This is the first breakdown of the list of remote worker tips I started in this post. I work in Open Source Software, so being Open is part of the culture. But openness becomes especially important when you work remote from the rest of the team.

I wish I had a good reference for where I learned this point. I may have picked it up from my friend Darrick who has been working from home longer than I have and who gave me a good list of pointers (which I’ve lost) that I shared with my team at the time. Or it may have come from the OpenStack conference session I attended ages ago that helped shape my thinking. So I’ll put it in my own words.

When working with a remote team, you don’t have the opportunity to just walk by someone’s desk and see the look of frustration on their face. Or to hear them swearing and pounding the desk in the cubicle next to yours. When I worked in the office, those were queues that I should say “Hi, what’s up?” and start some collaboration. And of course, I benefited from others doing the same for me. 🙂

When remote, it falls to each team member to speak up and share because those other queues aren’t around. This can start with having daily standups, where each team member has a chance to speak up and ask for help or assistance where needed. This is a great step and gives a formal check on how the team is functioning. But it isn’t a cure-all. I’ve seen teams that just jokingly devolve to everyone saying “On Track” for their status just to get through the standup faster. Or even actively asking to not have daily standup meetings (there is a longer reasoning for that as well, probably should do a separate post on that).

Even outside standup or status meetings, it is important to share what you are experiencing. I’ll even say you should be sharing past the point you would normally be comfortable with. I’ve learned from experience that I’m a pretty quiet person by nature. It is easy to just go off on a task and get stuck in the mire and spin my wheels. The cure for that is talking about what I’m working on and asking for help. It takes swallowing some pride and ignoring the fear that your coworkers will think you are dumb. But “dumb” is the word for not making a sound. And working together as a team on a problem makes everyone feel good about your shared progress.

Sure, there are limits, and you don’t want to be that guy who always sucks up everyone’s time and keeps them from getting their job done. But that limit is likely further away than most nerdy engineers think it is.

Aside from the benefits of getting through your problems faster, it also helps to be open about your personality. Building a healthy working relationship between team members can be challenging when the team is spread out, but being open about your work can really help. Gathering in person helps with that too, but that is another blog post. When there is a good working relationship, then team members tend to overlook small faults and are less likely to misread an email as being derogatory or negative.