Most companies now allow their employees to choose where they work – whether at home, in the office, or a combination of the two. And this comes with its challenge. So, if you are a product manager working with remote teams, how do you ensure that you constantly deliver on your KPIs? This presentation tries to answer this question.

1. How To
Successfully Work
With Remote
Teams as a
Product Manager
Emmanuel Oluwatosin |
emmanuel@oluwatos.in |
http://emmanuel.oluwatos.in
July 14, 2022

2. Who is
Emmanuel
Oluwatosin
• Senior Product Manager and
Leanstack Startup Coach
• Nearly 2 decades experience and
excellent track record of successfully
defining real-time business & product
strategy and translating them into
high-impact actions and solutions
• Serves as Director of Community,
Product Calgary

3. Today’s Reality Post Covid
Most companies now allow their employees to choose where they
work – whether at home, in the office, or a combination of the two.
This means you get to work independently from home, alone, and
/or work as a team remotely.

4. Challenges
Harder decision making
Engagement and motivation
decline
Difficult to maintain consistent
schedule from home
Overworked team members

5. Remote teams
Effective remote teams
have structure and
process that synch
everyone in time
01
Remote teams are
unbounded by space
02
Ineffective teams
either put in arbitrary
or ineffective
boundaries or non at
all
03

6. Product Management != A Control Center
Some organizations like hospitals, customer care centers need to worry about availability to be
responsive 247
You cannot spend 247 responding to questions
Product managers are responsive to stakeholders especially customers
Set up a portion of the day or week to be available to different stakeholders
Focus your energy more on accomplishing required tasks and delivering on business objectives

7. Set work / life
boundaries:
Schedule personal
time weekly
Establish trust:
schedule regular
catch-up sessions
with key power
brokers
Over
communicate
Regular
information
sharing
Incorporate the
right PM tools
Embrace
Technology
Turn to video
tools to bridge the
communication
gap
Document your
meetings
Some Tips

8. Structure Enables Flexibility
Structure can
reduce the
possibility of
blockers
01
Schedule specific
collaboration
periods e.g., sprint
planning sessions,
standups;
02
ensure everyone is
on the same page
irrespective of
location and time
zone
03
Ambiguity and
misunderstanding
can be rooted out
early and minimized
over time
04

9. The Role Of Technology
Technology makes it
easy to connect with
people irrespective of
location
Digital communication
tools: Zoom /
Microsoft Teams, Slack
Collaboration and
productivity: Google
Workspace / Microsoft
365, Confluence
Project and task
management: Jira,
Trello, Asana,
Bitbucket
Additional tools:
Clockwise, MURAL

10. Working With
Customers
a remote setup limits your opportunities for customer
interactions.
the onus is on you to make them happen.
proactively create opportunities to interact with
customers.
engage the sales team to include you on customer calls,
as well as plugging into the customer service pipeline.
If possible, tag along if sales or account management is
holding an in-person meeting with customers.

11. Summary
Balance flexibility with enough structure to maintain
accountability that promotes effectiveness
Establish clear review patterns
Embrace Technology
Maintain visibility but do not expect 247 availability
Bring the team together in person occasionally to
increase effectiveness

12. Personal Experience
Working at different companies