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Sending your developers to work remotely is half the trouble. The question is: how to work with them later? Find 15 recommendations in our article that will help businesses get the most out of such cooperation.

Removing developers from the office is a profitable, common solution for businesses. Companies partially or almost completely transfer specialists from the staff to remote work or, in general, look for workers for such types of work from the very beginning.

Removal website development service from the office is especially popular in the IT sector, where the professional qualities of developers are more important than their personal presence in the business center. Moreover, specialists can be from different cities or countries, which makes it problematic to organize their simultaneous stay somewhere.

And herein lies the first difficulty.



Selecting communication channels
Important point: It is necessary not only to invest in providing this opportunity, but also to independently instill a culture of collective meetings (calls), and also to participate (or find a good product manager) in team discussions.

1. The first thing you need to do is start using a task manager . One of the most popular is Jira, but this is more of a recommendation than a mandatory software for everyone.

It's best if the developers also include important details in the cards. For example, difficulties or reasons for delays. The more information the rest of the team has, the lower the chance that someone will misunderstand the situation.

2. For the same reason, it is recommended to choose chats or other group channels for communication, rather than private dialogues in social networks or messengers . Another important point is timely notification of problems.

This is especially true for teams whose developers are in different time zones. Don't be afraid to write about difficulties at any time. If a person is resting, he can turn off the sound so as not to be distracted. And someone can help and advise even on their day off, which will save the team's time in the future.

A good option is to create a step-by-step notification system. For this, you can use, for example, the free Opsgenie tool. If a bug is found or something crashes, the responsible developer receives a notification. If there is no response within 5-10 minutes, the same notification is sent to the entire team.

Let's say nothing is fixed within 15-20 minutes, a call is made to the product manager's phone. Half an hour later - to the manager (if the problem remains, of course). Each stage is automated.

Important point. Such a system must necessarily take into account the priority of the problem. If it is not urgent, do not disturb the developer before the start of his working day. In the case when something important has crashed (especially before or after the release) - you can write and call even at night.

And also, ideally, it is necessary to allocate at least 4 hours when the team will be online in full force. To do this, you need to find a time zone that is more or less convenient for everyone and agree with the participants in advance.

Regular discussions of results
Necessary. This not only streamlines the work process, but also gives the team a complete picture of what is happening with the product, which is important when working remotely.

3. Make daily calls to monitor the work of the manager (or product manager), as well as to exchange information about the processes . Ask everything: how things are going, were there any problems, are there any ideas, is there anything that worries the team members, etc. Ask open questions, i.e. those that the developers will not be able to answer with monosyllables or just “yes, no”.

Include an analyst in your conversations. Developers should always be aware of how users perceive the product, what people like and don’t like, what points need to be edited, optimized, or removed altogether.

4. Discuss possible plans for tomorrow . Try to rationally distribute the work in advance so that the team does not waste time on it in the morning (especially if people live in very different time zones).

Organization within the team
One of the most difficult moments, as it requires constant presence, demonstration of leadership skills and psychological work with specialists of different characters (and sometimes mentalities).

5. Make sure that micro-groups do not form within the team . This is detrimental to the overall cause, although it seems quite convenient at first. Especially if developers are grouped by time zones or specialization. The problem is that others may not receive enough information about the work processes or lag behind the group where the professionals are united.

6. If developers do start to form groups and you are unable to stop it, suggest that they occasionally swap pairs or representatives of their mini-teams .

Asynchronous group programming will not only help keep all developers on the same page, but will also allow them to learn new things, share relevant experiences, and get to know their colleagues better.

Remember that there is a difference between a team and a group. A team is in a common field, and its members have a single goal that all employees are aware of and try to achieve collectively. Team members complement each other and feel responsible not only for themselves, but also for others.

People are involved and trust each other. This allows them to talk even about complex professional topics, admit their mistakes and talk about incompetence in some matters openly.

In the process of working in a team, employees do not hold on to conditional leadership, but easily pass it on to others for the benefit of the common goal. At the same time, the main leader of the team is not identified, although technically he is present and performs his functions (however, decisions are ultimately made by all team members).

Emotional work with the team
It will help to avoid problems "out of nowhere".
To do this, you need to follow at least two simple recommendations.

7. Let the developers talk. Yes, of course, you shouldn’t drag out group calls, but if you see that one of the participants is able to share important knowledge about the product or area, let him pass on this information , or better yet, ask questions yourself.

8. Don't be shy about celebrating. Remind your developers that they're doing great when they really are . This can be done at the end of a call, during newsletters, or when commenting on cards.

Everyone will be pleased to hear praise and gratitude for the work done. This will have a positive effect not only on the loyalty of the specialist, but also on the general fighting spirit. The main thing is to praise for the cause. Everyone equally.

If you see potential for growth in a developer, help them develop. Implement an improvement in the team that will ensure greater team cohesion and productivity. This way, not just one specialist, but maybe someone else, will be able to fully develop.

Technical work with the team
Requires the manager, team lead or product manager to have at least basic knowledge in the field of development. This is not always easy to organize, but without following the following five points, the risk of not getting everything done on time (as well as the risk of post-release problems with the product) increases sharply.

9. Validate the code even if the changes in it are small . Ideally, you should do this yourself, or, in extreme cases, you can assign it to a full-time employee. For example, a team leader, project manager, product manager, etc. This is a preventative measure against possible problems inside and outside the team (refactoring after handing over the project to the client).

10. Adhere to standards. For example, PSR . This is necessary to scale resources, as well as to quickly and easily connect (or replace) team members.

11. Distribute the workload rationally . Let everyone work in the direction they are good at. In order to know the right vectors, talk to developers before hiring and give them test tasks in the directions indicated in the resume.

12. Perform automated tests . At least on all critical functionality of large projects (you can involve other organizations or outsourced testers). You can read about how to properly conduct QA testing here .

13. Use checklists . This is a preventative measure against the risk of time and financial losses. Checklists will allow you to check whether the team has completed all the tasks accurately and how well it has done so.

Immersion in work and retention of specialists
The last two aspects are not obvious, but they are very important when working with remote specialists. Their implementation is a contribution to the future: the security and financial stability of the company in the future.

14. It is necessary to control not only the decisions and work process of the team, but also the technologies they use . This is necessary so that the company can refine the product or optimize it independently if the specialist refuses further cooperation.

It is important to understand how a particular system is implemented.
This will allow you to avoid wasting time and money on its analysis in the future.

15. Try to keep the employee as long as possible . It's not just that finding a good specialist takes time and costs a lot of money. It can simply ruin a project. Imagine that you are counting on a certain person, and he refuses to cooperate. At the same time, the contract with the customer has already been signed.

Besides, not all people are conscientious. Together with the developer, the company loses knowledge about internal technologies, product, work processes, etc., which can be used by competitors.

To prevent specialists from running away from their employer, they need to be provided with:

comfortable working conditions;
pleasant psychological microclimate in the team;
the opportunity to grow, learn and develop;
adequate wages for the modern IT market.
Another option to develop something without employees in the office is outsourcing. By the way, read about the pros and cons of this system of work here .
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