How to Build Effective Cooperation in a Remote Development Team?

Technology has broken the limitations of distance and barriers when it comes to assembling teams in the modern workplace. Thanks to technology, different people from different fields, races, disciplines, and works of life can come together to work on various parts of a project through a remote development team. Remote development teams have revolutionized the modern workspace and have changed the way people work, and teams carry out projects. Institutions, companies, and firms can now get the best hands-on projects to yield the best results. Regardless of the many benefits that organizing a remote development team brings, it is important for all the organs of the team to synergize.  The supervisor of the team should strive to have relations with the developers and with other members of the team to create cooperation.

What can lead to poor communication in a remote team?

When bringing different people from different parts of the world, with different backgrounds, experiences, and discipline together, every supervisor knows the first thing to do is to get them to cooperate and communicate? This fact, underlines the importance of communication, particularly in a remote team. What then can lead to poor communication in a remote team?

• Ego: Often many people are used to treating others based on their race, religion, education, or ethnicity. One of the best ways to avoid this, to lay down rules and refuse to tolerate others to achieve the goal. This will help in embracing every member of the remote team and having relations with the developers.
• Cultural clashes: Remote jobs are not made up of people from a single nationality, as several individuals from several countries come together to work on a project and form a team. While it helps to explore the diversity of different cultures all around the world, it is a difficult task to harness them. People believe in different things, react to things differently, and interact with one another in different ways.
• Ignorance: In some instances, some people don’t just know what to do. The reason for this might be because they were not taught the right way, or they do not understand the information or instructions given to him or them. Therefore, it is important for the leader of the team to decide on how to help the individual or to let him or her go.
• Distance or Time Zone: Having a team of remote developers from different parts of the world possesses the unique challenge of distance and different time zones. Often, things, these differences affect the schedule and the results of productivity.

Tools for managing software development projects

• Basecamp: Basecamp is a user-friendly app that encourages cooperation and teamwork amongst remote team members. It helps build to-do lists, set up schedules, manage and share files, and have discussions.
• Trello: Trello helps the team generate visual appreciation, as they gain access to daily projects through dashboards needed to trap ideas.
• Jira: Jira serves as an issue tracking solution that has a shrewd choice for projects and allows you to create user stories.
• Asana: Asana is by far one of the most effective task management tools for small-scale businesses. It is particularly helpful in showing different team members what to do and when to do it. This is achieved by creating tasks and assigning them to people with deadlines and instructions. It also creates a clear line of communication between remote team developers.

Tools for communicating with remote developers

• GitHub: GitHub is one of the most popular applications for code sourcing amongst developers, as it allows them to connect with other developers all over the world. It also integrates with third-party apps like Slack, Trello, and Travis CI.
• Slack: Slack replicates a chatroom-based tool for communication amongst developers.
• Screenhero: Screenhero is an app that allows developers and programmers to pair together remotely on projects. It also allows programmers to collaborate and talk while controlling apps in real-time.

Team building exercises for remote teams

Team building exercises are one of the best ways for remote team members to bond. Some of them are virtual board games, virtual karaoke, office trivia, and virtual team pursuit. You could also an escape room as a team.

Tools for monitoring software developer’s productivity

• JIRA: Jira is a must-have tool for any manager of a team of remote developers, as it helps them stay on top of their game. It also helps with their workflow and easily integrates with other systems.
• Proof hub: Proof hub has been one of the best tools for developers to help development teams. It also helps in time tracking, scheduling, task management, custom reports, chat rooms, and email-in features.

There are countless tools that can be used to monitor software developer’s productivity. Some of them are Hive, Celoxis, Wrike, Zoho projects and Teamgantt.

Wrapping up

Cooperation is an essential part of any workspace, particularly in remote teams as it helps convey the theme and vision of the team in every task in the project. As a result of this, everyone will be able to work together to achieve the goals of the team.