Managing Distributed Teams

A distributed team comprises employees who work remotely or from different offices. Managing a remote team can be a tough challenge because of communication gaps and time zone differences.

As a manager, it is essential to understand the art of managing remote/distributed teams because it has recently become a more common practice in the software engineering industry, particularly after COVID-19. Almost every team has one or more remote members.

Challenges

There are a lot of challenges faced by a manager while handling a remote team. Some of them can be as follows:

• Lack of connection: Developing a personal connection with remote team members is very difficult. Remote meetings are a lot more transactional and not personal, which may lead to a lack of empathy. Team members also lack connection with each other in a remote setup. People rely on existing relationships, and there is not much opportunity to build new relationships. Remote teams work without casual conversations over coffee breaks, in the hallways, or over lunch. So, it becomes almost impossible to build connections with the people with whom you don’t get to work directly. This will also result in group formation within a team because people rely on existing connections and do not get a chance to socialize with newer colleagues.

• Multiple time zones: This usually happens when a team is distributed over the globe. For example, when one part of the team is working in the Asia/Pacific time zone, and another is working in the North American time zone, team members' working hours differ too much. Setting up common meeting times is a major challenge in this scenario. So mostly, it is encouraged to have an overlap of 4–5 hours, if possible, when ...