It is easier to manage effective teams than ineffective ones. Remote team management can seem a bit alien, but there are highly useful tools to help you achieve an effective and efficient software engineering team. As a bonus, you’ll find out how to access a tool, at no extra cost, for managing high-performing startup teams, at the end of the article.
If you’re looking for management tips for remote teams, we have a list of 17 things to cover here.
Here are technology the tools for managing effective engineering teams:
1. Project Management Tools like – Jira
Project management tools are almost impossible to ignore when it comes to managing high-performance remote teams. They offer features that help reduce the number of uncoordinated assumptions and unrealistic expectations about the project goals. Your PM tool should be able to:
Plan and track projects
Are you behind schedule? Is a team member not delivering as they should? Are some aspects of the project moving faster than others? Do you have too many dependencies to skip right to a particular task? You need something that can help you answer these questions.
Allocate resources
Your project resources include people, money, and tools. You need a system that can help you assign people to roles, budget accurately, and grant access to useful tools according to the needs of the overall team.
Facilitate collaboration
Your project management tool should make it easier, not harder, for team members to work together. Teammates should be able to read and update data based on their roles. It shouldn’t feel like time is spent using the tool rather than building the product.
2. Conferencing Tools – like Zoom
Conferencing tools help your team exchange ideas and share the moment in a highly personal way. You need these for meetings, hangouts, and seminars. Here’s what to look for:
Video, chat, recording
Ensure that your tool supports video for a good number of people, allows live chat during sessions, and enables recording of live sessions. Some tools give you the option of saving your recording on the cloud or your personal computer.
File sharing, screen sharing
Can you share files directly into the chat, as special attachments, or only via links? Can the speaker share their screen for smoother presentations? Find out which of these features are available for the specific product service and device.
Security, session lengths, etc.
Does your conferencing tool offer encrypted calls? How protected are meeting links? Can you kick out unwanted participants or block them beforehand? It is also important to verify the permitted duration of calls for your selected service plan. You don’t want to kick everyone out by accident.
More information on video conferencing can be found here.
3. Scheduling Tools – like Google Calendar
Scheduling tools should be straightforward: they help you remember dates and events. But some features make the difference. For example, you want something that is easy on the eyes and easy to navigate, accessible across all your devices, and cooperates with your other apps like messaging and conferencing tools.
4. Time Tracking – like Toggl
Time tracking tools are not to be confused with schedulers. While you use the latter to plan events, you use time tracking tools to manage your time during events or work hours. There are manual tools, requiring you to input your tasks and when you start and stop working on them. Automatic features can detect your computer activities and tell you how much time you spent doing what. Some tools work best for individuals while others coordinate time tracking for teams.
Learn more on how to choose time tracking tools here.
5. Team Communication Management – like Slack
Communication is the heart of effective teams. In certain (peculiar) cases, you might get away with using email or WhatsApp for all your communication needs. But if your team generates a lot of information, you need to do it how the pros do it.
Communication management tools like Slack and Discord help you create categories for discussions, employ bots for automatic responses, and plugin lots of other cool features according to the communication needs of your team.
6. Bonus: Management Supertool for High-Performance Remote Teams
Imagine a tool that helps you manage remote teams from across the globe in a largely automated system, from the comfort of your home office, achieving even more in performance and accountability than many in-person teams. You can keep track of what your employees are working on, how much time they spend on it, and who is responsible for the work.
Here’s some good news: you can get access to the Management Supertool for High-Performance Remote Teams at no extra cost with ioHubs! ioHubs offers a complete technical recruitment process on your behalf in an average of four (4) weeks, finding your ideal candidate in alignment with your specific requirements. Reach out today to get started.
