How do you manage web developers remotely?

Question

I am the leader of a small group of website developers, and I have a feeling that we will soon come to a team with several employees (both new employees and existing employees who will start remote work). Any idea how to effectively manage and collaborate with developers working remotely?

Most of the work we do is customer oriented. In any case, we are developing flexible development (or our version), but since it mainly works with clients, we cannot assign a function to the developer and establish that they lose for a week or two, as we could with a desktop application or something that kind of thing. The biggest problem that we encounter when people occasionally work from home is cooperation — it is difficult to work together without a board and manual scope.

Software development seems to be ideal for telecommuting, but I have not been able to find many good resources for the practical aspects of working remotely in a development team. Has anyone else had experience with this?

Answer 1

I do a lot of freelance work and at the same time I work remotely a lot of time. This is what makes my life as simple as possible (this may be the things that you want to "offer"). I think they are mostly sane, but you never know ...

• [All] Communicate well. When you talk face to face, you can be detailed and explain things in a round robin. When you are limited to email, IM, and phone, all parties should explain themselves fully, but briefly. I find that summarizing long emails in requests / actions indicates that doing well.

• [All] Have an online space for tracking projects. Most of them, as a rule, use a ticket system or some kind of description where participants can be assigned action points. It would be embarrassing to use the same space to track emails and exchange ideas on the whiteboard. Most online project applications enable this by default.

• [Management] Do not pester developers. If you need something urgently, set the ticket status, give them a call and chase them later that day. Half-hour emails asking, "is it done yet?" more harm than good!

• [Management] Make sure messages are sent together. If the developer says that "someone needs to do something," it is your job to make sure that the message is sent to the right person. There are a few things that are more annoying than sending a message to the project manager so that they accidentally sit on it. I do not want to pursue such things, because this, frankly, is not what they pay me for.

• [Management] Make sure people have something to do. If you send them home without having in your task list that they can act immediately, they are not going to make an effort. The damn look is harder to keep yourself productive at home than in the office when you have little or nothing you can do. You may need to manipulate tasks if there is a blocker.

Answer 2

I work at home full time. This is what helps my small team (6 people).

Configure rules for using IM. For example, allow remote workers to block time so as not to be interrupted by email or chat. Require employees to keep their status up to date (IM, Yammer, etc.), which helps to keep them accountable to stay on task. Stay in touch without being distracted.

Meet, if possible, from time to time. Nothing can replace a personal meeting. Skype is suitable for group meetings, but not if boards are involved.

Use SharedView or another screen sharing program for collaboration. Screenshots / screenshots are also useful so that both sides are on the same page.

Answer 3

"Any idea how to effectively manage and collaborate with developers working remotely?"

What does effective mean? I can be negative and I suppose that means "with me, the project manager who controls everything." I can be positive and suggest that you want people to be as effective as possible.

Sometimes “effective” is a manual that says “under my control”. Or it means "do not screw on."

The question is then, "effectively doing what?" Effectively, the “work” is rather vague. Hence my jump to the dark side of project management. [Which, I admit, is probably wrong. But without specific performance issues in the group, the question has no answer.]

"It's hard to work together without a board and manual scope." It sometimes happens, there are many replacements. "Hand-waving" over the Internet is slower and more thorough.

The group - having fun thinking on the board - is a kind of party. However, for some of us this is not very productive. I need hours to digest and consider alternatives; I am actually not effective in a group board environment.

I find it more efficient to use alternative “slow” board technologies. I like it when I see an idea project. Comment on this. Clarify this. Very similar to Wiki or Stackoverflow. I really like the RFC Internet model - here is my idea; comment on this. When there is no improvement, it is as good as it will be.

Answer 4

I work in Mississippi, and my home office is in Michigan. I enjoy spending a couple of hours a day with the help of my team. The tools I use are:

• Sharedview
• Deskop Remote Support
• Live meeting
• Oovoo
• Skype

Depending on who and how much will depend on the tool used.

"Use the right tool for the job and invest in a damn good headset." - I AM.

Answer 5

I usually used some community-based time, such as a wiki, blog, or forum to handle areas of documentation. We also have a Cisco telephone system and some system features. I would also recommend a live meeting or webex to make frequent team meetings. Skype and IM clients such as Live Messenger are also good tools. For short status updates, Twitter does the trick.

Answer 6

Check out Agile Scrum methodology with VSTS. Scrum makes us have daily 15-minute meetings and small sweet stones. It provides effective compatibility and close communication. Make sure you use Task, Bug, etc. Via VSTS

Answer 7

I agree with John Sheehan's answer. I am a consultant and manage other consultants - both on a project basis (both PM) and on a client basis within the framework of projects. I worked with developers exclusively on a remote basis, as well as remotely (which means most of the time when we are together). Working remotely is a matter of trust and communication. Co-hosting is better, but if you work remotely, just create a culture of frequent messaging. IM and phone are great for this, email less. If you have less than a communicative employee, it's up to you how the manager contacted. Request status. Enter the code often to verify the code.

[EDIT] - Yes, don't pester and don't expect! Be clear and concise.

Answer 8

First of all, use scrum (daily scrum calls, scrum board w / burndown chart (wikis do an excellent job there), sprint iteration, etc.). Along with this, tools are used that facilitate interaction remotely, like Skype and VNC (perhaps a bonfire?) And a wiki. I worked for 2 years in a project with people in 3 countries on two continents and in different time zones, and it worked quite well. The key has tools and methodologies that make it difficult for people to “hide” so that everything that you and your team do is visible.

Answer 9

I find a clear connection, and staying on task is more difficult with virtual teams. I am trying to use regular scheduled update meetings (via phone or video conferencing) with a written agenda to help resolve these issues.

The list on the agenda contains milestones and upcoming milestones. The first element always “checks the course”, each member of the team simply updates us when they expect the completion of specific tasks. We try not to interfere in the long stories here. It’s just “what are you going to do and when.”

Once a progress check has been completed with any other issues raised during the past week, and with any issues that the team has, it can be sorted out while you are in the meeting. Everything that was allowed (for example, new questions raised) should be asked: "Who needs to sort this and when."

Once you establish a common format for the meeting, you can do this weekly after 30-45 minutes with teams of 5-8 people. Keep it short and sweet, so it is not considered as an overlay. Keep it focused on action and schedule to make it valuable.

Answer 10

I am currently the prime minister of a smaller project that has two developers (me and another developer who works outside the office). We are currently holding SCRUM daily meetings that last about 15 minutes. We discuss what was done last week, what problems arose and what I can do to help with these problems, and what will be done tomorrow.

They are pretty quick and seemed very helpful.