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Contributions
Building A Team
Getting to know the other members of the team can be tough. Using videoconference technology helps break down some of the barriers. Applications like Skype that combine voice and video have proven to be very effective. A more costly approach would be a full telepresence solution, something to do maybe monthly or quarterly.
Letting a team or project have team page, Sharepoint or other collaboration suite, allows them to express themselves. In the past I have created a “yellow pages” of team members with a small bio, photo, skills, past project and roles. This has gone a long way to helping people connect and find like minded individuals to help them.
Don’t be afraid to create sites on products like Facebook to allow the team to bond in the same way that you would after work.
Collaboration
It is very easy to work in isolation and lose track of progress and goals. There are lots of virtual rooms where teams can meet and share ideas. From full blown solutions like WebEx or HP Rooms down to more simple solutions like Net Meeting or AOL Instant Messenger that allow desktop and application sharing. Being able to walk through a project plan, mind map or document in this way helps individuals buy in to the process.
Voice of the team
It is very easy to work in the silence of email. Having a reservationless conference bridge is a good way to get the team meeting frequently. Be wary of cultural and individual sensitivities, it may prevent people from speaking out in public. Consider using tools like WebEx or Yahoo Messenger to create an environment where people can ask questions to be picked up in the call. These also allow you to publish the chat as a call back channel for easy reference later on.
Forums
Forums or groups offer two vital aspects that are missed in virtual teams:
- Adhoc conversation
- Knowledge management
Most people learn what’s going by talking to colleagues, not be reading the press release type emails preferred by senior management. Instant messengers help keep people connected and most now allow many-to-many chat. IM is becoming the virtual water cooler and like those conversations it is volatile as it is easily lost. Forums provide an outlet for knowledge sharing and idea generation and development. They could be in the form specific software or using a blog approach. Sharepoint offers structured content, discussions and blogs and has the benefit of being able to be deployed as an extranet solution which is key to virtual teams.
Also worth considering are Google Docs and Calendar as a way of actively sharing information, can be constrained by IT security policy. Dabble with platforms like Jeteye that allow users to share bookmarks, if joined with Meebo it also allows conversations to be stored and shared.
Three Ways To Keep Up With Coworkers
If you are a mobile worker, there are three ways you need to keep up with your colleagues: Social, current work or project, and knowledge. They are not isolated - you need the social aspect to work in a project, and which projects you participate in determines what you need to learn, based on what you already know. And how nice a person you are.
Keeping up with colleagues, when there is no water cooler, no office parties, no coffee breaks with cake or cubicles where you can hang over the wall? The social aspect of keeping up is probably the most difficult for any mobile worker. If you are in a completely different time zone, you will not be able to take phone calls, and those only help when you are in a one-to-one relationship with the person. Many people prefer this method of communication, and apart from personal meetings it is the only way to provide an emotional context (video conferencing works too, but as it is now, it is no better than phone conferences). But it is hard when you are in different time zones, and it creates interruptions which disturb the work. You can use low-key methods, such as blogs and status pages in a social network system, to keep others informed about what you are doing - and you can find out about them the same way. Not being intrusive is the most important premise for mobile work.
This goes hand in hand with the third aspect - the learning. Everyone needs to learn new things all the time, and when the project group is not in the same office, and not even the same city, the learning has to be distributed. And nowadays, the best source for everything can be found on the Internet (the Internet itself is not the best source). So it makes sense to divide the knowledge creation needed for the project. This means keeping others informed about what you know. That means either that there is a huge knowledge base in the company, or that everyone makes a blog and tells what they are working on. Project managers can then determine what the project members should study - and what they should focus on learning. And how they should document it, apart from in the work that the project does.
The final way is the project pages. Making sure that only the most current project pages are visible solves another problem: You do not only want to keep track of the current project members, you often need to find someone who worked on a project a long time ago - on something completely different than what they work on today. Keeping all project pages (this, of course, means projects have to have home pages) and making them accessible to everyone in the company (marked, of course, in a way that it becomes visible when they took place) kills two birds with one stone: It becomes easy to follow people through the projects - and to figure out if someone has solved the same problem before. And who.
Forming social contacts, however, is not that easy online as it is to keep up with others. The company needs to organize ways for people who can be useful to each other to meet. Courses is one such way, sales meetings another, internal technical conferences another. Different from phone meetings, blogs, and project pages, this requires quite a bit of resources. Someone has to pay for the airline tickets for all these people.
So by the simple means of logging project work in a company publicly accessible way, keeping blogs of what everyone does, and of course adding a search engine to the mix, it becomes easy to keep track of colleagues, both current and past. You can then call them if you like, if they happen to be in the same time zone. Keeping up in a non-intrusive way becomes easy. But keeping up with people does not work if you did not have a relationship in the first place.
Solutions From An 100% Nomadic Company
Intridea, Inc. employs 20 individuals but has no office. We work from our homes in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, San Francisco, Maine, Michigan, and more. Despite our distance, as a company we are able to move and communicate quickly between each other due in a large part to the suite of online collaboration and Software-as-a-Service communications tools we use. Each tool serves a specific purpose but more importantly fits into a larger fabric of interconnectivity that allows us to have all of the needed information at our fingertips.
Of course the most basic form of communication is via e-mail. We use Google Apps for the domain to give us fast, reliable access to company e-mail from any computer on the planet as well as one of the most efficient and usable web mail clients around. While some group communication takes place through e-mail, it is mostly just the starting point for conversation, not the main hub.
Instant Messaging
Instant messaging serves as a storable one-to-one communication for quick conversations. For the most part we prefer IM to calls because of the record-keeping ability and the ability to recall prior conversations with 100% accuracy. Additionally, IM tends to be less attention-requiring than phone calls, freeing people up to have multiple conversations simultaneously or while remaining productive on another task.
Phone calls are still necessary for outside-the-company communication such as with clients, customers and other outside contacts, but internally instant messaging is the preferred way to get in touch with one other co-worker.
Group Chat
Group chat applications such as Campfire or even IRC allow for real-time conversations to take place between people in many locations. Similar to instant messaging, these are useful due to their recall capabilities as well as rich media sharing such as links and file attachments.
Group chat is mainly used among members of a given project’s team in order to keep them in touch with each other in a real-time way. We still have occasional conference calls to discuss projects, but most conversation again happens online.
Twitter for Business
We are the developers and avid proponents of Present.ly, an asynchronous micro-communications platform similar to Twitter but aimed squarely at business use. This has revolutionized our connectivity amongst each other for a number of reasons:
- With both web and mobile availability, it can be used even when travelling or away from a computer. It provides a level of awareness that far exceeds our previous capabilities.
- It allows employees to find answers to problems they encounter with incredible speed. The average turnaround time for a question sent out via e-mail was probably around half an hour to an hour. With Present.ly, most questions have answers within 30 seconds to a minute.
- It’s dead simple to drop a document, image, or other attachment to the company or to a specific group using the attachments and groups functionality.
- It has completely eliminated the need for “status” meetings by providing a constant stream of updates so that employees already know what their colleagues are doing without requiring “reports.”
Twitter for Business really was the missing piece in our communications network. Since we began utilizing Present.ly the general awareness in the company has increased drastically without requiring any additional time spent communicating. We expect this to remain the case for the foreseeable future.
Cloud Services
We utilize services such as Google Docs for document storing and sharing because of the simple and collaborative features offered by such platforms. This allows many people to work together to form a document without needing to physically sit down with each other.
The key to keeping in touch with digital nomads in the workforce is simply to properly leverage the right tools for the job in a way that is understood by all participants. It takes some time to work out the right system for your company, but it is entirely possible to keep a nomadic work force in touch, aware, and in good communication at all times.
Why Do We Feel Uneasy About Digital Nomads?
Many people will jump to technology solutions when talking about tele-working, off-site contractors, or these “Digital Nomads.” But taking a step back, lets try to think more about why this is a problem. In most offices I have worked in, and from others I have heard about, actual work related face to face meeting is not done on a significant scale. If the person is not in ear shot, virtually everyone will email, IM or phone someone else that is in the office. So how does this position the nomad differently? Looking at the other suggestions, they all recommend solutions such as blogs, Sharepoint, IM, etc, things that probably could, or should, be used in your normal office environment regardless of remote employees.
So back to the question: Why do we always feel uneasy about people who work out of office?
The answer is almost in the question. The reason why contractors or sales teams are sent on site to another office is the very reason we feel uneasy about not having them in our office. There are 3 primary reasons:
1. For fast, clear, and effective communication, nothing will beat out a face to face talk.
Being able to see someone’s facial expressions, hand gestures, vocal changes, etc is something that is simply a staple of human communication now. That feel is lost over text so IM and email do not convey these things directly. This is why sales teams will almost always, given the option, choose to present in person; it’s easy to convey your ideas and understand other people’s reaction to them. Short of video conferencing, nothing comes close to being able to replace this.
2. The idea that you CAN have a face to face talk is comforting.
When some fatal error happens on your website, do you walk over to your desk, write up a clear email outlining all the steps you did to find the error, and then send it to hosting? Or do you run like an olympic sprinter into the hosting guy’s office and drag him into the server room to fix the problem as you talk it through? The idea of being able to walk into someone’s office, not have to wait or be in an email queue, and get your urgent matters addressed right away is comforting.
3. There is a reassuring feeling of knowing someone is working if they are in the office with you.
Sadly, this is the case for almost anyone you will ask. Even if your most reliable employee is working from home, and he sends in his work quickly and correctly, there is still an increase in the feeling that he may simply be slacking off.
Unfortunately, I have no answers in this insight. As one who has worked from home, and as one who currently is in the office today working with tele-workers, there is no 100% solution. When I have to assign a task to someone who is working in office or to someone who is working remotely, I instinctively prefer the one who I can see in the office and have to deliberately remind myself to even things out. The paradox is that I communicate with that individual the same way I do with the person off site; other than some water cooler talk and passing each other in the halls, almost all of the work communication is done via our ticketing system, IM and email.
In conclusion, tele-working is not a business issue as much as a human one; we crave that tangible person in the cube next to us instead of anonymous text on a screen. The work can be just as good, done just as fast, but we have an innate preference for someone in the office. There have also been studies to show tele-workers are less likely to be promoted, and I am certain this is a contributing factor. As long as we are social creatures, remote working will always be less preferred or “different” to working in the office.
Control Not Technology Is The Security Challenge
The increasing number of laptops and mobile devices on the market has created a situation where IT folks are facing increasing difficulties to ensure that corporate information is kept secure. If anything, the increasing number of high profile cases involving data loss should serve as a warning that the situation is untenable and is reaching critical mass.
While technological solutions abound, the very diversity of laptops and mobile devices actively works against any single solution. For example, the release of Apple’s iPhone last year suddenly had IT departments scrambling to deal with yet another platform that employees are bringing into the office. In many cases, managers and staff might be demanding that they be allowed to access their corporate emails from these gadgets.
In this regard, we must recognize that the key challenge that we face has more to do with the issue of control rather than technology. Increasingly technology-savvy employees see no reason why they cannot be allowed to access corporate data from their personal laptops or Smartphones. To address this issue, I would like to suggest that we approach this from a different paradigm.
Companies need to wake up to the fact that the trend of staff bringing in external laptops and Smartphones will not only continue, but will in fact accelerate. But it would be difficult and unpopular for companies to demand that staff comply with certain security measures on their personal devices. However, the matter is different if these devices are actually owned by the company. This might involve loaning out company-acquired laptops, or paying an allowance for use of a personal laptop belonging to a staff. The allowance pays for depreciation of the equipment, as well as any associated inconvenience that comes with implementing various security measures. In the latter case, employees are free to bring the laptop with them upon leaving the organization – once confidential data has been confirmed as removed.
Once clear ownership of the laptops or mobile devices has been established, it becomes easier when it comes to dealing with security in the form of theft or accidental loss.
There are many options when it comes to ensuring personal security or privacy. Where a laptop is concerned, the obvious solution would be to leverage upon full disk encryption that is tied to Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Depending on various factors however, this might be impractical to implement overnight due to the fact that a complete overhaul of existing hardware and expensive software commitment might be necessary. In addition, it must be noted that full disk encryption does nothing to mitigate the ability of service personnel granted temporary access to peer into data that they have no business in. This is probably best exemplified by the case of Hong Kong-based actor Edison Chan who had service personnel pinch various scandalous photos of himself being intimate with various actresses from his personal laptop when it was sent in for servicing. The resultant outroar cut short his career and had him leaving the country in disgrace.
A more moderate and less invasive approach here would be to issue out personal flash drives with an on-board authentication and encryption. What it means is that all data on these flash drives are encrypted on-the-fly the moment they are copied in. They will only be accessibly only upon furnishing the correct password. The IronKey might be a consideration, though similar devices are now widely available on the market.
Obviously, user training will be required, especially since the drive capacities for such specialized flash drives are still relatively low at between 4GB to 8GB. However, I believe it will be relatively easy to train even novice users that only data on the encrypted flash drive should be considered secure. Another added advantage would be that users will become more conscious of following backup procedures as well. As such, it represents the best compromise between.
Trust In Workers Is Key
Organizing a mobile workforce requires a certain amount of trust and faith that those workers will do the right thing. Security is a particularly tricky issue in this space because it can hamper productivity and frustrate employees. At the same time, some level of protection is prudent and should scale depending on how exclusive the work is. In other words, if a worker is focused on producing the latest tweak on an instructional brochure, biometric scanners with dynamically generated passwords broadcast to a mobile receiver is generally overkill. That is, unless those instructions are describing how to assemble bleeding edge explosives or specific mechanics behind a unique business model.
Before looking at any technology a frank business discussion is necessary to determine which mobile workers, if any, will engage with a part of the business that is mission critical and must be protected. This includes decisions on whether or not the business will pay for tools like laptops, mobile phones, software and vehicles.
On one end of the spectrum, the employee receives an agreed upon wage and provides all of their own equipment. This is usually a compatible model because it communicates to the employee that they are responsible completely for all of their own decisions. That means handling security threats like viruses and phishing attacks, as well as protecting higher cost items like laptops from theft.
Mobile employees who are closer to the business though may require some additional security. Once again, the key is to make security as smooth as possible so that it protects assets while at the same time feeling transparent to the employee.
I’ve worked in both environments, one where the employer insisted that Novell Netware be installed on my laptop with various security restrictions on what I could install, how long I could use the same password to log in and which types of applications I could install. They also paid for my laptop, software and mobile phone but I found that the restrictions on what software I could install were constantly hampering my ability to perform. There are so many open source applications available that this sort of barrier felt like a handicap. Additionally, support for the equipment was minimal. Calling support on occasion for assistance with updating an existing software package or for assistance to change a setting blocked by Novell Netware always resulted in long hold times and disgruntled helpdesk staff. Everyone seemed aggravated by the underlying business decisions.
But, some businesses take a more laissez faire approach. For example I’ve worked for a company that tasked me with accomplishing a certain number of articles per month and however I accomplished that goal was up to me, my pay stayed the same. This enabled me to use whatever applications and resources that I wanted to online and encouraged a sense of independence and trust. You can guess which employer I worked for longer.
Mobile workers are typically accustomed to, and often insist on, accomplishing goals on their own terms. Companies that seek to overburden them with security restrictions will see short-term and long-term consequences for getting in the way. It’s also difficult to protect against every type of threat, just look at Windows XP and Vista for an example of how a heavy investment in security still results in regular breaches.
The business first has to decide which employees are working with mission critical material, then implement appropriate security that’s effective but seamless as possible.
It’s About The People
Huge advances in mobile technologies such as smartphones, widely available broadband, videoconferencing, and cloud computing have all but eliminated the *necessity* and the importance of centralized office environments. However I think too often technology solutions are presented as improvements or innovations in *technology* when what is most needed are solutions that more effectively manage all of the people and relationships in the equation. These solutions need to make sure productivity levels remain high, workers cooperate effectively when needed, and the morale and comraderie that is often ca key factor in business success is enhanced - or at least not crippled by worker mobility decreasing social interaction to the extent that co-workers hardly know each other.
What are some of these non-technology solutions to the challenges of the nomadic workforce?
* Encourage, sponsor, facilitate socializing outside of the work environments. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this approach is Google’s sponsorhip of parties, events, talks, movies, and other socializing events both at the Google campus and outside of the company environment. This appears to have created a dramatically loyal workforce willing to go to great lengths
* Maintain a formal and regular meeting structure where project leaders present progress reports and all team members have a chance to express concerns and ideas.
* Maintain a clear definition of leadership roles and accountability. In a power vaccuum leadership will take questionable and often inefficient form, so those most responsible for the success of the project should be held accountable and also be given the power to hold others accountable for their parts of the project or company.
It is only theoretically that a distributed workforce with the latest technologies will be more efficient than a conventional workforce. Humans are very social creatures and for the forseeable future will continue to require the types of interaction and guidance for which we are evolutionarily programmed - the interaction and guidance from other people.
Running a Mobile Office
The key is organization. Power cords for phone and moible. Planned WiFi access that works. Picking a spot that has enough traffic to give you the buzz of people without having distractions. And learning not to move to much. There are substantial amounts of time taken in packing and moving, not to mention the time it takes to get in a groove to work.
Tips and tricks to the mobile office:
1) Pick small tasks you can easily accomplish. If the mobility is temporary, stick to small tasks (checking e-mail, doing research, editing, social media) you can accomplish. You will have disruption, so pick tasks that you can easily start and stop.
2) Start working first. If you’re at a coffee shop or gym, start working immediately. Wait to get that first cup or snack until you’ve accomplished something. This minimizes the time up and down.
3) Try to work on off hours. It’s difficult to get space and a plug at a lot of places, and free wifi etiquette is to not have you there during busy times. Find someplace you can work that you won’t get dirty looks, as it will affect your quality and focus.
4) Make the best use of the tools you have. I’ve started checking resumes sent by candidates using my iPhone, and using Text and Twitter to stay in touch with them when on the road. The iPhone is faster than pulling out the laptop, and if I’m just skimming, I can do it in line, on the train, or in time that would normally be lost. This counts as mobile, and frees me up to do more substantial knowledge worker actions back at the office.
5) Sync all your calendars and accounts. This is a must. Nothing is worse than having to drive back out to the office to check an appointment. Sync contacts, calendars, spreadsheets, and have an extra e-mail where you forward important documents.
Commit to the mobile lifestyle. Like all endeavors, successful mobility is really a matter of organization and habits. If you can practice habits that maximize the time on the road, you can make full use of the time “in-between” the office and home.
Working With Mobile Groups:
The key to working with mobile groups is set-up and expectations.
1) Create a new calendar for the project, or if you’re working internally, sync your calendars. Know when people can meet and when they are working. Taking the time to set up calendars limits the need to check in with people to see if they are available. Be diligent in making sure people use their calendars. google Calendars or iCal on the Mac work great for this.
2) Instead of e-mails, consider using a blog.
Basecamp has some advantages, but it’s actually too complex for mobile projects. A simple blog, with guest permissions for each person, allows you to send e-mails to everyone, leave comments, keep it simple, and track when and where conversations took place.
Blogs can be made private, and files can be added. You can access ist from anywhere. Date and time stamps label everything, and you can break the blog into categories that are easily searched. Speaking of search, blogs are easy to search. This eliminates forwards, cc’s, and long e-mails. To Do lists can be updated. At the end, you have a record of the project and who did what. And everyone can use a blog. For the record, I recommend Typepad.
Blogs are superior to almost every other kind of platform precisely because they’re simple. Each category, comment, or the blog itself has an RSS feed which can be uploaded to readers and mobile devices, making the blog a higher priority to read instead of going through 300 emails.
*advanced note - don’t tell the users it’s a blog if there is resistance. It’s a project management content system. - A PMCS. Total Cost: $135 a year for unlimited blogs.
3) Skype Video. Skype is free, and if your users are set up for it, can call and video conference each other for free. I use this with candidates, clients, developers, and even to call my wife at home and look at my child. iChat has the same functions, and it costs nothing.
4) Sharing Desktops. GoToMeeting and WebEx, if you have accounts, are fantastic tools for sharing desktops and training. This is good for meetings and webinars, but it’s also useful if you’re working with a developer and need him to see screen shots, examples, or user flow diagrams. GotoMeeting is a monthly fee, allowing you to access it as much as you want, and share it with others. You can show your own desktop, or allow the others to use it. Great, great tool. It also eliminates the “Where are you” questions in remote meetings.
5) Meebo: Meebo chat rooms give you the ability to create quick, private chats. While you can set people up using the same Yahoo Messenger or AIM accounts, if everyone has a different account, you can use Meebo to speak to everyone. It works very well when you can’t speak, such as at conferences, or when you need some privacy (say a meeting when one of your people is waiting at the airport).
6) Keeping everyone together. The challenges have always been setting up a system and agreeing to it. Every failure we’ve had has been setting up an account on Basecamp, or a blog, or an IM client, and then not getting everyone on the same page from the beginning. I would suggest finding out what people use, and then picking the one that most people are comfortable with.
7) When using outside consultants, there is the question of billing. Too many consultants sit on conference calls not doing anything but billing, waiting for their turn to speak. Creating a decentralized system of listing your work is an effective way to limit phone meetings to check status. That can save you 10-20% on labor costs.
