Managing by Walking Around - Remotely

How do we manage remote team members? Let me share my experience with management by walking around (MBWA) that I used in a remote setting in a previous role.

By the time the pandemic hit, I had already worked remotely for years. Then suddenly more people stayed at home, and then the whole office ceased to be.

So I applied what I had learnt about remote working beforehand: That it can be lonely. That it’s difficult to judge when to reach out for help, as I can’t just turn to the person next to me. That one could end up spending much more time on a task than planned because of getting stuck (but not wanting to admit it).

As I had a few people to lead and mentor, I thought they may suffer from the same issues. And so I started striking up brief chats with them once or twice a day - just a message asking if they were free for a few mins, and a call.

I strove to avoid coming across as micromanaging their work through some random inspection; rather, these were social calls with a bit of small talk, personal issues, and just asking how they were getting on. These turned out to be incredibly valuable. These calls fostered social connections and friendships, and since the developers were in the middle of something, they would immediately share their frustrations -- with a piece of infrastructure, with not knowing something in the system, with not being sure whether they can break for an hour to get to the vet. And we would sort these issues out. It would also become apparent if someone struggled with a task but didn’t want to reach out, and so we could size and specify tasks for them better.

Scheduled 1:1s are great, and very important tools. But they are -- scheduled. We are not “in the moment” when they happen; we stop work, collect our notes, and largely forget about small problems that for some reason we don’t want to mention. But small problems can mount up, too, and often they define most of our day.

1:1s are indispensable for larger conversations, for bigger pieces of feedback, or to tackle overall patterns in performance. But for me, MBWA worked surprisingly well as an additional tool to keep everyone engaged and happy.

So much so that a few months after a fully remote developer left to rejoin their old, in-person place, they asked if they could come back part-time remotely -- for the culture.

See further feedback on this technique on LinkedIn.