(really) entrepreneureal

Although I seem to focus heavily on the importance of design, whether it be graphic, process, organizational or whatever, I assure you that it is entirely due to my daily experience (unfortunately so, at times).

Case in point: remote working.  A friend of mine gave me a perfect example of what not to do when working remotely, from which I will draw today’s material.  The situation?  She had a document to write with her boss due at the end of the week, but he was out of town and with almost no connectivity under the day of the deadline.  Rather than go into the details of the process (boring), or how frustrating it all was (very), I’ll stick to the lessons she learned:

1. Don’t collaborate if half of the team members don’t actually know how or want to.

Seems pretty basic, but before trying to work remotely, never mind in person, it might make sense to figure out if collaboration is even possible.  In this case study, half of the team (ie: my friend’s boss) has a history of not working well with others – big surprise that it didn’t work over distance.

2. Set a plan for when to stay in touch – and stick to it.

Part of my friend’s problem was that there was no structured schedule for when to stay in touch, and what was due when.  The end result was that even when they did get on the phone with one another (which they did once over the 5 day period), they weren’t on the same page, comments and feedback were unstructured, and deadlines were unclear.

3. Choose how to stay in touch (and make sure it fits the need).

Too often people use phone calls and teleconferences because they don’t think a video meeting, or Go2Meeting-style web conference is worth the extra effort.  Trust me, it is.  Going through textual changes over the phone assumes everyone is looking at the same document, which is usually never the case given PC-to-Mac compatibility issues, software glitches and the like.  All the more reason to both actually see the changes being made, the thought process behind them, and make the visual link wherever possible.  If this type of interaction isn’t possible and a phone is all you’ve got, make sure you’ve got plenty of time (see Lesson 4 below).

4. Make time work separately – and together.

This goes beyond just getting in touch, because a simple 5 minute phone call to review a 10 page document will hardly suffice.  Taking the time to work separately, but more importantly together, is crucial in order to keep both minds on the same page.  Short interactions lead to crossed wires and quick judgment, neither of which help, and both of which are exacerbated by the absence of face time.

5. Iterate.

Stick to the formula (be willing to collaborate, set a plan and keep to it, and make time to work separately and together), and do it as many times as possible.  The old days of you-write-a-big-chunk-which-I’ll-then-review-over-time are gone.  The new model is write quickly, review even faster, and do it all often.  Sure, this might be difficult for people who are used to taking too long to do everything, but there’s a case to be made for focused interval work in iterations (here, here and for the same case applied to fitness, here).