Remote Work Is The New Black – Part IV

My Sister works in an online gaming company. She has a lot of work these days – people stay at home, got plenty of time, and play online. Which brings me to another topic that slows remote work down. Gambling.

It’s not really gambling, but it’s close to that.

Most of our work in and out of remote mode, is making decisions. How to write the code, which aspects to test, what to do next. But with remote work, we don’t have guidance, direction or availability for information, it becomes harder, because now, we’re gambling with decisions.

There are basically two groups of people: The do-ers and the wait-ers. Usually we don’t see big difference but the remote situation makes it more extreme.

The do-ers make decisions by themselves, moving forward, consequences be damned. Sometimes the decisions work out well, sometime not. But in our remote work situations, it usually takes longer to get feedback if the decision was the right one. If it wasn’t, it takes even longer to go back and fix those consequences.

The wait-ers, usually don’t take initiatives, and move slower than the do-ers. When there’s not enough information to make decisions, in our remote work, they delay implementation of decisions, which obviously slows work down. But even more so, when NOT making decisions is not reported (which is easier to spot when everyone is at the same place) – blockers are not resolved, and work slows down.

So what can you do?

• Communicate more. Create more opportunities to discuss these issues
• Create an issue board to visualize blockers, and use it not just for regular blocker, but also decisions waiting for solutions
• Make more demos and early. Demos show decision we’ve taken. With more frequent demos, we’ll find problems early
• Award making decision early, and don’t punish “bad decisions”. We want people to make more decisions early.

These are just a few of the things you can try. I can help with the implementation bits for your. Check out my First Aid Kit program.