remote work planning

Questions Your Remote Team Must Answer Now

If the extent of your planning for remote work as been deciding whether to use Teams or Zoom; you’ve got more questions to answer.

Before you consider the questions, start with the video to understand why I’ve written this post.

Sharing Information

  1. What information am I expected to share and with whom?
  2. How do I let specific people know that I need their help?
  3. What should I do when a need feels like an emergency?
  4. What should be shared publicly vs. privately?
  5. How can I make sure what I’m sharing is useful to people?

Responsiveness

  1. When do I need to be available to my teammates?
  2. What are the expectations about keeping teammates in the loop when my availability changes?
  3. How will I know when I’m expected to contribute to an online discussion?
  4. How soon must I respond?
  5. What are the characteristics of a helpful response?
  6. What if I don’t have a thought or an idea to share?

Meetings

  1. When is a meeting justified?
  2. What does it mean to be an effective virtual meeting participant?
  3. What meeting etiquette do I need to follow?
  4. What are our expectations and rules about mute and video?
  5. How do we keep from talking over one another? Here some suggestions for managing remote conversations.
  6. What roles should people expect to take on during a meeting? Meeting roles suggestions.

Decision Making

  1. What can I decide on my own, and what do I need to run past others?
  2. When making joint decisions, what method will we use to reach an agreement?

Tools

  1. What tools are we using to support remote working?
  2. In which circumstances do we use each tool?
  3. What will we do when a team member prefers a different tool?
  4. What are the competencies required to effectively use the tools and how will we learn them?

Others

The more I think about it, the more questions I’m likely to generate. I’ll keep adding to this list as new ideas come to mind.

Digital transformation

If you have thoughts about some I should add, send me a note with your thoughts.


Tom LaForce, President, LaForce Teamwork Inc.

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