We were all taken by surprise when the 2020 coronavirus pandemic forced us all to work remotely. We moved our offices into our homes and tried to be as productive as possible while being stripped off most things we were used to. 

During the past few months that we’ve been working remotely, I’ve had time to reflect on life and I’ve realized that working remotely has actually made me a better product manager and team leader.

It’s forced me to clarify and track goals more specifically.

While the pandemic changed the working dynamics our goals remained the same.

What did change was our need for making sure that we all clearly understood what we were driving towards.  

Without the luxury of being able to physically gather in the office, it made it harder to align the team together, discuss our goals, brainstorm, and delegate tasks. 

As a result, I’ve needed to clear goals for the team as a whole and set up different workstreams for each of my team member to drive towards in order towards our goals. 

I organize tasks and work using a variety of different tools (like the ones I’ve written about here) to manage the team without seeing them.

I cut down on meetings.

Meetings are important, but too many can also be a huge waste of time.

While working remotely, we have to rely on video conferencing and chats as our main source of communication.

But while all of those modes of communication can help us to align and collaborate, the also can be a big distraction. Early on, I noticed that there was a tendency for us to have excess meetings as we adapted to the new way of life. This was understandable but ultimately detrimental to our productivity. In response to this and in conjunction with the refined goal setting, I next sought to cut meetings to a minimum so that the team could focus on their tasks and not spend their time doing conference calls.

By cutting down on meetings, I’ve given my team more time to work without any distractions, think strategically and be more efficient while still staying connected. 

I leveled up my communication and storytelling skills.

I am normally an excellent communicator. I love public speaking, writing power points and PRDs. That being said, the move to remote work has forced me to me even more effective with internal communications. 

Without the luxury of being able to read a room or chit chat next to the cold brew, I have to rely even more on my communication skills as a way to send the right message, convey my points, clarify work and help the team understand the context of what we are doing. 

I find that being incredibly specific, regularly asking for feedback, checking in and using proper document formatting has gone a long way towards helping my team easily understand what’s going on and the expectations. 

One additional, unexpected result of this effective communication is that it has helped to limit “over communicating” or potentially even micromanaging and gives the team more time to focus on work.

The takeaway

Since I have no idea when we’ll go back to the office and resume, life “as normal”, I am doing my best to make the best of the constraints of this new working environment as a way to improve myself and make my team more efficient at building great product.