Tips For Leading a Globally Distributed Software Development Team

To build world-class software products and services, companies today must form distributed software development teams with the best talents available to them. This naturally leads to having developers spread across the globe using a distributed software development approach. The distributed software development model involves decentralized teams collaborating in a time- and location-agnostic manner, utilizing communication platforms, web forums, source code databases, and internet-based collaboration tools. While distributed teams provide the opportunity to leverage niche expertise, they also present their own set of unique leadership challenges. In this article, I’ll share some best practices for successfully leading distributed software teams, based on my experience to date.

What is a Globally Distributed Team?

In distributed development teams, the members are not co-located and work from different locations, such as separate offices, homes, or coworking centers. Instead of working together in one central office, the team members perform their day-to-day tasks remotely.

They are typically separated by distance, time zone, culture, language, and working conditions. Teammates communicate and collaborate virtually using messaging, video conferencing, and collaboration tools.

Some of the most important advantages of distributed teams include:

• You can attract the best talents from across the globe, not just from your neighborhood

• 24/7 collaboration with hand-offs by time zones

• Teams are near local partners, customers, and markets

• Employees can often work in lower office space and/or have a lower cost of living

Of course, these benefits are not without their costs. Thoughtful leadership is required to bind distributed groups together. Let us examine some of the ways we can encourage teammates to work together.

Ways to Encourage Teammates to Work Together

Since teammates are distributed, managers must purposefully and consistently work to encourage collaboration within distributed software development teams. Collaboration tools are critical for clear communication and distributed development task management. Here are some ways to engage and bring “virtual” teams together:

Invest in personal relationships - Even if you are conducting team building activities via video conferencing, take time to get to know each other. Share pictures and hobbies and stories. Create interpersonal relationships that provide a solid foundation for strong collaboration.

Provide context proactively - Never assume that teammates have enough background information to perform their best contributions. Distribute specifications, product vision, end user stories and other relevant context to ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Conduct real-time conversations - Do not solely rely on task-tracking tools to communicate. Schedule frequent video conferencing meetings for brainstorming sessions, questions and answers and white boarding of new approaches. Interactive conversations establish common knowledge.

Transparently document decisions - Meeting notes, project wikis and message recaps ensure that every team member can see why certain decisions were made. Involve the entire team in decision-making processes to ensure comprehensive communication and buy-in.

Transfer knowledge actively - Organize “lunch and learn” sessions where teammates can present topics around their areas of expertise. Create an easy way to know who is the expert in what domain across your team.

Publicly acknowledge contributions - Celebrate successful deliveries and recognize accomplishments by broadcasting them via the team chat channel or a newsletter. Acknowledge those who go the extra mile.

How to Encourage Healthy Work-Life Balance for Remote Workers

One of the biggest advantages of working with a remote software development team is the flexibility it provides. However, work and the personal life can easily blend together, leading to burnout for employees if appropriate boundaries are not established. As a leader, you should actively take steps to address this challenge.

Lead by example - If you are constantly responding to emails and answering phone calls during evenings and weekends, your teammates may feel compelled to do the same. Take time off nightly and during weekends to set the right expectation. Effective distributed team management is crucial in ensuring work-life balance by aligning team members’ roles and responsibilities and maintaining solid communication.

Provide flexible working hours - If the nature of the work permits, do not force teammates to work during typical office hours. Instead, empower them to work at the times they are most effective.

Minimize evening communications - Unless it is an emergency, do not expect responses to messages on chat applications or emails outside of typical business hours.

Observing for burnout - Burnout symptoms include productivity, engagement and mood declines. Watch for these signs in your teammates and if you notice something unusual, conduct a 1:1 check-in with them.

Encouraging mini-vacations - If the team is working an especially intense sprint, encourage mini-vacations or breaks during the sprint to help teammates recharge. Suggest walking meetings, stretching or other activities that help clear the mind.

Offer wellness funds - Provide monthly stipends for personal self-care activities such as gym subscriptions, massage or exercise equipment to encourage healthy lifestyles.

Healthy employees working within a happy work-life balance will always perform their best. Support this initiative and people will reward your trust with loyalty and excellence.

Set Clear Expected Working Hours and Standards

Consistent work hours establish a sense of routine for the whole team, especially for distributed teams spread across multiple time zones. Define expected hours of operation and availability to provide a framework that aligns the team. In my experience, there is nothing that trumps the importance of this single aspect of working on remote teams. Not collaboration tools, not anything. Give teammates consistent culture and expectations and everything else will fall into place. Here are some examples.

Identify core overlap hours - What 4-6 hour blocks of overlap are there each day when meetings can be scheduled and real-time conversation can occur? Everything else can be done asynchronously. Managing distributed teams effectively requires clear schedules and expectations to ensure smooth operations.

Identify standard hours - What are the consistent hours of operation? Write them down and share calendars publicly so teammates can see each other’s availability. Update these regularly.

Within defined hours, allow teammates flexibility to start and end their day based on their personal productivity rhythms. Don’t micromanage.

Normalize and expect asynchronous communication outside of core overlap hours. Unless there is an emergency, it is not to be expected that teammates will respond to chat applications, text messages or emails until the next business day.

Check time zones - Before scheduling an online event, check the time zones of teammates to avoid accidentally scheduling meetings in the middle of the night.

Schedule all-hands across time zones - If you need to have a team meeting when teammates are in different parts of the world, rotate between early morning and late evening to evenly share the inconvenience.

Consistency leads to productivity. Set clear standards and then stay out of the way.

Define Clear Communication Methods and Expectations

When teams don’t work together every day face-to-face, it is critical to clearly define methods of communication to ensure virtual collaboration is efficient. Use project management tools and define communication etiquette. Here are some ways to do this.

Use a project management tool as the single source of truth - Unless you are working in an environment where secure government restricted information needs to be shared, use an asynchronous tool like Jira, Asana or Trello to store project vision, tasks, documentation and discussion. A skilled project manager can set up proper communication paths and processes to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Identify a primary team chat application - To minimize split conversations using multiple chat applications, identify a single application like Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat for asynchronous day-to-day conversation.

Within the team chat app, identify expectations on response times - For example, a working team chat is Slack or Microsoft Teams. Reply to urgent messages within 2 hours; less urgent within 24 hours. If you are going to be away, update your status.

Making Distributed Teams Work

Leading productive distributed software teams requires thoughtful strategies to unite team members and foster a strong company culture. These strategies are crucial for all development teams to ensure effective collaboration and productivity. Fostering personal connections and knowledge sharing establishes strong bonds and alignment. Enabling work-life balance and clear schedules ensures people can do their best work sustainably. Defining communication channels and norms optimizes virtual collaboration. With the right leadership approach, companies can build incredible globally distributed teams that deliver results and push the boundaries of innovation. What strategies have you found most effective for managing remote teams? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below!