As a developer and small business owner, I’ve had insights from both sides, I’ve worked as a remote developer and managed remote developers for different projects and with different teams.

在这篇文章中，我将分享一些我的经验，希望它能让所有参与远程项目的人生活得更轻松一些. When it comes to do’s and don’ts of remote team management, 我倾向于关注“不应该”——因为不像“应该”，它们几乎适用于每个团队.

When entering the remote developers’ world, 管理人员必须克服的最大障碍是改变他们的思维方式，接受开发人员不会在视线范围内, and where they can manage and follow the work being done. 这种新范例要求企业实现许多机制来跟踪进度并避免冗余的工作负载. Such mechanisms will help both manager and developer be more productive, which is in everyone’s best interest.

To make it clear, all these mechanisms should 不 be used to control or micro-manage the employee.

Don’t Believe In Remote Team Myths And Misconceptions

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of managing remote teams on a single project, by starting with communication.

Business has gone global, and the advent of vast, 跨国组织给世界各地数以百万计的专业人士带来了新的挑战. 全球团队的复杂性和相互交织的性质要求更彻底和周到的内部沟通方法.

In such organisations and teams, 许多人没有在熟悉的环境中工作或说母语的奢侈. 从事同一项目的团队可能隔着海洋，而不是办公室和小隔间. Team members come from different cultures and work across the globe.

These professionals shouldn’t have to worry about communication, but they must be able to cooperate with multinational team members. All parties need to be proactive. 企业文化必须反映这种模式，并帮助营造一种富有成效的环境, multicultural teams can thrive.

Our own Scott Ritter busted the top five myths about remote teams in a recent blog post, which you may find useful if you are interested in the subject. Toptal CEO Taso Du Val also elaborated how our network operates and how we stride to create the ultimate remote team culture.

Don’t Forget To Embrace And Encourage Diversity

建立健全的远程团队沟通策略的第一步，首先要承认多元文化团队超越了国家和文化的界限, putting them in a unique position to offer insights hard to attain with centralised, monolithic teams.

But don’t worry; diversity is good for business!

According to a survey carried out by The Economist Intelligence Unit, multicultural teams are favoured by big organisations; many executives believe they help foster innovation because of their broader knowledge of global trends. Further, they are less likely to suffer from “group-think” mentality; their diversity helps them tackle problems from different perspectives, thus producing a better range of solutions tailored for specific regions and markets.

有人认为，管理远程员工可能会因为不在同一个地方而更有效率. It may sound counterintuitive, but such remote teams simply spend less time chatting, socialising and discussing trivial matters.

While physical separation can lead to more productivity, it can also create misunderstandings, tension, alienation, and greater stress and anxiety. Consequently, 有必要通过在个人层面上培养积极性和协作的举措来减轻这些负面影响. Improving communication in remote teams can be a daunting task, and building personal bonds among team members tends to be challenging. That’s why a human touch is necessary.

Finding something that can improve engagement, regardless of background, is a relatively simple way of boosting morale and cooperation. This effort can take many forms, depending on the size and composition of your teams. Ideally, it should be centred around a stress-free, leisurely activity that team members will enjoy, ranging from work-related competitions, entertaining projects, or discussions that are 不 work-related.

Taking part in such activities, at the organisation’s expense, may sound like a less than ideal allocation of financial and human resources, 但请记住，为了一个共同的目标而团结团队通常会带来更好的工作环境, stronger personal ties and improved productivity.

Don’t Take Recruitment And Training Lightly

In order to make the most of managing remote teams, you need to be mindful of cultural differences and compensate with adequate training.

提高语言技能只是其中的一部分，因为沟通技巧会受到文化差异的影响. It starts with good recruitment policies that favor individuals, especially those who will be in managerial positions, prepared to work in multinational environments. Experience in remote projects obviously comes in handy, but should 不 be a prerequisite. 仅仅因为远程开发人员不会每周都在你的办公室，并不意味着招聘不应该考虑个人特质. You and your team will still have to communicate with remote developers on a regular basis, so ask them the same questions you would ask any on-site worker – remote or 不, they still have to fit in.

While it is possible to address some issues with additional training, it may 不 always be practical, but in any case, good training is the next logical step. Training should develop existing positive traits, while at the same time mitigating shortcomings and addressing previously identified weak spots.

Managers dealing with remote teams routinely have to assume new roles on short 不ice, take over projects they are 不 necessarily familiar with, and spend a lot of time catching up. In such situations, internal communications do 不 tend to be high on their list of priorities, 即使他们现在领导的团队在一个或多个项目上合作了数年. Time is a valuable asset, but so is good teamwork; managers must take time out of their busy schedules and learn more about their teams, individual team members, and problems likely to crop up.

Emotional distance between remote managers and their subordinates can also pose a problem, since team members may be reluctant to confront new team leaders, or even approach them in either formal or informal settings. 一个优秀的远程员工管理者需要认识到这一点，并坚持让员工更多地参与进来——正如我所说的, “Be proactive.——如果他们不与你分享他们的想法，那么拥有一支优秀的远程开发团队又有什么意义呢?

Don’t Use A Complicated Information System

不要错过实施一个包括源代码管理(SCM)系统的有效信息系统的机会, issue tracker (不 too complicated, please) and possibly some Wiki pages where all parties can document things, or sk等h ideas and proposals. 所有这些协作工具将使开发和发布管理更容易实现.

It is important to keep things as simple as possible here, because this information system will be used on a daily/hourly basis. 如果它最终过于复杂，它将花费应该用于实现和/或设计的时间. 对于新团队成员和自由职业者来说，这个过程可能也需要简化，因为他们没有时间了解组织政策的来龙去脉.

My long-time favourite project management application is Redmine, an open-source, cross-platform and cross-database system. This platform is highly configurable and you can integrate your own SCM, different plugins, and service hooks.

如果您不想麻烦地使用Ruby维护自己的服务器并自己设置所有内容(对于没有经验的系统管理员来说，Redmine可能会很复杂), a不her good choice is GitHub, which features 不 only the git CMS but also GitHub Issues, which integrates well with your commit messages, pull requests, 等.

Once we have our information system set up and ready, we can start integrating our remote developer into our project.

Don’t Micromanage

Many managers have a hard time letting go of their responsibilities, especially if they themselves come from a developer background. Instead of focusing on communicating the problems and project goals, they find solutions for those problems and provide implementation details, so the only work left for the developer is to code what he has been told to code. This is 不 a good practice when managing remote employees.

On one side, managers lose too much time on stuff they hired the remote developer to do. The developers may be unsatisfied with this situation, either because they feel undervalued and left without a chance to be creative and innovative, or simply to prove themselves. After all, problem solving is exactly what developers study for years, so taking it out of the equation and turning developers into automatons does 不 make sense!

Like everything else in life, it is all about finding a good balance.

Don’t Worry About Time Zones, Use Them To Your Advantage

Good remote developers tend to be self-sustaining and independent by nature; they need freedom and responsibility to organize their time. Overlapping working hours are useful, though 不 mandatory, when you have a good information system and good communication with your developers.

在不同的时区工作可能对业务有益，因为当不同时区的开发人员接管项目的各个方面时，您可能能够实现“全天候”的效率. If your developer is ahead of your time zone, 这让你有机会在同一天回顾他的工作，你可以立即评估和协调下一件大事. On the other hand, if you are ahead of your developer’s zone, 这让你有机会准备开发人员完成任务所需的一切.

Remember, 一个好的管理者只不过是为他的员工提供服务，使他们能够完成工作, 不 the other way around!

Don’t Force Day-To-Day Goals, focus on Mid- Or Long-Term Goals

Day-to-day goals are a form of micromanaging the project. Instead, try to communicate the overall picture to your developer and, together, set clearly-defined priorities. If you get the developer to understand the project as well as you do, the developer is likely to be more useful.

For example, the developer may have insights into the newest technologies, or implementation details that affect the prioritization of different tasks, or the determination of the Minimum Valuable Product (MVP). Both of you need to define clear goals and milestones, and get work done step-by-step. It is your responsibility to make sure that all these milestones fit into the big picture.

In my opinion, 敏捷宣言(方法论)是过去几年项目管理中发生的最好的事情.

It enables you to do exactly what is needed, to delegate responsibility to those who actually implement things, and to force common sense into every party involved in the process. 你定义你的中长期目标和任务，并对难度进行一些高层次的估计, and in those weekly (or bi-weekly) sprint planning meetings, you let the developer determine the exact workload and difficulty for completing those tasks.

Like every good thing, it takes time to build good Agile teams. Don’t expect to have a working team within three months. Agile is all about learning by doing, and growing together as a team.

Don’t Hide Business Details

Well, this one is tricky. Some projects are sensitive by nature, and leaking information can be harmful. Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) may address the problem, but they are 不 bulletproof.

However, the more the developer knows, the more effective he can be, 不 only in solving predefined tasks but also in solving, on the fly, all these annoying small issues and hiccups. In the end, this will make the developer more productive and make your life easier.

The Agile development process comes in handy here, as well. It enables knowledge-sharing between parties (stakeholder, tester, developer, 等.) by removing any hierarchy and by considering those parties as equal team members, with the same responsibilities, and thereby encouraging them to work as transparently as possible. A不her benefit of transparency is that problems are “escalated” quickly, and can be picked up by any part of the team.

Don’t Ignore Remote Team Members

Remember, when managing remote workers, you are a service to your team, and if the team needs your input, you should 不 be too busy to support them. If the developer can’t solve something on his own, he will get stuck and lose valuable time.

As a developer, usually when I ran into a dead end, I turned to my SO for advice, +, I tried to offer advice, as well. Do 不 totally ignore the developer’s advice, since it could be insightful, or it could solve a problem you weren’t even aware of.

If something is unclear, or if you think it’s 不 necessary to address the problem, 以开放的态度表明你的立场，让开发者有机会说服你，他终究是对的.

Again, this will build communication skills and improve trust.

Quick Remote Team Management Tips

Since I’ve already summarized the main points in tweets and illustrations, here are a few more quick tips and thoughts.

• These general rules can be applied to remote and on-site developers.
• If you micromanage, you will miss the opportunity to learn and let learn.
• Be open-minded and trustworthy, as this is the only way to build a good remote team.
• Keep in mind that an estimate is just an estimate; you will encounter under- and over estimates.
• All who work make mistakes, and if you don’t forgive other’s mistakes then yours won’t be forgiven, either.
• Most importantly, 对于任何开发者来说，最大的动机(除了完成困难任务的满足感)就是金钱. So, do 不 delay payments and consider instituting bonus policies, as well.