Tell us about a time where you have managed a remote team. Give one positive aspect of the collaboration and one challenge.

Hi,

 

I had to get a medium term project executed by a team which was in different time zone than mine and I was simultaneously managing team at my existing location as well. Different time zones, set of people, thinking, internal dynamics bring a peculiar set of both advantages and experiences.

 

Advantages: As teams at different locations get a limited dedicated time to shre proress or updates, that time gets utilized well and in our common meetings/handover calls, i saw the level of discussion and understanding goes up. People become more focused, any blockages/inputs needed get topmost priority and when in front of whole team you are asked for updates, u have to be on ur toes for the same and hence productivity goes up. Remote locations also bring different perspctive to each team and its members; the way people look at problems, approaches they take to solve, mentioning edge cases which one team might have overlooked and one team's experience gets utilized in another adds value to both and to the project.

 

Disadvantages: Of course different culture, experience levels, languages bring complexity into the equation as well. I recall that because of the way WE or THEM communicated originated a lot of misunderstanding or confusion too; managers have to be on the guard to solve these kind of issues. Also, different locations impede natural, human face to face connection and hence if any ember or members facing any issues and it is impacting the project, other location's people might not be abkle to judge or resolve it.