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Thinking about starting a software development project? Or are you in the middle of one? Whatever stage your project is in, working with remote developers is almost unavoidable these days. They tend to be cheaper and overall, better for business.
But for all the advantages, managing remote developers can be very hard. After all, working with people in the same room can be difficult, much less with people miles away from you. Yet, there are ways to avoid this stubborn challenge.
Based on years of experience working as a remote developer and conversations with other coders, here are tips to help you work with a remote development team and produce quality results.
Having an idea you are certain of its success can be exciting. But before you start hiring remote developers to help you bring it to life, make sure you have a clear picture of what it is and how you want to execute it. Think it through before contacting a hiring agency.
When you know the What and the How of your idea, you can accurately communicate it to a remote development team. It helps you avoid disappointments and frustrations when the developer(s) inevitably fail to build ‘what you had in mind.’ There is also the added fact you will be wasting money.
Additionally, developers are not a monolith. Everyone has their specializations. Having a clear game plan will ensure you hire the right developers for each aspect of the project. Expecting one or two developers to build every part of your idea is essentially a recipe for disaster.
So, take your time, do your research on the exact needs of the project. By doing this, you put yourself in a better position to manage the remote developers working with you.
According to a survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit, executives of multinational companies believe multicultural teams help drive innovation. They also have a better grasp of global trends and are less likely to suffer from groupthink.
This is a quality worth tapping into. However, you mustn’t overlook cultural and language barriers when you are hiring remote developers. Communication is an important weapon when managing remote developers, and it is only effective when the people you work with understand and can relate with you.
Thankfully, English is the most spoken language in the world, so there is less to worry about language-wise. Culturally, banter and similar non-work interests help build rapport between team members and boosts productivity.
Find and promote interests that will improve engagement between your remote developers and blur the lines between their backgrounds. This can be anything, but it has to be relaxing, entertaining, and definitely not work-related.
It may seem silly that you are paying people not to work. But trust me when I say the reward is better than any productivity seminar you organize.
There is no use in having a remote development team with diverse members if you won’t consider their suggestions and ideas. As a matter of fact, if you hire right, your team most likely consists of developers who have worked on multiple projects and are experts in their field.
They have seen their fair share of failures and successes and know what was responsible for every outcome. Refusing to listen to them will be doing yourself and project a disservice, not to speak of underusing their knowledge, skill, and talent.
Not every one of them will offer their thoughts unprompted. Nevertheless, you can ask questions yourself, such as -
Questions like these will ensure you get the full breadth of the expertise you are paying for. What’s more, it will make your remote developers feel like they are truly part of your team. It will prevent the growth of an Us vs Them mentality against your HQ team, which can be a huge productivity dampener.
Multiple surveys and studies, including this one by FlexJobs, show that remote workers are more productive working from home. That includes programmers, who generally tend to be independent and self-sustaining people.
It means they prefer working on their own time instead of a fixed work schedule. This flies against the instinct of anyone raised within a traditional work setting. But if you are going to successfully manage a remote development team, you need to be prepared to be flexible with the work hours.
This is especially necessary if they are in another time zone. Forcing remote developers to work according to your HQ’s work time will most likely lead to resentment and produce shoddy work.
Besides avoiding disgruntled employees, time zone flexibility can also improve the efficiency of your company. When a team goes to bed in one time zone, another resumes in another time zone. This guarantees round-the-clock productivity for your business, something few businesses can boast of.
Flexibility in approach also extends to timelines, payment, and product functionality. If it won’t affect the overall quality of the final product, there is no reason to be a hardass about it.
Just because the employees on your team are spread around the globe is no reason for your company to lack operational cohesiveness. But how do you manage this when they are in different time zones? Well, not all time zones have large differences and it doesn’t have to be for work.
Instead of making sure all your developers are working at the same time, use overlapping uptime to maintain communication. For example, if there is a two-hour difference between you and your remote team, you have five hours when working hours overlap. Use this period to organize virtual meetings and discussions.
In cases when the difference is too large to overlap, like New York/India, daily written reports can be a useful alternative. You can also set up emergency communication channels that let both parties reach each other when necessary.
Take it from a veteran freelance programmer, one of the most useful tips for remote developers management is consistent appreciation. Just because the developers aren’t sharing an office with you, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve or need regular appreciation. This is something too many founders and project managers forget.
If you want the best result from working with remote developers, you need to treat them like they are your permanent employees. That means offering encouragement and saying thank you as much as possible for completed tasks or unexpected accommodations.
Bonuses and gifts are also great ways to show appreciation. Hell, something as simple as giving them time off and checking on their wellbeing goes a long way in improving the relationship between you and the remote development team.
This may seem too much for people you are not seeing face to face. However, it is important to remember that people are at their best when they feel appreciated.
Speaking of building a relationship with your remote developers, it is important to have lots of face-time hours. Text-based interactions are not as effective at team building as video interaction. With video, you can determine the developer’s emotional status and connect on a personal level.
When you are in touch with their emotional state and successfully establish a rapport, you are better equipped at navigating team challenges.
Video chats don't have to be every day and don't always have to involve you. You can pair random employees to take breaks and hang out weekly. There are multiple tools that are great at this. They include Donut, a slack plug-in, Skype, Appear.in, Zoom, and several others.
Furthermore, if you can afford it, travel to their location and spend physical time together. This is especially useful if the developers are congregated in one location. You may think it defeats the whole point of being remote. But the occasional trip creates a deeper connection than anything you might achieve via online chat.
If you are looking for the most effective way of managing remote developers, it is doing as little managing as possible. We know this can be difficult, especially for managers who have a background as developers. Yet, it is in your best interest to do it.
Programmers love to figure things out on their own, and their expertise grows the more they learn from mistakes. Micromanaging takes this sense of creativity and innovation away from them. It reduces developers to robots who only do what they are told to do.
This creates discontent among the team and members might feel undervalued and creatively stifled. It also keeps you from maximizing your investment in the developers’ expertise. On top of that, you waste a lot of time and effort working on stuff you are paying the developers to do. Time you could spend on other aspects of the business.
Of course, that’s not to say you should leave developers without direction. The goal here is to find a balance between your vision and their problem-solving process.
We understand that no one wants a Facebook situation on their hands. No one wants to see their proprietary code/data and algorithms stolen to create what ends up being the next big thing. That is why Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are recommended when working with remote developers.
It is also common to hide specific business details to avoid leaked and stolen information. But this tends to have adverse effects on the software development process. Unless it has to be a secret, don’t keep it a secret.
Here is the thing, the more the developers know about your plan and goal, the more effective they will be. Not just at building and solving a specific problem, but also resolving any unforeseen issue that comes up. It only makes your life easier and the developer more productive.
Additionally, full transparency with every member of the team negates any sense of hierarchy. This improves teamwork and gives a chance to every member to assist in all phases of the project.
Lastly, when managing remote developers, establish clearly defined roles for everyone. Team members must know who to reach out to at every aspect of the project for accountability’s sake. If everyone knows their role, you can track high-performers and slackers.
This will also keep overly eager performers from encroaching into the responsibilities of their more reserved counterparts. Failure to have established roles is a sure-fire way to create hostility between team members.
Additionally, have a well-defined strategy and a set timeline. Having a time-based plan remote developers can follow is a great way to push everyone to a particular goal and prevent drop-offs in productivity.
A useful means for achieving this is deploying the Agile methodology of project management. It gives you control over the entire software development process. This philosophy helps you define short to long-term goals and delegate responsibility to those who are capable of executing them.
The implementation of the Agile methodology might take some time, and mistakes will be made along the way. But by sticking with it, you learn more about the remote developers and grow as a team.
As hard as it can be to work with remote developers, there are ways to make everyone’s lives easier. By following these nine easy steps, you will be able to build efficient remote development teams capable of executing any project.
Of course, there will be days when it feels like nothing you try is working. On those days, the solution is not to abandon these tips, but to find creative new ways to implement their overall purpose.
Remote working is the future and it does not have to mean lower quality of work. If you do a good job of managing your remote developers, you will attract the best talents across the world. As someone once said, “a good manager is nothing more than a service to his employees.”
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