The current emergency has forced us to live with remote working and to develop best practices and guidelines. We believe that knowing useful tricks and tips for working like this will be increasingly important in the future. What sorts of things do we need to look out for? Are there any tricks for making remote working better?   The following are some of the lessons we have learned over these last few months. 
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1. Remote Working
Primer
April 2020

2. As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, many companies
are taking actions to support efforts to curtail the spread, including
shifting to remote-working models
This document is intended to serve as a briefing on launching a
remote working model, showing:
• Key success factors to manage teams and project-work effectively
while remote
• Ideas to build a remote team culture and keep team members
engaged
We realize every situation is different. It is important to build the right
work and teaming models that are consistent with your organization
Purpose of this document

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Remote working best practices

4. Experience shows a handful of
practices support successful
remote teaming and delivery
• Clarify expectations for
remote work model
• Create a productive work
environment
• Establish processes for
monitoring work
planning, productivity,
and deliverables
• Explicitly define the team
collaboration model
• Ensure easy access to
information across
teams, departments,
and consultants
• Mimic in-office
interactions while
remote to maintain
cohesiveness and
morale
• Create virtual social
intimacy
Construct Communicate Connect
1 2 3

5. Clarify expectations for remote work model to maximize effectiveness
Establish technology norms
• Video expectations: required (unless in transit)
• Audio preferences: laptop or phone? mute when quiet?
• Screen sharing vs. not
• Live “team room”–all day video, outside of meetings
• Role of chat/IM during meetings
Establish a working space & norms
• Ensure security of workspace (e.g., shared space ok?)
• Communicate plans to manage home obligations, including childcare, eldercare, and pets
• Seek outside support and, if limited, leaders and staff work together to balance business and personal
needs (off-hour work, time-shifted schedules, etc.)
• Dress-code, if applicable
Establish team working norms
• Working hours and breaks
• Expectations about responsiveness (e.g., email responded within X time, if urgent–SMS)
• Mechanism to provide feedback
Construct

6. Construct
Create a productive work environment
Create a new routine
• Boundaries between work and life become blurry when working remote
• Get up, get ready, and get going as if you were preparing
for a normal day in the office
Establish a working space
• Ideally this is a place you don't go to relax, like your bedroom or sofa
• It should also be a place that other members of your household know is
designated for work
Build in breaks
• When we work in an office, we walk to get food, chat with our coworkers, go out for
coffee, and get up from our desks
• It is easy to burn out if you don't remind yourself to take breaks or get up to move
around

7. Construct
Establish processes for work planning, productivity and deliverables and explicitly
define collaboration models
Team leadership
• Increase touchpoints with key team members and stakeholders
– Ensure strong verbal feedback loop during projects
– Maintain relationship discussions, leveraging video or phone
• Schedule working team touchpoints & participate
– Compensate for loss of ad-hoc interactions from co-location
– Show that you are still close to delivery team
• Agree on what “urgent” means
• Set standards for typical iterations, e.g. feedback shared in shared folder, sent ‘X’ time ahead of meeting
• Use “golden hour” if working with different time zones
(optimal meeting time when team not co-located)
• Set clear expectations
– When working remote, do not leave things open to interpretation
– Align on expectations-What is the deliverable? When is it due? Who owns it?
Direct team and/or consultants
• Full team daily (virtual) stand-ups, consider check-in and check-out discussions/emails with
managers/counterparts
• Set clear deadlines & stick to them (discuss proactively if anything were to change)

8. Share key takeaways with team after each meeting
• Leverage multiple mediums (prioritize timely sharing vs.
over-detailed)
When in doubt, over-communicate
• On progress, deliverables, inspiring content
– To build trust & reassure team that everybody continues to work productively
• Use clear & specific language
Leverage cloud-based file sharing tools, like Egnyte or OneDrive, to ensure
rapid access to latest information
• Created shared folders that all can access for real-time information
• Minimize version control issues via tracking/ability to roll-back
• Use ‘share link’ to share large files for easy collaboration
Communicate
Ensure easy access to information across teams & organizations

9. Encourage “virtual water cooler” communication, e.g.:
• Without “water cooler” conversations, it can be hard to connect with one another
• Add buffer before/after meetings to allow for informal relationship building and information
sharing opportunities
Promote spontaneous & positive interactions across team
• Celebrate team milestones, personal accomplishments, etc.
• Utilize best culture carriers to be accountable for driving team unity and motivation
• Promote spontaneous interaction (check-in calls, eating ‘together')
Create a new routine & provide updates
• Boundaries between work and life become blurry when remote
• Get up, get ready, and get going as if you were going to the office
• Push conversations into the team channel on chat applications
– This increases visibility to work that is occurring
• Over-communicate on progress made and deliverables underway
• Protect ability to disconnect and ‘go home’ vs. always at ‘office'
Connect
Mimic in-office interactions to maintain cohesiveness and morale

10. Create virtual social intimacy
Connect
• Share fun facts about each other
• What did your kids do today?
• How you are spending your commuting time?
• Contest for best fake background for everyone’s video home office
• Schedule virtual team dinners
• Pair people off for scheduled daily getting-to-know-you
meetings
Virtual social intimacy should be created…
during virtual
meetings
between virtual
meetings
1. Actively drive it – don't assume it will come automatically
2. Make it a routine – create time for it every meeting
3. Hold people accountable for doing it
Three principles to successfully create social intimacy

11. Various
Meetings
Morning
Stand-Up
Team Content
Discussion
Evening
Check-Out
Lunch break
team uplift
Various
meetings
• Team discusses
objectives for the
day in a 15-30
minute meeting
• Leverage digital
tools to facilitate
the conversation
• Team breaks into
various meetings
with workstreams
and project teams
• Meetings occur
over video
conference
• Individuals get
lunch/recharge
• Someone on team
appointed to:
– Provide a fun
uplift (e.g., best
Spotify playlist,
WFH photo)
– Share a tip or
remote working
best practice
• Time designated
to review content,
deliverables, and
path forward with
full team
• Team breaks into
various meetings
with workstreams
and project teams
• Meetings occur
over video
conference
• Team discusses
objectives for the
evening and any
remaining action
items
• Leverage digital
tools to facilitate
the conversation
Sample day for remote team
EXAMPLE
The process should be fluid–experiment, adapt, and shift operating models as needed

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Interactive exercises to build
a virtual team culture

13. Introduce interactive activities for team building
Desk photo contest
Purpose:
get to know
your team
mates better
Ask team members to snap a photo of their desk and share it with the team.
Get the person to post the photo on a Slack channel together with a short story
about an accessory on
their desk
Not only will it encourage you to clear it of clutter, it also helps other team
members to visualize your work environment, which increases trust and is a
simple way to make us feel closer while we're not able to physically be
together.

14. Introduce interactive activities for team building
Virtual treasure hunt
Purpose:
create a sense of
camaraderie and
get to know your
team members
like never before!
Create a virtual treasure hunt using GooseChase.
The team needs to follow the instructions to receive the allotted points
Sometimes they’ll be submitting a photo or video, while other times they’ll be
solving a puzzle or riddle

15. Introduce interactive activities for team building
Reply all
Purpose:
get to know
team members
through an
interactive
icebreaker
No tools needed, could be done on Slack or Outlook
Before a virtual meeting send team members a question (or list of questions)
and have them select “Reply All” when answering, team members can then
explain their choices on the meeting
Example questions can be “If you could visit anywhere in the world where
would you go?", “Who would you have dinner with, either living or dead?” or
“What is the best place you have ever travelled?”

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