It’s no secret that we believe firmly in over communication as the standard here at Upstack. If you reach out to a remote team member and ask how it’s going, it can be a frustrating experience to get a generic response like, “good”.
A response like that is difficult to quantify and doesn’t really tell you much about how work on a project is actually going. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about micro-managing, this is simply about the fact that working in a remote team is different.
Imagine the ollowing scenarios:
Scenario 1:
Client to Developer: "Hey, how's it all going?"
Developer to Client: "Going good..."
<dead silence>
Scenario 2:
Client to Developer: "Hey, how's it all going?"
Developer to Client: “It’s going great! I’ve been working on x,y,z, it’s awesome, I’m stuck in the middle of some pretty complex stuff, but I’m really enjoying it.”
<wow - that just made my day a lot easier!>
You see, with just a bit of over-communicatons, you have a much clearer idea about where your project is and you have assurance that your developer is vested in that project’s success.
Taking this to the next level, something I am a big fan of is the following scenario. It's free and actually ends up saving time, it also makes working remote just a little bit more fun.
Scenario 3:
Your developer posts on slack, without you asking
Developer to Client: “Hey guys, just finished feature x,y,z for Project 1,2,3. Pretty interesting task, I had to deal with some pretty complex stuff and learned a new thing, a new approach to technology b. It was a lot of fun experimenting with it. I’d love you guys to check it out on QA and give me some feedback. I’ve moved the task into the appropriate status in Asana and we’re good to go. Peace out.”
And then the team can reply, “Awesome, great work!”, or post fun animated gifs to celebrate. I am not sure why, buy often team members are shy to show off what they are working on and other cool things going on in their world.
In an ideal world, a client should never have to ask how it’s going. You should be able to check slack, asana, and see how things are going at any given moment but a simple message goes a long way, even something like, “Hey loving this, working on this, experimenting with this, etc.” Over communication makes working with remote teams a completely different experience. Remember, it’s never about micro-managing, but effective communication within a remote team.
