Going Remote: The Biggest Risk for Product Teams
I’ve been managing product teams remotely for the past seven years.
Step by step, I developed techniques to make things working almost as effectively as I was co-located with my team. I must admit that it was a long and painful process, that resulted in practices and routines crafted around our unique circumstances (including time zone and language barriers).
The COVID-19
Today, under the COVID-19 storm, suddenly, everybody is remote, including the rest of my team. And not simply remote, but at home, with different circumstances to deal with, that allow different than ideal time for deep work and synchronization.
There are plenty of resources, blog posts and books that discuss the tools and practices for optimizing for remote working (including my five cents here, specifically on product management). But now that also my team is suddenly fully distributed, without preparation, I realized that
trust and psychological safety are the most important ingredients for successful remote collaboration and so also the biggest risk of failure.
The ideal scenario
In general, cross-functional product teams focus on finding the right problem to solve (discovery) and solve it in the best way possible (delivery).
They collaborate, iterating through multiple cycles of divergent and convergent thinking. They discuss, generate and kill ideas quickly, and all of that feels just normal, even reinvigorating. No one feels judged in proposing or confronting an idea. That’s what happens in a cohesive team with a healthy dynamic of psychological safety.
A healthy environment that promotes the dialog and respects the contributions of every team member, is especially critical in the product discovery phases.
Product discovery is fundamentally based on the quick and iterative process of generating ideas, testing them out (for example using prototypes) and validating them with the users. The success of this practice depends mainly on dynamics that regulate how the product manager, designer and engineers collaborate. Therefore, a healthy and dynamic environment in which team members feel comfortable discussing potentially controversial issues is an essential ingredient for success.
In product delivery, when uncertainty is already minimized, the adoption of structured and mature frameworks and agile methodologies provide a platform that somehow compensates for the lack of in-person dialog. Product delivery also requires a lot of deep work, and working remotely may offer less undesired interruptions and occasionally remote teams perform even better than when the team is co-located.
Suddenly, everyone is remote.
When everyone (or most of the team members) is remote, communications tend to gradually shift toward asynchronous interactions. There are moments for real-time collaboration of course, but, most of the time, everything that is not spoken will be acknowledged and responded with delay (emails, chat messages, voice mails, comments).
When you are in the office, you don't interrupt an ongoing conversation unless you can contribute to it, right?; in instant messaging, you shot your message and the other person maybe be dealing with 3 other conversations at the same time (that’s you, most of the time).
The way of sharing ideas and opinions gradually rolls back to producing artifacts for each other, to sending longer messages and documents that detail those ideas. We are back to the old-style waterfall-like passing along of artifacts and plan-in-advance methods of work.
Because the interaction moments decrease in frequency, every single piece of content must carry more information. Chances to explain yourself diminish and the risk of misunderstanding grows. Every email, every message and comment is now more critical and sensitive. A poorly phrased message may open infinite threads of clarification or even break the trust and cause hours of damage control.
Moreover, when not speaking face to face, when people are separated, the usual filters and sensitivity fade more easily. Different personalities emerge and it takes only one “asshole” in the team to pollute the sense of trust and destroy the psychological safety dynamics of the entire team.
The fear of being judged, misunderstood, or making mistakes gradually grows again. The sense of psychological safety loosen. The innovation cycle fails and the teams focus again on outputs rather than outcomes.
Can we really work remotely then?
I believe so. Adapting to these new ways of work is possible, it just takes time and a purposeful learning path.
With time, tools and processes will eventually adapt, but it is important to recognize the need for change and act upon it sooner rather than later. Developing an effective communication toolbox is essential, not only selecting the right tools but also establishing communications rules and routines.
The most important thing team leaders need to take on proactively, now more than ever, is to maintain and foster psychological safety.
Here some principles and practices that increase odds of success:
- Coach your team on online interactions
Even with the best communication habits, remote teams are more likely to deal with miscommunications. So, when an email or text seems rude, assume it’s a miscommunication, rather than a deliberate effort to be rude. While learning and establishing new dynamics, it’s always better to try to handle sensitive conversations over video, to include body language that helps maintain trust.
Evangelize best practices of productive communication patterns (read this: The Four Horsemen: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling) - Model desired behavior
Be more direct and upfront about what you need or the behavior you want to see. Deliberately foster a climate in which people can speak freely, without fear of retribution. When something goes wrong, frame it as an opportunity to learn rather than a blame-fest. And if someone does start to bad-mouth a colleague, cut off the discussion and redirect it to the issue at hand. - Show understanding
Although this is a general rule, it's even more important when interacting at distance to acknowledge other people's point of view, validate their comments and recap what they have to say. We can’t understand and solve a problem without exploring how the other person sees it.
When conversations veer into difficult territory, try to convert opposition into partnership, repositioning yourself to be on the same side, so that you’re focused on the same problem. - Listen
Don’t forget to carry on regular 1:1s or even continuous direct communications. It’s important more than ever for managers to establish an open dialog with their team, to spot sooner rather than later signs of deteriorating situations; it also helps to identify and support individuals with less “social cues” that might otherwise become dangerous for the dynamics of the team.
Want to read more about psychological safety? Here something that inspired me:
TED Talk: Building a psychologically safe workplace | Amy Edmondson (https://lnkd.in/gpkaJuE)
Google Re:Work research “Understand team effectiveness” (https://lnkd.in/gXdRgSt)
