Remote working is rapidly becoming the norm, with it being one of the biggest workplace trends in recent years.
With advancements in tech, it’s become easier and more convenient to completely move away from an office-based setup. Today, you can host entire meetings with your team without ever being in the same room.
But the question has to be asked: can remote teams still work in an agile environment? Short answer: yes, especially with the right communication tools.
In this post, we explore why you might want to have a remote team in an agile setting, some challenges that come with this arrangement, and finally, we will discuss the best marketing tools to help you grow and manage your remote team effectively.
Benefits of remote teams within an agile environment
In case you need to know a few reasons why we recommend building your own remote team, here are our top reasons:
Access a greater variety and caliber of talent than if you were to search locally
By adopting a remote team, you give yourself the opportunity to find and hire better talent suited to your company’s goals.
And thanks to the Internet, even small business owners can now serve a global audience. So, having a diverse team from different parts of the world gives you fresh and in-depth perspective on your customers’ buying behaviors and how to best relate to them.
Plus, because you don’t need to maintain an office for all employees, you can reduce the overhead associated with office rentals and equipment.
Increased clarity and communication
Unlike in office settings, remote teams have to meet virtually. So whenever they do any brainstorming sessions or discuss next steps, there’s almost always some kind of digital documentation in the form of message threads, photos, and even recorded meeting files.
Gives your entire team a more flexible work schedule
Over the years, we’ve seen many reasons why a traditional 9 to 5 might not work for everyone. Some studies have suggested that the human brain can only focus for 90 to 120 minutes before it needs a long break.
We’re far from the days of the Industrial Revolution, where a laborer’s productivity was often measured by how much output of labor, typically physical like number of garments sewn or papers stamped, they could render in 8 hours.
Today, allowing people to work at their own pace and schedule, they’re able to turn in better quality work especially since they’re able to tune into their natural flow.
Challenges of managing a remote team
Managing a remote team, of course, also has its challenges.
For one thing, time zone differences can become a concern. Decision-making might often be delayed as you can’t call urgent meetings right away or will have to wait until your entire team gets the news.
Also, there’s the possibility of miscommunication as things get lost in translation.
Say, for example, you hired someone living halfway around the world to create a website on Shopify. And in that part of the world, they may view a person who’s very direct as rude and obnoxious. If you give them a short, straightforward direction on how you’d want your website to be done, it’s going to cause that web developer to become offended.
At the same time, it’ll frustrate you because they’re just not use giving a straight answer like you. This whole scenario of miscommunication is going to cause tension in your working relationship.
Tools to improve communication
Fortunately, there are ways to overcome these remote team challenges. Our recommendation: the ultimate marketing stack to improve the way you communicate and collaborate.
Slack
Slack is one of the fastest growing SaaS startups out there, and we can learn a lot from the way they launched and grew their entire company.
But their product itself has become a gamechanger in the way businesses communicate. With Slack, you can create channels for different projects and divisions in your company.
Everyone in your organization is immediately able to contact each other directly, which saves the need for keeping a database for contact details.
Asana
Asana is another project management software that allows you to view and organize projects in different views, such as list view, kanban board, timeline, and calendar views.
You can also measure the status of key initiatives and projects in real time while managing your team’s workload to make sure no one is overworking or underworking.
Hubstaff
With Hubstaff, you can track time and see detailed productivity reports for individuals and teams. With automated timesheets, it’s easier to create invoices for clients and do payroll based on the amount of time a team member clocked in for the month.
You can even make use of Hubstaff Tasks for easy project management that’s built especially for the agile workplace. Make the most of one-click automated workflows, sprint trackers, and additional features like checklists, comments, and attachments to keep tasks organized.
Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing software that easily lets you and your team meet in your own dedicated meeting room. There’s a chat feature, the ability to record and download meetings as videos, as well as screen-sharing functions.
Digsite
Digsite is a tool for agile marketers to learn and improve prototypes and products with customers.
You’re able to recruit what’s called a Digsite Sprint Community in as little as 24 hours, then be able to ask members in this sprint community “why” questions, see screenshots and videos of user experiences, and iterate based on feedback to be able to release the best possible product on the market.
Zapier
With a myriad of app integrations, Zapier lets you connect different apps to one another in what’s called a Zap, allowing you to create more productive workflows for your team and business.
Automatically backup Google Drive folders to Dropbox, import Mailchimp subscribers to Active Campaign – just think it, and you can probably do it with Zapier.
Proprofs
With Proprofs, you’re able to create knowledge bases, courses, and quizzes to help onboard employees and share resources and trainings.
On the customer side, Proprofs has a variety of tools to help you build surveys, launch live chat functions, and even put up your own dedicated Help desk complete with ticketing features.
World Time Buddy
World Time Buddy is the simplest free tool to use for a global team. Simply put in the cities or time zones where you and your workers are, and you can find the best time to set meetings based on everyone’s time zones.
Adobe Sign
With Adobe Sign, you can instantly create e-signatures and sign PDF documents right from the app without needing to print, sign, scan and upload documents.
1password
Skip the hassle of sharing passwords for shared accounts in your team with 1password. The app lets you store passwords, share them, and allow autofill features to improve productivity and minimize password-related back and forths.
Canva
With Canva, you can create beautiful designs and templates without the learning curve associated with many graphic design apps. Canva has several free graphics and elements to furnish your designs, plus you can find templates for just about anything, from social media, website headers, and even memos and letters.
Google Drive
Finally, you need a place to organize all your files. Google Drive is a great cloud storage option because of how it already integrates with most apps and the ability to share files. Plus you get instant access to tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets which helps you collaborate in real-time.
Conclusion
With the current tide of technology and talent, it’s easier than ever before to create an agile remote team to build and scale your business. And while remote working may carry a few challenges at first, there’s no easier way to get over the initial bumps with good communication and collaboration tools to reduce friction and ignite teamwork.