How to Lead Remote Product Teams? Key Features for Success

Remote working is now becoming the new norm as the Covid-19 pandemic seems far from over. Although remote work has become more common due to the pandemic, many organizations were not ready for this sudden transition. Nevertheless, leading a remote team is not as complicated as it looks.

With innovative technologies, you can easily manage, supervise, and control your remote team from any part of the world. Plus, the cost of running a remote team is much lower if we compare it with running an onsite team.

As more businesses are now embracing remote working, project managers’ roles have become more critical than ever. The success of a remote product team lies mainly in the hands of a project manager. Leading a remote product team requires them to plan and execute with the project’s responsibility on their shoulders.

To thrive in your role as a project manager, there are some key features that you must possess to lead, guide, and ensure the success of your team. So, we will be discussing a few of them in this article to improve your skills and ensure your remote team and project’s success.

Communicate and Interact

Since there is physical interaction, interaction with your team is essential. It is necessary for a project manager that his team has clear instructions with a proper plan. Also, try having an informal discussion regarding the project as there would be in an office space. This way, there is no communication gap between you and your team, and there is clear visibility regarding the progress of the project and the team. There are a few tips that you can use to maintain transparency and visibility regarding the project with your team.

Fostering direct and informal interaction

As a remote product manager, you should facilitate direct communication as it would happen in an office environment. You should be prudent that you don’t become the sole communication point between everyone as this could lead to teams working in silos only interacting through the project manager with each other.

Also, apart from communication with the project manager, teams need to have a sense of harmony to work well. As a project manager, you can check on them from time to time if they get along with other remote team members. Spontaneous conversations can help in creating a healthy relationship among them. Try starting calls or videos chatting about topics like the weekend plans, kids, etc., to break the ice between the remote team members.

Increased transparency

Transparency is a big challenge for teams working remotely. It is much easier to achieve in a physical office without any procedure as project managers are aware of the situation due to physical supervision or informal discussions. Even an online group meeting can be futile and unproductive, as many would not share ideas or discuss issues.

The best way for project managers to tackle this issue is by having one-on-one meetings with their members. That way, it can create a room for brainstorming and can help valuable discussions to take place. Moreover, project managers should encourage problem-solving ideas to have more transparency and visibility among the team.

Nurture a collaborative spirit

Team spirit is vital for a team to collaborate and work together. Building a team is more than just getting people to work together. You would have to create an environment that fosters interactive and regular coordination between those who work together. Therefore, you would need to find ways that remove any hurdles in communication so that the team gets to blend in with each other.

Inspire Your Team

When it comes to inspiring remote teams, it is no less than a considerable challenge. With no physical and casual interactions, building trust and empathy is not easy. It is more difficult for project managers to lead whose tasks they cannot do themselves. A project manager cannot write code for a design or an engineer. In these scenarios, managers should be leading by example to build trust among the team. By following a few strategies, this obstacle can be changed into a strength by the product managers.

Gain Confidence by Establishing Trust

The lack of physical contact does not allow you to gain trust through social interactions. Gaining confidence can be a bit difficult in the remote working module. To do so, you must genuinely care and show interest in caring about your team members.

Recognize and Appreciate Good Performance

Recognition of one’s hard work is a great morale booster. As a project manager, try highlighting and appreciating the top performers of your team. That way, you can not only motivate people but also help to build a trusting relationship. Moreover, in case of a failure or setback, try encouraging your team and recognize the time and effort they have put in.

Lead by Example

A good project manager would know when his team is struggling. Instead of adding more pressure, they would jump in to help and resort to issues that they can do. They should be exceptionally diligent in working, leading the team from the front when needed.

Leadership

Organizations that don’t have people with any leadership traits are sooner or later going to fail. Leadership plays a vital role in organizational behavior. As a project manager, you should come with solutions to problems through creativity and problem-solving skills. You must have deep insight and knowledge about your field to steer your team in the right direction.

Managers are often way too busy, dealing with many things and having a lot of things on their plate. To be successful leaders, managers need to be coordinating and directing with other teams while simultaneously dealing with groups of analysts, designers, and engineers. Other distinctive duties of product managers are that they need to persuade, direct, and convince peers across multiple teams and tiers within the command’s managerial chain.

The Final Results Matter

Since project managers are dealing with teams remotely that can be in different time zones, evaluating their performance on the 9-to-5 method might be difficult. Remote working has given the ease of working with flexible hours, which has helped them become more productive. As a manager, if you focus more on the number of hours your team has put in rather than the results, it would be difficult to evaluate your team’s performance.

Project managers need to focus more on the results that the team is giving. Gone are the days when employees are micromanaged. If your team meets the deadlines and is delivering as per the project’s expectations, you should not worry about the hours they put in.

Wrapping Up

Remote working is here to stay. With the right tactics, making amendments in the remote product leadership is like a piece of cake. Nevertheless, when you hire remote product teams, you need to make sure that project managers have the right skills and capabilities to make it successful. And what best place to find the best remote team project managers and the team then Aspired.

Aspired provides remote working teams that has dedicated and skilled individuals. They work on giving the best results for their clients. Their teams consist of experts in web designing, app development, digital marketing, and many more. Collaborating with Aspired would help you lift all of the burdens from your shoulders, giving you time to plan on other things for your business.