How To Keep the Spirit of Teamwork During the #Coronavirus Outbreak

The shock-wave caused by a coronavirus has already rolled around the globe several times. Today's businesses feel the growing anxiety and concerns about how it will impact all the processes.

Today, we'll discuss another question concerning business owners today: how to successfully transition to a temporary remote workforce without interrupting the business processes? In this article, you'll find tips and practices shared by other teams.

Scrum

Companies recommend the Scrum Framework as a basis of effective teamwork.

Scrum is an agile framework process based on the team's ongoing learning and optimizing for fluctuating factors. Under these factors, we usually understand the customer's changing requirements and needs that will lead to unpredictable challenges for a product development team, for which a predictive or planned approach is not suited.

Coronavirus has become one of the most critical "fluctuating factors" that influence teamwork today. Many companies recommend Scrum as the most useful collaboration framework that can become a basis for successful teamwork not only during the spread of Coronavirus but in the future too.

“Combined with the right collaboration tools, the Scrum methodology allows switching to remote work more naturally. We use Slack, Notion, G Suite, Jira, and Miro, and find these tools really helpful in implementing Scrum while we are working from home. It helps us keep our processes on the wheels rolling like previously, without any damage to the clients’ projects.” - Dmytro Venglinski, Founder & CEO of Fireart Studio.

Why Scrum? Why Now?

Scrum has been initially created to help teams more quickly adapt to surprisingly fast-changing conditions, timely re-prioritize tasks or processes, and run short release cycles. Scrum is aimed to motivate a team to learn and evolve constantly.

It is a versatile approach to team management that suits both in-office and remote styles of work. Today, when the outbreak of Coronavirus requires companies to move to fully remote teams, the Scrum methodology is particularly useful. It allows organizations to keep productivity high, although most of us are working from home today.

At the heart of Scrum, there is an idea of breaking teamwork into objectives that can be completed within timeboxed iterations (called sprints) that continue most usually two weeks and no longer than one month. This methodology also implies tracking progress and re-plan in 15-minute daily meetings, called daily stand-ups or daily scrums.

Three Scrum practices that suit almost every team

Sprint

Every sprint is the time planned for the implementation of a short-term strategy. Two weeks is commonly the most optimal period for plan completion. Although some teams need one month for this.

Daily Scrums or Stand-Ups

A daily stand-up is a very short meeting that usually happens in the morning and runs nearly for 15 minutes. It helps every team member stay aligned with the sprint goal and clarify a plan for the next 24 hours.

A stand-up is a time to voice any project-related concerns or any blockers. It is the right moment to answer three main questions that will help you keep motivated and timely react to changes: What did we do yesterday? What are we planning for today? What challenges or obstacles can we meet? Answering these questions, you will be able to manage teamwork even more effectively online.

Sprint review

It is recommended to review the results of work at the end of every sprint. Usually, teams connect online together for an informal meeting to discuss what's completed during a sprint, what has been done well, and what should be improved.

Use the Right Tools. And Use Them All The Time

There are plenty of tools that can significantly facilitate the team's communication. You can stay in touch with each other over instant messaging, Slack, emails, wikis, hangouts, voice, and video calls. We also recommend using group conversations as the backchannel during e-meetings.

Here we will consider the most useful tools and hacks that help companies to work from home. This shortlist of tips and solutions will help you boost your team's productivity not only in the times of Coronavirus but in the future too.

Communication tools for productive teams and their clients

Animation by 

DeeKay

Slack

Slack seems to be the most popular and well-crafted platform that offers an extensive suite of features, such as voice calls, direct one-to-one messaging, group channels, file transfers, powerful message search, and integration with other the most famous collaborations tools.

“In Slack or a similar tool, create a channel where employees can spontaneously issue high-fives to each other. Celebrate every high-five and add many happy emojis. You could also create a Confessions channel where employees can confess things to each other. And a Milestones channel to celebrate birthdays and promotions, but also announce departures.” - Marten Mickos, CEO of HackerOne.

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is a convenient software that provides HD video conferencing. It allows teams to schedule meetings and share screens. It can be deservedly called one of the best video tools with millions of users.

Calendly

Calendly is one of the most famous and user-friendly online appointment scheduling tools. It allows business owners and managers to establish better communication with all the team by letting every team member the opportunity to schedule a meeting. You just need to choose your availability preferences, and Calendly will do the rest of the work for you.

You can share your link to Calendly via email or embed it on your website. Your teammates, customers, and partners should just follow the link to pick a time of a meeting, and the event is added to your calendar.

WebEx

Cisco's WebEx is a user-friendly communication tool that provides personalized video meeting rooms. In WebEx, you can easily host and join meetings. Remote teams often use WebEx to improve collaboration, hold webinars, conduct training, and provide customer support.

Collaboration tools for effective team management:

Donut

Excellent team collaboration can start with a joined lunch online to keep up the team spirit during the quarantine. Donut regularly pairs up team members who don't know each other well to spread trust and collaboration across your organization.

“At Wirecutter, we encourage “Donut dates” to learn more about our colleagues. It doesn’t need to be an everyday thing—some people cherish lunch as their personal hour. But for office buddies, lunch can be a nice time to reconnect over video chat.” - Signe Brewster, Wirecutter.

Asana

Many companies that work remotely use Asana to stay focused on the objectives and manage daily tasks that help them grow a company. It is a famous project management tool that allows assigning tasks and projects to other teammates and tracking timely deliverables. Asana is very convenient as a to-do-list or calendar for strategic planning.

Trello

Trello is a web-based Kanban-style list-making application for task management. It allows teams to work more collaboratively and deliver more tasks in the shortest time and better-organized way. Trello's boards, lists, and cards help team leads manage and prioritize all the tasks in a fun and flexible manner.

ProofHub

ProofHub is a project management software that helps you to stay on top of deliverables. This tool enables freelancers, team leads, and project managers to manage, schedule, discuss, work, and communicate with clients and a team. It comes with integrated group chats, quick discussions right on the projects, convenient workflows, and boards.

An Exciting Time for Fans of Remote Work

Now, it is an excellent opportunity to learn how to manage your teamwork online and give your project management a fresh update. Hopefully, this list of simple yet trustful tips and practices will help companies transit their workflows and communication into an online version more quickly. Let's keep our team spirit strong and high!