✦Remote work · 12 records · for a shared workspaceRun a remote team

Most remote teams are co-located teams with the room removed, which is the worst of both. This changes the defaults deliberately: written first, meetings for the things that need a room, and the informal contact that used to be free made explicit.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

A remote team that works better than the office did Month 3

Written by default, meeting on purpose, contact made deliberate.

Change the defaults Week 6

Written first. A decision made only on a call was not communicated.

  • Decide where decisions get written down, and say soDo firstDay 7
  • Write down the working agreements: hours, response times, noticeDo firstWeek 3
  • Move status updates out of meetings and into writingWeek 6

Replace what was free Month 3

Context, quick questions, noticing somebody is struggling.

  • Give somebody the job of noticing who has gone quietDo firstWeek 7
  • Set up somewhere for conversation that is not workMonth 2
  • Plan the one or two times a year everybody is in a roomMonth 3

Routines

  • Written weekly updateweekly
  • One-to-onesweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Not an office with the room removed

The things that break first are the ones that used to be free: overhearing context, asking a quick question, knowing somebody is struggling. None survive the move on their own.\n\nSo each becomes somebody's explicit job. That feels heavy-handed, and it is the difference between a remote team and a co-located team missing a building.

✦ Questions

Run a remote team, answered.

The things that used to be free — overhearing context, asking a quick question, knowing somebody is struggling. None of them survive the move on their own, and the plan makes each one somebody's explicit job.
Decisions and context, always. A decision that exists only in a call has effectively not been communicated to anybody who was not on it, which on a remote team is most people and later includes everybody who joins.
Fewer, but more deliberate ones. The instinct is to replace lost contact with more calls, which produces a calendar that makes focused work impossible — the fix is written defaults plus a small number of meetings that genuinely need to be live.
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