Organization the work of remote teams.

What is a remote command?

A remote team is a group of professionals who collaborate and work on shared tasks and projects while being located in different geographical locations. They can work on different continents, countries, or even cities. Organizations are increasingly utilizing remote teams due to various factors such as access to global talent, efficiency, cost savings, and a more flexible work schedule.

Remote teams can include programmers, designers, project managers, testers, and other specialists. Thanks to technological advancements and communication tools such as video conferencing, chats, and collaborative platforms, remote teams can effectively communicate, exchange information, and work together on projects, despite the physical distance.

Types of remote commands.

There are several types of remote teams, depending on their organizational structure, tasks, and work specifics.

Here are a few types of remote teams:

• Remote Team within One Organization: In this case, all team members work for the same company but are located in different places. This could be a corporation with branches in different countries or a large company with decentralized departments.
• Distributed Team: In this scenario, different team members may work for different companies or organizations but collaborate on a single project. This could involve freelancers collaborating or partnership relationships between companies, and more.
• Global Team: This type of team consists of members located in different countries and continents. Global teams usually work on international projects and require effective communication across time zones and cultural differences.
• Virtual Team: This team is composed of individual experts who work separately but collaborate on tasks and share results through online communication tools. They might be engaged in multiple projects simultaneously.
• Hybrid Team: This type combines remote and in-office employees. The in-office team works in one location, while remote members can be situated in various locations. This approach combines the benefits of remote work with the opportunities for meetings and interactions in the office.

These types of remote teams can vary in scale, scope of work, and the purpose of collaboration. It's important to choose the one that best fits the project's needs and the team's dynamics.

Strategies for improving the performance of remote teams.

Here are some strategies for improving the work of remote teams:

• Create an online communication platform. Communication is crucial in any work setting, but it's even more critical for remote work. Therefore, the team should utilize specialized tools and software with features like audio and video calls, chats, document sharing, and more.
• Use emojis. Since team members spend most of their time separately, using emojis in message exchanges can help convey emotions and create a friendlier atmosphere within the team.
• Organize virtual team building. Such events are essential not only for in-office employees but also for those working remotely. Team members can "virtually" watch movies together, play online games, host Zoom parties, and more.
• Utilize remote work tools. Working remotely is not easy, especially for a project manager who needs to organize and manage the workflow. Using specialized tools for remote team collaboration can make this task easier. The choice of tool depends on the team's type.

These strategies will help improve the performance of your remote team and achieve greater efficiency and collaboration.

Best practices for remote team collaboration.

• Use Cloud Storage for Information Sharing: Since remote team members work separately, using cloud storage solutions for file sharing is essential. This ensures that each team member has access to the necessary files and can work with the information they need.
• Break Tasks into Subtasks: Utilize methodologies like Scrum to break down larger tasks into user stories and further into subtasks. This helps in task decomposition, and creating story maps can aid visualization and prioritization.
• Provide Feedback and Acknowledge Achievements: Remote work doesn't mean that colleagues' efforts go unnoticed. Team leads or project managers should allocate time to provide feedback and acknowledge team members' accomplishments.
• Schedule Online Meetings: Online meetings help in understanding work progress, updating tasks, introducing new team members, and communicating important changes.
• Summarize Meeting Outcomes: Following online meetings, it's crucial to summarize the discussed points and outcomes in writing. This ensures that ideas and tasks mentioned during the meeting are not lost.
• Utilize Project Management Tools: Using project management tools is important for all team members, not just managers. Everyone should be aware of project progress, tasks, and deadlines. This can be efficiently achieved through remote work tools.

Best practices for remote team collaboration.

From the vast array of powerful software products, we present a review of the best tools for remote teams.

Task Managers.

Software products for remote collaboration allow you to manage work processes and track time using useful tools such as Kanban boards, Gantt charts, burn-down charts, roadmaps, timers, and more.

Worksection.

Worksection is a Ukrainian web platform for project management and team collaboration that helps organize workflow, track tasks, and adhere to schedules.

This platform is designed to simplify communication, data exchange, and collaborative work for remote and distributed teams. Worksection provides features for creating tasks, deadline tracking, file sharing, commenting, and project progress monitoring. The platform can also include functions for reporting, analytics, and collaborative document work.

• Advantages: Worksection offers a set of useful features such as a task board, user-friendly interface, easy time tracking, efficient communication and reporting, high data security, simple Gantt charts, clear Kanban boards, and more. Users appreciate the fast and professional support service.
• Disadvantages: Some users would prefer a more convenient mobile app, and the absence of a dedicated chat is also mentioned as a drawback.
• Cost: Free trial period available; the basic version costs only $49 for 20 users per month and provides extensive features, including managing up to 20 projects, 20GB cloud storage, time and finance tracking, Gantt charts, and many other tools.

Asana.

Asana is an online platform for project and task management that helps teams collaborate on tasks, plan projects, track task completion, and communicate.

It provides the ability to create tasks, delegate them, set deadlines, create project plans, use Gantt charts, and other tools for managing the workflow.

• Advantages: A wide range of features (Gantt chart, workflow builder, Kanban boards, calendar, project stage visualization, etc.), integration with Slack, Gmail, Google Drives, and reliable performance of the mobile app.
• Disadvantages: Difficulty in understanding the interface, limited free features.
• Cost: Free version with a limited set of features; the price of the paid version starts from $10.99 per user per month.

Jira.

Jira is a cloud-based task management tool developed by Atlassian. With a plethora of features, it supports Agile approaches (such as Scrum and Kanban) and is well-suited for projects of varying complexity and orientations.

It is widely used for team collaboration on diverse tasks and projects. Jira allows creating, tracking, and evaluating tasks, communicating with team members, and involving various stakeholders in the process.

• Advantages: Convenient set of tools and features, excellent Kanban boards, sprint planning and tracking, user histories, integration with messengers (e.g., Slack, Gmail), document sharing, and a high level of data security.
• Disadvantages: The interface is quite complex and bulky for navigation, limited functionality in the mobile version.
• Cost: Free version with a limited feature set; the cost of paid versions starts from $7.50 per user per month.

Calendar Access.

This tool allows employees to share access to calendars and thus organize meetings, remind about task deadlines, and schedule activities planned for specific times.

Google Calendar.

Google Calendar is an online service by Google that allows users to organize their work and personal schedules using an electronic calendar.

It enables creating events, setting reminders, sharing calendars with other users, inviting colleagues, family, or friends to events, and synchronizing the calendar across various devices and applications.

Google Calendar is a popular time management and event planning tool that efficiently helps users organize their activities and obligations.

• Advantages: excellent synchronization and integration with other Google products, the ability to create an unlimited number of reminders, choose calendar views, and invite guests, convenient mobile application.
• Disadvantages: occasional difficulties with integrating various email addresses, synchronization with other calendars, also listed among the drawbacks are the less intuitive interface and limited automation capabilities.
• Cost: free version for personal use, business version starts from $5 per user per month.

Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft Outlook is a software product for managing email and personal data, which also includes features like a calendar, tasks, contacts, and other tools for organizing work and personal matters.

• Advantages: excellent integration with other Microsoft products, easy setup and usage, additional features, a convenient time management tool.
• Disadvantages: somewhat complex interface, not very user-friendly mobile version, sometimes unclear navigation.
• Cost: Outlook.com accounts are free, but the business version costs $5 per user per month.

Teamup.

Teamup is an online tool for collaborative event and calendar planning.

• Advantages: excellent synchronization, convenient real-time planning, pleasant interface.
• Disadvantages: imperfect mobile application, some colors look very similar, making it difficult to identify events by color labels.
• Cost: The basic version is free for up to 8 sub-calendars, and the paid version starts at $8 per user per month.

Instant Messaging.

Specially designed tools for instant messaging, creating channels and groups with the ability to use emojis for more comfortable communication among remote team members.

Slack.

Slack is a popular communication and collaborative tool designed for team and organizational communication and collaboration.

It allows users to create various channels for discussing different topics, exchange real-time messages, share files, integrate with other tools, conduct video calls, and much more.

Slack is highly favored in team and project efforts due to its ability to streamline communication and collaboration, particularly when teams are working in different locations or even time zones.

• Advantages: Channel creation, file sharing, well-developed integrations, large user capacity (up to 100).
• Disadvantages: Unintuitive interface, somewhat imperfect mobile app.
• Cost: Free trial period, standard pricing starts from $6.66 per user per month.

Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams is a platform for collaboration and communication developed by Microsoft.

It encompasses a set of tools for messaging, video conferencing, collaborative work on documents and projects, integration with other Microsoft services, and third-party applications.

• Advantages: Integrated with OneDrive storage and other Microsoft products, ability to create channels for various projects and teams, video calls, file sharing, collaborative document editing, integration with other apps.
• Disadvantages: Some users report difficulty using this tool effectively with products from other manufacturers besides Microsoft.
• Cost: Microsoft Teams offers a free version, with premium packages starting from $4 per user per month.

Document Version Control.

These tools synchronize two documents - the current version and the previous version. This means that any changes made to the document located in one folder are saved and reflected in the other.

FreeFileSync.

FreeFileSync is a software tool for synchronizing and comparing files and folders on a computer.

It allows users to easily maintain the current version of files and automatically track changes made to them.

• Advantages: It is excellent for moving files, creating backups of documents and projects, offers open access, and receives regular updates.
• Disadvantages: The interface can be a bit confusing for new users, navigation is complex, and only the last set of synchronized files is stored in memory.
• Cost: Open-source software.

Sync.com.

Sync.com offers capabilities for document storage, file sharing, real-time synchronization, archiving, and storage. It provides access control and many other useful features.

• Advantages: Affordable price, support for various platforms, high level of security.
• Disadvantages: Slow file uploads, imperfect interface and complex navigation, sometimes file synchronization between different computers takes several days.
• Cost: Free Starter version with limited features, paid version costs $5 per user per month for 1 TB of data storage.

Boards.

Boards are a tool similar in function to a physical board, but virtual. Here, team members can attach virtual stickers, create graphs, diagrams, tables, and drawings.

Metro Retro.

Metro Retro is an online tool for collaborative work on boards that allows teams to create virtual boards for planning and discussions.

It's useful for discussions and allows visualizing ideas. A convenient tool for conducting retrospective meetings.

• Advantages: simple and intuitive interface, easy navigation.
• Disadvantages: inconvenient management of graphic layers when inserting backgrounds and images.
• Cost: there's a free trial and a paid version, starting at $6 per user per month.

Jamboard.

Jamboard is a digital whiteboard for collaborative work developed by Google. It allows users to create interactive boards, draw, insert text, and unite ideas in real time, even when they are located far apart.

• Advantages: simple and intuitive interface and navigation.
• Disadvantages: some users complain about minor glitches and a limited set of tools.
• Cost: there's a free version available, for expanding the feature set, users should refer to the Google team.

Video Conferencing.

These tools are needed for conducting video conferences. Thanks to video, which is crucial for remote teams, participants can see each other's emotions and gestures, making communication easier.

BigMarker.

BigMarker is a highly powerful platform for conducting webinars and various online events. It offers a wide selection of customizable templates and builders, as well as the ability to use a chat feature. During discussions, participants can virtually raise their hand and manage questions and answers (Q&A).

• Advantages: very user-friendly interface, easy setup, stable performance, fast and efficient technical support.
• Disadvantages: somewhat steep learning curve, lengthy setup process, occasional operational glitches.
• Cost: 7-day free trial period, further usage starts at $99 per month for 100 users.

Hibox.

Hibox is a platform for collaborative teamwork with communication support and workflow tracking. It helps maintain constant communication with the team and manage tasks at any moment.

• Advantages: ability to upload documents, assign tasks, and receive regular reminders. The program is user-friendly, and its cost is more affordable compared to some competitors.
• Disadvantages: message delays, limited emoji set, occasional errors.
• Cost: free trial period, further usage costs $6 per user per month.

Conclusion:

Organizing the work of remote teams is a crucial aspect of successful collaboration in today's environment, where remote work is becoming increasingly common. It is important to recognize that the effective functioning of such teams requires the implementation of specific strategies and tools aimed at facilitating communication, project management, collaborative task execution, and ensuring a high level of productivity.

Successful remote work demands the utilization of specialized communication and collaboration platforms like Asana, Slack, Microsoft Teams, as well as tools for document synchronization, such as FreeFileSync and Sync.com. It is also vital to utilize video conferencing tools that help maintain personal contact and interaction among team members, like Zoom and Big Marker.

However, for effective remote team work, it is necessary to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of each tool, in order to make the optimal choice for a given situation. Carefully tailored communication, task segmentation, providing feedback, and organizing online meetings are just a few of the key aspects that contribute to ensuring effective collaboration among remote teams.

In summary, the successful organization of remote team work requires not only the use of appropriate tools but also an understanding of the importance of a balanced approach to communication, collaboration, and task management. By paying attention to details and the needs of the team, it is possible to achieve high productivity and success in work, regardless of the geographical distance between team members.