Our world has truly changed over the last two years. Working from home or another location is rather the norm than an exception nowadays. It is a change from the traditional working model where people have to come to the office to do their work. A recent survey conducted by Wakefiled Research shows that 47% of employees would change jobs if their employer would not allow a flexible working arrangement.
When building and deploying software, several challenges arise when working with teams in a hybrid or remote environment. We have listed several tips below on how we worked with project teams:
People: Have a Social Contract in Place
To set up a work arrangement that works for your project team, speak to team members and ask for their input. By involving your team members, you can create a working model that keeps them motivated as you cater to their needs and requirements. We use a “Social Contract” to facilitate and establish a work arrangement. It can contain start times in the morning, break times, asynchronous working arrangements, and specific behaviours the team would like to adopt, such as team members voicing their opinions without interruptions or even fun activities like having a virtual lunch together every Friday.
At Tektor we believe that a ‘Social Contract’ is one of the foundation activities when working with teams. It improves collaboration and builds trust among team members.
Process: Access to Information
Working in a hybrid model can sometimes be challenging: team members who work remotely could miss out on important office conversations, or it is very challenging to see text or diagrams on a physical whiteboard in a meeting room when working remotely.
To ensure that every team members have the same access to information, we highly recommend a dedicated computer, microphone, headphones, and camera when talking to others – even when they are in the office. This ensures that everyone can hear and see the same information and team members are not ‘left out’ when working in a different location.
Tools: We recommend the following tools when working in a hybrid environment
Many tools can be used to improve collaboration amongst team members. Below is a list of tools that we believe work well:
- Miro or Mural – a Digital whiteboard to store project information
- Slack – an Instant Messenging tool
- Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams for Video Conferencing. Please ensure that you can record the meetings, this will allow you to share content with team members who might not be able to attend
- Atlassian’s Confluence page as a project documentation tool
- Atlassian’s Jira for capturing user stories, activities and requirements.
The hybrid model seems to become a more common approach to how team members will deliver projects and work items. Ensuring team members have a common approach to working together plus having the ‘right’ digital tools to help them in their work environment will ensure successful project delivery.
