Create the framework conditions in the team and keep them understandable for everyone:
- How will you communicate?
- Which information must flow to whom and when?
- Which means of communication for which situation can be used?
- What are adequate response times?
- At what times do you have to be available?
- What is the feedback culture?
- How are conflicts resolved?
Communication in daily business
When does the working day for your team start? This may be taken for granted. This is the case when your team works in the same time zone. But if one part works in Asia and the other in Europe, you have to take this into account when planning.
In the first case, you can work as usual. Communication is synchronous. You hold a stand-up meeting in the morning, and everyone is up to date and if issues occur during the day, you can solve them promptly.
You do not have this in the second case, where most of the communication is asynchronous. To counteract this problem somewhat, you must define a time window in which everyone can be reached and communicate synchronously. Also, all meetings where the whole team has to be present have to be held in this time window.
Distance is not a question of distance
When was the last time you experienced blaming for situations that arose in the team? For a while, something like this can influence the mood among each other until an opportunity for discussion arises. In distributed teams, there are fewer such opportunities and so the physical distance is compounded by a perceived distance. Open communication can solve this.
How do you weld a team together over long distances? The best way, of course, is to let the whole team come together physically. However, this is not possible at present. So here too, the basic conditions need to be worked out together.
We can help you:
- To establish regular virtual meetings in the team, if possible, with video transmission.
- Hold daily video conferences, e.g. for the stand-up meeting
- Form pairings from different locations.
- Consider using an internal social network for sharing.
With good communication, you can do it
If your team works across several locations, you must create the right conditions in advance and ensure good quality communication between the team members.