Coronavirus Effects on Working Remotely
When the pandemic caused a shutdown during the spring of 2020, some agile teams were well-equipped to work remotely while others struggled. While we thought remote working would be a temporary solution, it appears it's going to be the new norm for quite some time.
Our agile community had a great conversation about the effects of working remotely and how organizations who were unequipped could quickly pivot.
How to Handle Sudden Office Shutdowns
A member from Southern California wrote in early March how his office was suddenly shutting down and requiring everyone to work from home.
He turned to the Agile Mentors Community to ask, “With all of the sensitivity around Coronavirus, have any of you been affected? I’m curious to see how all of this plays out considering most of what we do is predicated on teamwork. I know most of us work with some remote team members, but we typically strive for co-location. Should be interesting.”
Read on to hear how members responded to the shutdown and how prepared (or not) they were for remote teams.
Come Prepared for Online Workshops
An agile coach from Texas replied, “Most of what I did (prior to last year) was hold all training and workshops remotely with distributed teams. We had WebEx and a few tools (i.e. Trello) which made sharing fine. However, that said, this week’s ban on travel threw me for a loop. I haven’t operated with those tools in over a year.”
She shared here company’s quick checklist to prepare for online workshops:
- Zoom meeting for breakout sessions (both coaches bought a year’s pro license)
- Shared access for all users to any tool we’re using
- Artifacts all posted with shared access
- Smaller sessions split over time, so participants stay engaged (1 day at the desk constantly working is hard)
- Leave time for breaks
- Leave time to walk people through each tool and verify they can buddy up if one computer is not working
“A bonus we did get—we were going to spend a day and a half doing story mapping, which left out the India team (their overlap is only a portion of the day). Now, we’re doing three morning sessions, which will include the entire team, potentially leading to better collaboration. People can go think on their own before our next session.”
Encourage Virtual Face-to-Face Communication
Another member, who has always worked remotely with his team stressed the importance of virtually showing your face. “I’m the guy on my team that works from home all the time since I’m not in the same city as most of the team. I learned early on that it is very important for me to turn my camera on.”
The same member says that the Agile Manifesto states, ‘We value face-to-face communication.’
He adds, “When I read that I knew that I had to have my camera on all the time. And, I’ve noticed a big difference in my ability to participate in meetings. People who don’t have their camera on are often slower to respond to questions in meetings and are more easily distracted. So, my advice is to ask everyone to turn their camera on to have more effective meetings.”
Working from Home is the New Norm
An agile coach from Rhode Island shared that 36 of the organization’s 38 teams were co-located before the pandemic and the company has always been against working from home.
She says, “A few months back our organization realized they needed a work from home policy to compete for good talent. The policy was set to be implemented on April 1. With the virus news, we’re all working from home next week to test our business continuity plan. I think the end result is that the teams will show that they can work well together whether they are in the office or working from home.”
Have Good Collaboration Tools
A member from London that’s more accustomed to remote work explained how it’s important to have good collaboration tools.
“Tools like Skype, Whatsapp and Slack are very useful in remote working with Scrum. There’s only so much information you can send via email without people’s inboxes becoming so full that important information may get missed,” he says.
He adds that a useful trick is to create different ‘rooms’ or ‘channels’ for the different types of communication you may need.
For example:
- An announcements channel that is rarely used, but everyone should pay attention to
- A general updates channel, where information that may or may not be of general interest gets shared to ensure everyone has a rough idea what is going on
- Topic specific channels to stop cluttering up the general channels
- A light-hearted channel for banter to keep the team from feeling isolated
Hold Large Gatherings Virtually
One member’s company has an annual event where people travel from different countries for two days. This year, the sudden turn to an online event was a major success! People from 17 locations using 23 video conference rooms and more than 50 additional people working from home across six time zones collaborated together and it all worked out great.
Create Time for Socialization
Without human interaction, many members’ companies are virtually holding happy hours. Another AMC member said she has had remote workers for some time, though switching to fully remote is a change.
“We have multiple offices that usually host drinks and refreshments after work on Fridays. We’re looking now to have a Zoom drinks event, and to make it fun and encourage participation. We’re thinking about some fun spins we can put on it,” she says. “Our first idea is to show and tell your favorite drink. An invitation will go out with a wide range of fun drink images, including non-alcoholic ones.
To join the conversation and to be mentored by more than 4,000 agile practitioners from around the globe, join the Agile Mentors Community. Visit