversations. It provides a constant heartbeat of communication and alignment of who is in/ out.

Technology is used in a consistent and agreed manner

How many times have you attempted to join a meeting or discussion with people at another location and not been sure how you were going to connect? Is it a voice call? A video call? What software are we using?

How often have you heard people saying,  they don’t know the setting on their computer to get their microphone or video working. Meeting rooms where people are gesticulating wildly, indicating they can’t hear you or asking if you can hear them.

• Put time aside to sort it issues out out, no one can problem solve when rushing for a meeting. The issues preventing connectivity are real and will not resolve without effort.
• It could be a setting on an individual piece of equipment, other times it may be that the equipment is not capable of what you want it to do – understanding this enables you to put energy into looking at other options.
• Agree how you will meet as a team and get it working. If an individual has issues, making them feel like they are less capable will not resolve the problem. Spend 20 minutes understanding their issue – there usually is one – it will be saved in the first week or two of regular catch ups.

What makes Remote First Culture work?

• Take actions to organise yourselves – agree and practice how to communicate across space and time.
• Adopt a collective mindset about being a team, in for the long haul – see making a phone call or posting a message as a way of collaborating, not an overhead.
• Work in a way where everyone’s voice is valued is sought – embrace the flexibility which a Remote First Culture provides everyone.