What is the importance of communication skills for remote teams? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Workleap Director of Product Barbara Bermes, TIM Fmr Engineering Lead Andrew Parker speaks on the importance of strong communication skills for remote teams. Drawing on his experience managing remote teams across multiple locations, he emphasizes that while technical skills are important, the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively across disciplines is what truly defines a high performer working remotely. He highlights best practices for asynchronous communication and provides insights into how output can be measured in remote environments through a focus on outcomes rather than activities. Andrew also shares his perspective on the future of remote work and the incremental changes we may see in how virtual teams communicate and collaborate over the next five years.
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Show Notes
- Communication skills are even more important for remote knowledge workers.
- High performers elevate others through clear communication.
- Async communication challenges include misinterpretation without context.
- Provide views and ask genuine questions in async exchanges.
- Link to context and explain interpretations to avoid misunderstandings.
- Use emojis and custom reactions to reinforce behaviors.
- Encourage working in public channels for information sharing.
- Overcommunicate norms and expectations for remote interactions.
- Criticize privately, show curiosity publicly to avoid shaming.
- Define clear communication channels for different topics.
- Limit @channel mentions to avoid interruptions and distraction.
- Use reminders to avoid forgetting async requests.
- Observe outcomes rather than just activities for measuring output.
- Involve peers to get qualitative feedback on contributions.
- Focus on adding value through collaboration across functions.
- Technical skills alone don’t define high performance for remote roles.
- AI may improve managing the data firehose of remote documentation.
- Remote acceptance will increase with clearer company policies.
- Hybrid and fully remote models will be more clearly defined.
- Incremental improvements rather than revolution in remote tools.