In this hard time we hope everyone is safe.
This is a small guide we wrote at Shieldfy to manage our work during the COVID-19 virus outbreak. We thought to opensource the guide it may benefit any other company.
As a founder, it's very scary to imagine how the entire team can collaborate completely remotely.
It's not an easy task but it's achievable, here are some tips for you:
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Embrace the pros more than the cons
It's very important for your team to feel that you are on board with the idea of being work remotely.
This will give them the feeling that you trust them and gives them a sense of responsibility.
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Re-organize your goals & KPIs
You have to rewrite your goals to be fit in short periods.
You must be very sharp on what you need to accomplish. It needs to be specifically measured with numbers (KPI).
Also, it's very important to communicate these numbers and KPIs with your team, they must understand how their work contributes to company growth.
Tools used: Trello
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Your employees are your real capital, don't lose them
I know it's a hard time. You may have to cut your costs to extend your runway.
The obvious choice will be layoff employees. Believe me, that is the most terrible choice you will have to make.
This will harm your employees in these hard times, and make the remaining employees feel insecure and feels betrayed by you. Their bond with each other is much stronger than your bond with them.
Stand with your employees not against them.
Instead, you can cut your costs from other resources (office, online/offline services .. etc). Also, you can communicate with your employees to reduce their salaries in this period instead of letting some of them go and they will be rewarded later.
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Be transparent
Transparency in this specific time is needed more than ever. Your team already knows that we are facing a hard time. So communicate with them and explain your plan and company situation. Ask for their help and they will respond, It's their company too.
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Communicate, communicate and communicate
Communication is the key, You have to communicate regularly with your team (at least 2 times a day). This will keep you sync with your team, who's working on what.
It depends on your methodology, but you can start the day with a standup meeting, and you can have a 1:1 catchup call with your team and ending the day with a quick recap.
Important note: Keep the meeting short (10-15 min) unless you have a good reason to make it long.
Tools used: Google Meet, Slack
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Understand the anatomy of working at home
Working from home is boring and distracting. You have to understand that to give your team reasonable tasks to finish.
Perfect tasks are the ones that are well written short stories.
Don't calculate the working time as a bulk. No one will set down for 6-8 hours straight even at the office.
Instead, define a time (1-2 hours) that all the team should be online together and the rest of the day make it flexible for them.
Express to your team that it's ok if the kids' sounds appear in the meetings. Don't push your team members to be angry (family always first).
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More carrots, less stick
It's very normal to see a drop in productivity, especially in the first week or two. Please don't rush and punish your team for that.
Instead, try to award them for good work. It's always paid off to show them how you appreciate their hard work.
Tools used: Slack, phone, be creative 😉
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Automate everything
As said before, the productivity is dropped. and human errors will be much higher. So to maintain the quality of your product, you must automate everything that can be automated.
Automate your code review: You can use tools like code linters and services like Sonarqube and Shieldfy to automate the code review for you. This helps you to identify problems fast and improve your workflow.
Automate your deployment: If you don't have that yet, please do it fast. Make it Push to deploy for your test, development or staging environment. Allow developers to deploy their code without getting back to you.
Tools used: Github actions, Sonarqube, Shieldfy
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Create developer handbook
Create a handbook and describe all the processes of the development, QA and deployment.
Try to describe everything in steps. This allows developers to act fast without asking you about everything.
Tools used: Github, Markdown
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You are not at home, you are at work inside your home
The first thing to do is to define a corner at your home and set up your disk, chair, and PC.
It's important to make it organized and looks like a professional desk like what you have at work.
Don't ever make your default work from bed or couch.
Tell your family that you are at work and you need to focus. Reward them later with quality fun time with them, they deserve it.
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Communicate, communicate and communicate
Communicate with your team leader and your fellow developers regularly.
Tools used: Google Meet, Slack
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Divide your time, but still be connected
Don't imagine that you will spend 6-8 hours on your PC, this is home at the end. Instead, be realistic and take a break with your family (ex: 15 min every 2-3 hours).
But don't turn the notification off during these short breaks. Always be connected.
Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome.
You can open Issue first to have your suggestion discussed before you create a PR.
