Introduction to manage remote working teams. Discover the tools that we use at MarsBased, tips to increase productivity, best practices, recommended reads and much more thanks to this keynote that was done at Conector on July 21st 2015 by our CMO Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit

2. Hi, I’m @lexrodba

3. Remote teams
Chances are, you’re one too

4. • Java developer 8+ years
Freelancer
IT consulting 5+ years
Two stillborn startups
Launched MarsBased
Background

6. How do we call this?
• Entrepreneurship?
• Remote working?
• Digital nomad?
• Show-off?
• Hipster?
• Starbucks bum?

7. No office
Yes office
Travel
No travel

8. Breaking the myth
How do they earn my trust?
How can I see if they’re really working?
What if they slack off all day?
How will they come to my office?

9. Wrong
• Most of this assumptions come from back xp.
• You’re probably not good at delegating.
• You get what you pay for.

10. Traditional companies
• No work? I’ll check FB.
• Too much work? I’ll check FB.
• No company culture.
• Low employee engagement.

11. Pros of remote
• Flexible schedules
• No routine
• Flexible calendar
• More travel time
• More creativity

12. Shopping list
• Excellent communication skills
• Discipline
• High availability
• Collaboration tools
• Open-minded
• Creativity

13. Choosing the tools
• You will use the wrong ones
• Again
• And again
• And again
• Until you find the right ones…
• … only for some time.
• Go back to start.

14. Quality over quantity

15. Company culture
Tools should be aligned with your culture
• Rails: Basecamp, Github, Redbooth, Quipu
• Remote: Trello, Buffer, Basecamp, Slack
• Simplicity: Trello, Basecamp, Appear, Slack
• Transparency: Trello, Buffer, Ghost

16. Basecamp
Slack
Trello
Google suite
Gdrive / Dropbox
Appear.in
Communication stack

17. Basecamp
• Centralisation
• Client-friendly
• Reduces email
• Decisions here

18. Slack
• Best chat ever
• Killer apps
• Integrations
• Team-only
• Slackbot

19. Trello
• Dev-friendly
• GTD
• Task-managing

20. Google suite
Free
100% uptime
Shut up & take my privacy

22. Video tools
We use appear.in but Hangouts was cool too

23. Some tips
• Don’t stretch the day
• 2 hours of overlap between time zones
• Reply ASAP, deal with it later
• Company activities & retreats every now and then
• Talk about it openly

24. Reading list
• Read Remote: Office Not Required
• Read Buffer’s blog
• Read Trello’s blog
• Follow @levelsio on Twitter

26. How do we call this?
Let’s call it working