Managing Distributed Teams to Keep Engineering Quality High

Global trends have changed the way how many businesses operate, taking people from offices to their homes, often in other cities or countries. The popularity of the distributed team model doesn't seem to be fading anytime soon, especially in software development services. When Zoom asked users about their work preferences, the answers were pretty predictable. 36% of employees prefer fully remote work. 46% of people working from home are ready to consider changing jobs if their employers make them return to full-time in-office work.

At the same time, with the right approach to managing distributed teams, productivity is comparable to that of traditional office-based approaches. Asynchronous communication, collaboration tools, setting clear goals, and other distributed teams' best practices help maintaining high engineering quality and meeting deadlines.

Find more insights on how to manage distributed teams in our blog post. We share our experience as a custom software development agency collaborating with businesses worldwide.

What is a Distributed Team and Why does it Require a Special Approach?

Distributed team management takes place when you have employees in multiple locations and need to coordinate their efforts. They usually work in different time zones and have limited overlapping hours during the day, which complicates communication. A tailored approach to managing distributed teams is necessary if you have multiple offices, offer a flexible workplace, or collaborate with remote vendors and freelancers.

A distributed workplace requires greater trust and more effective management practices. You must enable flexibility while maintaining control and tracking each team member's results. It differs from traditional approaches, as digital channels are the main means of communication between employees.

Note: Distributed teams are not the same as remote teams. While remote teams also work out of the office, they may live in the same location and meet offline occasionally, working with distributed teams means employees are in different physical locations.

Reasons to Have Distributed Teams for Software Development

Even though managing distributed teams is more challenging than old-fashioned approaches, it makes businesses more agile, provides access to unique expertise, and ensures high transparency if done right. Another valid reason for managing a distributed team is cost efficiency. According to Global Workplace Analytics, companies can save $11,000 per year for one employee working at least half of the time remotely. No need to pay for rent, utilities, office supplies, and maintenance. 

Besides, you will have a hard time forcing engineers back to the office, so globally distributed teams are a common way to launch and manage software development. Since the engineering market is highly dynamic and competitive, you need maximum flexibility to retain employees.

Advice on How to Manage a Distributed Team

These distributed workforce best practices should help you establish smooth cooperation, implement transparent tracking, and manage employees more effectively. Our team relies on them for our projects to ensure consistently high quality of software development.

Set quality standards and keep documentation

You must have code formatting guidelines, a Definition of Done (DoD), and quality metrics such as test coverage, performance, and reliability. It's also necessary to encourage the team to document their logic, decisions, and acceptance criteria, and run regular code reviews. This will help evaluate the quality of work and ensure everyone follows the same rules.

Have a consistent meeting schedule 

Schedule meetings at the same time each week to track the project progress and gain more control over distributed teams. Try to find overlapping working hours for everyone. If the time difference between team members is too big, you can rotate between two meeting times (e.g., morning and afternoon) biweekly. Recording important meetings is also essential for transparent distributed team communication. When an engineer cannot join the call for any reason, they can view the highlights and catch up.

Clarify and document the roles

Define primary responsibilities, ownership, and deliverables expected from each role for more effective project management and hiring. You should also know how different team members collaborate and openly communicate any dependencies. It reduces friction and makes the software development process much better coordinated. If you have no experience with managing software development teams, hire an experienced project manager to get help.

Set up a comprehensive onboarding process

Gather the information your employee may need before their first day, and free your existing team members to onboard the new people. Make sure they know about the main communication channels and core collaboration tools, as well as about their responsibilities and expected contribution. Initial training prevents mistakes and delays later, improving software development quality.

Use specialized tools for distributed teams

You should decide on the communication (Slack, Teams, Zoom Workplace, and Google Meet), project and task management (Trello, Asana, ClickUp, and Airtable), documentation (Confluence, Notion, and GitHub Wiki), performance tracking (Jira, Asana, Jellyfish), and code & engineering tools (GitHub, GitLab) from the start. Evaluate different options to decide which ones meet your budget, security needs, and expectations. All employees should use the same channels and tools to keep the project transparent.

Focus on asynchronous communication when possible

Encourage team members to leave detailed comments and messages instead of scheduling calls. Issue trackers like Jira or GitHub Issues significantly improve visibility. Short video updates with instructions also replace direct video calls and help manage distributed teams more effectively. Real-life meetings should be used only for questions that cannot be solved in writing.

Document decision-making and escalation procedure

Specify who takes which decisions and who contributes at different stages. For example, a product owner is usually responsible for sprint scope and prioritization, while a team lead makes hiring decisions. Clear role distribution will reduce the risk of mistakes and benefit accountability.

Have 1:1 calls with your team members

Check in with your team regularly to gather feedback and ensure distributed team management happens smoothly. Schedule monthly 1:1 calls with each team member to discuss their concerns and progress. Don't turn these meetings into chatting. You should have a clear agenda and focus on resolving work issues and aligning each engineer's efforts with the project's goals. The distributed teams meaning implies less direct supervision, so you should replace it with alternative ways to stay in touch.

Set measurable goals and have a roadmap

Have specific, measurable goals, and create an action plan to achieve them. It will help break the project into smaller stages, making its execution easier to manage. Having a roadmap is also an effective way to connect disparate teams and evaluate their results and productivity. Make sure to celebrate important milestones and achievements with remote team members. It's essential for managing distributed teams to nurture team spirit and unity.