{"id":1295,"date":"2012-11-07T17:32:15","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T01:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2012-11-07T17:32:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-08T01:32:15","slug":"the-10-commandments-for-remote-team-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/07\/the-10-commandments-for-remote-team-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 Commandments for Remote Team Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.” —
\nThomas Hobbes<\/p>\n

This is a list that I compiled during my time as a reluctant work at home coder and manager. I was working at an Ad Agency at the time and really wanted to be at the office. That was where the power to get ahead was; that was where all the invites to awesome parties later in the evening could be obtained. I was forced to work at home during the recession as part of a cost saving and political maneuver. Here are my 10 commandments for what I learned to keep my team together and in the groove for getting projects done and done well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Always have an IM status of when you will be available in 5 minutes or less, e.g. “Out to lunch until 1400 PST”.<\/li>\n
  2. IMs have to be answered in 5 minutes or less.<\/li>\n
  3. Use military time with a timezone.<\/li>\n
  4. Use flowdock<\/a> to track when items get finished and as a secondary back channel. Devops \/ Back-end people, anybody involved with 24\/7 support should use IRC.<\/li>\n
  5. Use basecamp<\/a> or pivotal<\/a> (depending on the complexity) for project management.<\/li>\n
  6. Have a daily meeting, no exceptions. I picked noon when working with West Coast and East Coast teams.<\/li>\n
  7. Do punish folks for missing meetings or being unavailable. This can be as simple as pointing it out. Or, in my case, as harsh as 3 strikes you’re out, but I don’t think this works as it did during the recession.<\/li>\n
  8. Do not punish anybody for over-communicating. This is the worst mistake ever. I’ve seen hotheads punish folks for over-communicating, and these hotheads spend the rest of their careers saying, “Why are you telling me this now the day of the deadline?”<\/li>\n
  9. Reward on-site visits lavishly. I used 2 hour lunches, long coffee breaks, and playing with the latest “toys.”<\/li>\n
  10. Meet for meals or drinks in person weekly. This is a really good gauge for if they love you or hate you, or don’t care.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I found this keeps everybody on point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “The condition of man… is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.” — Thomas Hobbes This is a list that I compiled during my time as a reluctant work at home coder and manager. I was working at an Ad Agency at the time and really wanted to be at the office. That was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-techbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codebelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}