How to work effectively as a remote project team

As we see a global shift to remote work during these uncertain times, for a lot of us, it’s business as (un)usual. Working remotely from your project teams can be very challenging as we all have different work and communication styles and preferences. So, what can we do to ensure we continue to feel connected with our team and communicate effectively to remain high performing?

Discuss your individual work preferences

Get everyone in the team to share their top three communication tips, based on how they prefer to work. An example of this would be "Please send me an agenda prior to meetings, set up a time to call me, send a summary of action points following our discussion". Keep these tips handy to refer to when getting in touch with different team members.

Define your purpose and set expectations

Make sure you have a clearly defined goal for each project so everyone in the team understands the purpose and direction. You could create a one-page summary outlining the objective, key features and project timelines. Make sure you assign a project owner to take charge of the project – this doesn’t need to be the person doing all the work, think of them as more of a ringleader.

Ensure everybody understands their responsibilities by adding their names and realistic deliverable dates against the tasks they are working on.

Evaluate your effectiveness

Set up regular check-ins with the team, whether this is a daily catch up or weekly/monthly meeting. During your catch-ups, make sure your timeframes are being achieved and you are reaching key milestones.

Referring to the Margerison-McCann Types of Work Wheel, ask your team whether all critical Types of Work are being completed and if not, what is missing and how can you address this?

Reward and recognise

Make sure you celebrate the hard work of your team and recognise their efforts along the way. Share positive feedback you receive with the whole team in a group chat or on a digital message board. You could send virtual kudos to individual team members, relating this back to your company values.

Once the project has been completed, you could shout the team lunch by sending them a meal via UberEats.

Remember, it’s all about effective communication

While remote working may currently be out of necessity and rather than choice, this is a great time to learn how to communicate best with your team.

If your organisation need assistance creating functional, high-performing remote teams, get in touch with TMS.