Factors for Managing Distributed Teams in Software Development
Corporations, for a good reason, are increasingly utilising distributed teams or remote teams to increase productivity and reduce costs. Many businesses are buckling the conventional business models where all their workers go to a physical office location on a regular basis. When the pandemic began, several organisations were forced to establish dispersed teams to survive out of utter necessity. Other businesses that used this approach have also changed their business models to fulfil their current needs and seen the benefits of doing so.
According to recent research more than 50% of those employed before the pandemic are now doing their jobs remotely compared to just 15% before the health crisis. Companies must be agile to survive and compete, which can be difficult.
The pandemic challenged the quest for skills retention along with technological advances and has produced a perfect storm that keeps the world’s leaders wondering at night if we should continue to incur the expenses of offices, rentals, facilities, cleaning, equipment, and office furniture. The new standard being ‘distributed teams’.
However, there are many challenges in managing ‘distributed teams in software development’. This article will describe the potential challenges and suggest solutions to overcome them effectively.
What do we mean by Distributed Teams?
Distributed teams are made up of two or more workers doing their job from various locations. Team members do not share the same work area or central geographical regions. They could work in multiple cities or even countries. Some team members work in the workplace, and others do so at home. Some team members may also be dispersed. The distributed teams consist of workers that operate remotely from all over the world and not centrally at a single office.
Roadblocks in the way of distributed teams and effective ways to overcome them
Time mismatch due to multiple time zones — Globally dispersed teams typically have people in different time zones. This implies a time overlap for productive meetings, especially for scattered groups far from each other in several time zones. Moreover, there is also a psychological side to the time zone mismatch. The team members can be based in various locations worldwide and hence across multiple time zones while managing a distributed team. This challenge is also crucial if the implementation is delayed.
Solution: Using software such as Google Calendar and Outlook, each member can set automatic meeting times. In this case, an additional practical tool is the Every Time Zone. The calendar and meeting times dependent on the availability of each team member are recommended. A great tip for us is that we always schedule a few minutes of casual talk to relax and develop confidence before the official part of the meeting.
Lack of one-on-one conversations — Whatever the teams work on, contact with each other is the most critical practice in a healthy working environment. It helps everyone to be on the ‘same page’ and follow the assignments, regardless of their location. But the absence of ‘real’ in-person contact requires the work of dispersed teams. This can make experiencing the energy a challenge, and reading colleagues feelings or body language more difficult. This can lead to incomprehension, a lack of confidence and even a lack of empathy in extreme cases, thus adversely affecting productivity.
Solution: We strongly support a work arrangement that specifies clearly and efficiently team contact procedures. Arranging and attending a conference together can strengthen the bond. It is essential to use many useful teamwork tools to mitigate the lack of face-to-face contact. Suppose it is immediate discussion, audio or video, all media should be built for unpredictable conversations and preferences. Teams will receive daily reports, suggestions, and assistance if appropriate. Slack, Skype, MS Teams, Zoom, and MeetinVR are some of the helpful tools companies will benefit from.
Challenge of cultural disparity — While cultural diversity is a valuable advantage for the project, it also leads to language and working culture problems. More fluent speakers in teams are more likely to speak and take the lead. Due to remote staff who are not working every day in the same physical environment, it can be challenging to make them feel as though they are part of the team — You need to do more to invest in culture.
Solution: Team leaders need to consider and inspire people with little faith to speak in the meetings. Another way to minimise these gaps is to make sure that written proof of project activities exists. More introverted team members are also allowed to express thoughts. Turning the conventional “come to the HQ model” by inviting team members originally from the head office to visit satellite offices for activities.
Chat about activities that take place outside of the workplace in the first 10 minutes of meetings, is an excellent way to build trust and relationships and to check how the individuals in your team operate. Finally, it takes a moment for everyone to let their hair down once in a while. Emoji reactions will help people communicate, and the various platforms you create can help your team and your organisation grow their culture further.
Transparency issues — One of the most significant challenges of managing a dispersed team is to ensure that all workers complete the business schedule effectively and meet the organisations’ expectations. Some remote team members could not use their time as wisely without day-to-day monitoring in a dispersed work environment. Furthermore, inadequate communication, insufficient measurable targets, and accountability problems will affect your teams’ effectiveness. Since workers cannot be seen in their workplaces, there could be little accountability and a lack of confidence among team members.
Solution: Try using a Time Tracker like the Timing app to help workers effectively monitor their working time and increase working transparency. Timing analyses machine operations and produces insights into how time is spent studying them. It’s also possible to export the data from the app into invoices.
Less efficient coordination and implementation of projects — The less effective management and execution of projects is another obstacle for the activity of a distributed team. It may be caused by the surroundings of the team members or different disturbances at various sites. Regardless of the reasons behind this, the lack of concentration, less productive work, and therefore unnecessary delay or postponement of project completion could be costly.
Solution: The avoidance of such a situation needs to be minimal. First of all, team members should create timeframes to assess their success and achieve their goals. To do just that, there are many useful resources like Time Doctor and Toggl. Another way to keep dispersed teams efficient is to create clear goals for the position and review progress periodically. Regular scrum meetings are popular to encourage efficiency, openness, and cooperation. Every day the team has an informal group check-in, which holds everyone responsible for their regular activities and continuing projects, which works well for us.
Issues of product delivery — The demand delivery process can be complicated if the design/requirements team is dispersed. This is because the teams have broad and challenging to read design requirements. The distributed team members can lose track of designs and contexts if features and functions are distributed through a channel.
Solution: The specifications can be examined and sent as storyboards to the convenient story-sized parts, and therefore the issue of distribution of requirements for dispersed teams can be resolved.
Trust issues — Lack of trust can also be a significant challenge. It’s not always easy to check that members in the remote group are working well. As the distributed team members belong to different geographical locations and do their jobs from home locations, so, it can become a challenging area for managers.
Solution: To boost trust in the remote team, the manager should define the proper guidelines in a straightforward, written form to work effectively. These instructions may contain which meetings every team participant should attend, the time frame to respond to problems, and how many hours every team member must be online as well as any other specific expectations.
Difficulty in keeping track of the tasks — Another issue related to distributed teams for software development is that it becomes complicated to maintain a track record of all the tasks and determine an individual projects’ progress. As team members are distributed worldwide and lack effective communication, challenges in keeping all the remote members of the team on the ‘same page’ can arise.
Solution: The remote teams must promptly utilise the tools to promptly keep track and record all the tasks and project progress. This way, it will be convenient to predict the risks and issues that could hamper the projects’ realisation. Project management tools must be part and parcel of managing distributed teams.
Lack of supervision — In a dispersed team, managers cannot just ‘pop over’ to their employees desk to see how work is progressing or respond to questions opportunistically. Written correspondence can be much easier to misunderstand and less rich in email and text than face-to-face experiences. We are all aware that three or four emails may be needed to explain what a few minutes in a meeting will take.
Solution: For software development teams, one countermeasure is to appoint partners to communicate periodically and help others solve their problems. Using wikis also to track questions and responses.
Challenge of connectivity in teams — Business culture and employee links suffer first and foremost in remote teams. Because there is less face to face contact with each other, it can be a challenge to share information and immerse workers in its atmosphere.
Consider these best practices to prevent the scenario where team members feel out-of-touch:
Build a centralised information foundation — Maintain all required tools, legal documentation, and workflows in hand to prevent remote workers from starting long talks and waiting for assistance if necessary, and from quickly becoming aware of internal regulations and customs.
Build rituals that bring people together — Traditions build a sense of community and team cohesion.
Motivate workers to work together — “Us vs. Them” is a common challenge with remote teams, so you need to keep an eye on and promote effective teamwork. You have to work together. Encourage the team members to seek support, share their concerns, and take action as they see fit.
Request feedback — Surveys and feedback forms allow you to determine your employees levels of engagement and emotional status. Don’t forget to implement the most recommended tasks after receiving feedback, so your team knows you’re involved.
Conclusion
Software teams working together and seeing each other every day cannot be replaced. But a few best practices, taken together and done regularly, as mentioned above, will strengthen your distributed teams.
We are in a new world of bravery. Nobody has all the answers. The study, best practices, and best technologies are still evolving for distributed teams. However, the best information available suggests, if businesses implement some simple steps, that remote teamwork will improve.
Communicating more frequently at short one-to-one meetings, creating a strategy paper, taking every chance to enhance the companies culture. Creating more social contact opportunities, and utilising communication technologies to minimise ‘zoom’ fatigue will all help manage remote teams. These activities will maintain the efficiency gains that many companies have achieved over the long term.
