I was invited to keep a presentation about lean startups and lessons learned implementing this set of processes in my startups. The presentation took place at Bucharest Hubb which is the HQ for the first and only seed fund for IT startup in Romania. I am also an advisor the seed fund and it was nice to talk to the teams about my area of expertise and what I can help them with.
Embedded above are the slides I used to support the presentation.
Third post in The Ultimate Guide to Working Remotely: The Series.
Skype and how to use it properly.
Open group chat
The Skype group chat is the direct correspondent of the open space in an office environment, with some nice extras.
Each domain group can have its own group chat, so messages don’t get mixed up.
When a team member needs to focus he can turn Skype on Do Not Disturb and stop receiving chat notifications.
Skype stores the messages on every client and automatically makes sure the chat session is synced among the participants. If the team is chatting in a group chat and all by one leave the session afterwards, the remaining participant Skype client will automatically broadcast the chat history to all group chat members that were offline at the time of the chat, but come online at a later date.
Screen sharing
Skype offers a cross platform screen sharing solution. This makes activities like remote pair programming and live discussions on design wireframes convenient and accessible.
Sometimes it’s easier to show something on the screen and make the modifications on spot as opposed to moving files back and forth and discussing via email.
Conference calls
Conference calls with up to 25 people can be easily done for free via Skype. By using the Skype-Out feature one can include in the conference landline or mobile phone numbers too, at the expanse of call credit.
Adding new participants in an existing conference is an easy as drag and drop from the contacts list.
One on One video calls
Connecting between team members requires personal communication done on a regular basis. With emails and group chat providing clear and efficient communication, video calls will be used between team members to better connect with each other and discuss topics that can be misunderstood otherwise. In a perfect world such video calls would not be necessary, as they are more time and energy consuming, but sometimes they also help at getting faster to an agreement.
Second post in The Ultimate Guide to Working Remotely: The Series.
Email communication done right.
Everyone should have world class email skills
Have clear and concise subject lines. Sending an email without a subject line makes it more difficult to asses the urgency of an email message and setting the right expectations before opening it.
Write short email messages. One or two paragraphs are enough most of the time, but one line emails that spark conversation about a topic that requires a decision later on are also a good idea.
Finish with a clear set of next actions. Don’t only state the problem, but also propose solutions.
Only CC people that have to be involved in discussing the topic. Don’t CC everyone and fill up their inbox with replies and long discussions. Try to inform people of the decisions and only involve in conversions people that are part of the decision making process.
Every day all members do Inbox Zero
If email is expected to be a reliable communication method among team members then all team members should make sure all email messages they receive are processed on a daily basis. Emptying the email inbox daily and including the next actions in the right place (a GTD system hopefully) is a process that can enhance the general reliability of the team communication.
On the other hand, email can be a source of constant distraction if used in a wrong way. For people that need to focus for longer periods of time (developers, designers, etc.) email notification systems with pop-ups and BlackBerries should be avoided. Reading emails twice a day (before and after the work schedule) is enough most of the time.
Team should agree via email on meeting agendas
Meetings are expensive. Getting team members to participate in team meeting that don’t have a clear desired outcome and a meeting agenda, previously agreed by the team, can make the meetings ever more expensive, sometimes to the point of wasteful.
To avoid getting in this situations, remote teams will gather topics discussed via email and include them for a brief discussion (to agree on something previously discussed, not to create lengthily discussions on topics that can be had on email in the first place) in the weekly review meeting.
The next post will be about ‘Skype and how to use it properly’. If you like this series please share the links with your friends using the ‘Share’ button inside the post page.