As you know that its the remote working active everywhere. My team is also working remotely. I just want to keep myself updated with my team’s activities. How can i achieve that. The point is that I do not want to micro manage them but I should be aware of happenings. Few points thta came to my mind was that I can ask for Daily Status Report (DSR). Also asking them on chat to know what they are doing and f they ar facing any problem etc. Do you think its micro management?
It would be great if you guys guide me in a better way or you have any other ideas or experiences to share. Referring me to some article or blog etc would also work.
I have a informal morning meeting with my team, just to chat through what’s going on from my perspective, then give them all time to highlight progress, blockers and chance to collaborate with each other. Especially with remote working, the team enjoy the routine of starting the day with an informal coffee chat like we would if we were in the office.
I chat to them all when needed during the day and we compile a weekly report as a team which I then distribute out to stakeholders, so I get to understand their updates as part of creating that report together.
Its tricky as we have that matrix problem where Engineers are in a large QA Team as well as being assigned to a project teams. So when we went remote we took a number of measures:
Every morning in our QA slack channel, everyone drops a message into our QA Slack channel to celebrate what they’re working on today
We separated our team meeting from project meetings so we didn’t repeat discussions. Our team meetings are more about learning experiences where each sub team demos something they’ve learned and/or instigates a discussion point relevant to general QA
We agreed some KPIs where we can measure our success against sprints and product releases. We drill into them purely for the focus of seeing where we need to improve and identify any resource shortfalls
We regularly meet on a Friday in something we’ve called “The chatterboogie” where we just talk about anything other than work, just so we regularly keep our social side going
@ghawked … your and @sjprior have almost the same strategy. Having a chit chat in the morning as the first thing is a good idea. And yes @sjprior I am also curious to know more about your strategy as it involves less writing.
I personally hate status reporting because it is a means to an end and we often forget what the end is. Commonly it is something on the line of “I want you to report your status so that I can decide if I need to take action here or if I can ignore it”. Which I find you can achieve better if you skip the status reporting and just jump to the. Is there anything you need me to act on.
Then it is also not uncommon for you to be in the middle here and someone asks for status from you so you ask for status from your team etc. Again be more transparent and say something like I need to let my manager know if they need to act on anything, is there anything you want me to flag.
All of that being said my experience is that if you can show, through your actions, that if they need help you will help and if they do good they will get praise, people have a natural tendency to report to you anyway.
If being updated for instance is so you can take better decisions in unexpected meetings you will be called into. Apart from making that fact known a quick stand-up every morning is a good format. Again to reinforce the behavior praise is key. So for instance if one member said something in a meeting that you used, make sure to thank them for it and praise them. That way they can all get a better understanding of what kind of information you need and they can see the value of that. And on top of that they maybe get some information on what is going on etc.
We also share with each other bugs we have found (when they are of general interest) and tools we have started to use etc.
Thanks for your reply and i agree that asking for daily status report is not a good idea as It gives an impression like I am trying to impose my authority on the team. I myself do not want this as I do not micro managing things. Your team should feel unthreatened and free rather than being judged on the basis of their tasks performed. That is why I am looking for a friendly way to tackle this. And yes The idea of asking if they need help seems to be a good one @ola.sundin . I think rather than making it more formal like stand up throwing in a statement like above in the chat in the morning seems to be a good way to get the updates.
