Hi everyone! I've spent the last 6 months working on a pretty intense, yet truly rewarding project. Our client has set ambitious goals that required a team with wide range of newest competencies. From day one, I've been working hand in hand with a very large, international and very diverse group of colleagues specializing in digital solutions, advanced analytics, UX and UI design, implementation etc.
Team dynamics has been great, we spent a lot of time working closely with the client, travelling and meeting in person. Three weeks ago, the situation changed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and like all other teams in the firm - we had to reorganize the way we work. As the manager on the project, I immediately thought: multiple client meetings planned, all our equipment left in the team room, fifty people on the team suddenly need to work remotely... How will we manage that?
Thankfully, the firm already had multiple solutions in place, the technology and tools were all there - we just had to make good use of them. Our team works Agile, and there are many applications enabling virtual work. I connected with our Agile teams in China who shared advice on what worked for them. One of the firm's strengths is undoubtedly the global knowledge sharing and our Chinese colleagues helped a lot.
We now use an online Kanban board, stay in touch using Teams, and continue our scrum ceremonies virtually. Our clients have also switched to remote work, so overall I am happy to see that despite challenges we can maintain delivering to our client at the same level as always.
My initial fear was that given lack of in person interaction, maintaining strong team bonds will become challenging. We are staying as connected as possible, though. We are trying to have individual 1:1 calls and also find time to connect informally. We recently arranged an online team dinner with charades, which was a lot of fun!
Stay safe and till next time!
Anna