Business Quests in the Information Age: How to manage employees in remote locations

October 2008

Entrepreneurs On Business Quests

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Nicolas Martignole
Nicolas is a passionate technologist and an explorer of new ways and usages of technology. I like his no-nonsense way of approaching topics and definitely enjoyed learning and working with him at a scrum training.
sandrine Plasseraud
Great new marketing evangelist in the UK.
Hans Rosling
Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. I "discovered" him at a conference in Paris and found his quest for a fact-based understanding and analysis of the world most appealing.
Sylvain Zimmer
A young talented wiz kid who has been on a couple of business quests in the past five years... and he's in his early twenties!
Laurent Kratz
A serial entrepreneur currently very focused on the music industry.
Emmanuel Vivier
One of the top evangelists of new marketing methods in Europe: buzz, wom, viral & more.
Pascal Leurquin
Chef d'entreprise belge de 44 ans, marié, 3 enfants.

An interesting piece on the issues to be considered when managing remote teams. I believe the seemingly least significant aspects have the greatest impact on the performance of remote teams. I know a coouple of my customers who will find this inspiring.

clipped from www.bnet.com

Things you will need:

Travel budget: Plan to see employees at least a few times a year. Technology budget: Don’t fall for every fad, but plan to add new tools as they gain traction.

Set aside time for regular travel, update calls, and to be available for people in different time zones.

Technology: Research the technologies that best connect people for the types of work they do. See Ten Tools for Remote Teams for ideas.

Routine: Consistency in your work process — quarterly gatherings, weekly phone meetings — provides structure and prevents gaps in communication.

Drive: Members of dispersed teams need to work well on their own. Their managers need to sustain the group’s energy, be available at odd hours, travel a lot, and initiate communication.

Chatter: It gets a bad rap, but chit-chat builds a team. Let remote employees in on tidbits like promotions, births and weddings, and inside jokes.

Comments

The "Ten Tools for Remote Teams" link is broken.

Anyway, I will soon be in the position of having to deal with (very) remote people :-) and will keep you posted on that.

Posted by: Philippe Back | Sunday, September 30, 2007 at 10:14 AM

Hi Philippe!

Thanks for the mention of the broken link. It's actually a link to tools thata doesn't work and I left a comment on the site that published the article, a full version of which can be found at: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-165147.html?promo=713&tag=nl.e713

Enjoy!

Posted by: alex | Monday, October 01, 2007 at 10:54 PM