Here are my top tips for working as a distributed team- as published on Slacker Manager a couple of months ago.

We’re a small business that has only ever worked as a distributed team.

Key success factors for us have been:

1. Technology – we moved all of our information to SharePoint at the start of last year and do everything through the site. This includes all of our administration (time recording, expenses, invoicing etc), our business development, our projects, our intellectual property development and our knowledge management. We contract out our financial administration and so our service provider also works for us through our SharePoint site. Almost everyone in the team is a road warrior so we supplement this with a product called Colligo which allows us to take SharePoint offline, while retaining all of our views.
2. Getting together where possible – we don’t often work in the cities in which we live. This means that at any given time there is a possibility that two or more of us will be working in the same city (although on different assignments). On these occasions we always try to co-ordinate and have dinner.
3. Glue person – we have a person on the team who effectively acts as the team glue ensuring there is regular phone contact with everyone.
4. Annual face-to-face planning meetings – I have to say that before we did this I thought it would be a colossal waste of time (and money). All that bonding – get out of here!! I’ve been surprised by the tangible and intangible benefits and this is now a regular fixture for us.

Jill Bolte Taylor’s talk from TED2008 is now available here.

For my take on it see Top TED Picks So Far.  This one will make you laugh, cry and think about the meaning of life.

I was browsing email reminder systems at the weekend but none of them seemed like a huge improvement on what I already do.  Here’s my system which owes a lot to Michael Linenberger:  Total Workday Control and David Allen’s Getting Things Done.   My system is a huge oversimplification of these but works pretty well for me.

Firstly, I only run one email folder in addition to the standard default folders.  So, I have a folder called ‘Inbox’ into which new stuff arrives and a folder called ‘Processed’ where I put things once I have read them – unless they can be instantly deleted.

Why don’t I bother with more folders?  Simply put I’ve tried this many times and either my folders end up out of control; or I stop using them; or I can’t remember which folder I put an email into.  I usually know who the email was from, roughly when I got or what it was about.  So, sorting through my processed mail means I can get to the item within about 30 seconds.  I find that occasionally having to spend a little longer looking (and only very occasionally) is a small price to pay compared to having cascades of folders that I feel guilty if I’m not using.

So, what about the stuff in email that I want to do something with?  Most people leave things in their email inboxes because they know that they have to do something with them but they’re either not sure what or they don’t want to tackle it just yet.

I drag the email to my task area and create a new task with the due date being the date that I want to be reminded about it.  This sounds a little counter-intuitive but works really well.  So if I know I need to reply but don’t have time to do it now, I’ll drag it to my tasks and make the due date Thursday.  I then move the email into the ‘Processed’ folder and I’m done.

On the due date, the item appears on my list of ‘to dos’.   Using this system a few things naturally happen:

·        I can see where I’m procrastinating – some things have lingered on my ‘to do’ list for a couple of months.  Typically these are the things that I actually don’t want to do.

·        Over time the ‘long stayers’ on the ‘to do’ list become either irrelevant or urgent and can then get processed accordingly.

·        I get reminders about things I’ve set weeks or months in advance that would previously have been left to chance. These are often follow-ups.

I’m reasonably disciplined about using the priority settings.  I only tag as a priority something that MUST be done on a particular day.  Of course, some tasks when left too long suddenly become priorities and it is a simple matter to reset their dates to show this.

All in all, this system is extremely effective for me in keeping on top of email and on track of the things that I have to do.  I occasionally (very occasionally) use categories but only for projects that have a finite period in which to run.

I am also becoming more disciplined at storing business related emails on our SharePoint site.  Again, the processes here are very simple.  A drag and drop to the correct library using Colligo and the email is automatically filed with the addition of some simple metadata if I choose.  The best use I have found is actually with sent mail.  Here multiple documents sent in one email to a customer can all be registered with their email wrapper saving time describing each individually.

I’m no longer quite as present with much of this stuff so just a few quick memory joggers below.  Now we are really getting into the highlights as in this post I’m only writing about the talks that I really enjoyed.

The next two are my picks of the most engaging talks of the conference.

Amy Tan – Novelist

Funny, charming woman.  I’ve not read any of her books so picked one up at the conference and started reading it this morning.  I was so impressed with how she threaded her words with graphics that really enhanced her talk.  No powerpoint slides with three lines of bullet points on them for Amy.

Benjamin Zander – Conductor

I was really keen to see Ben Zander and he didn’t disappoint.  This session was a hoot and people were buzzing about it at the dinner afterwards.  So you think you just don’t ‘get’ classical music? – spend an hour with Ben and then see how you feel.

Now we’re back to the more serious stuff.

Paul Collier – Economist

Paul Collier addressed one of the biggest issues facing us today.  What about the poorest people in the world?  His message for change was rooted in the past.  Drawing on the lessons of America’s increased involvement in the world after World War 2, he painted a picture of a nation that both knew what do and could do it again.  The four pillars required are:

·         Aid (post World War II this was Marshall Aid)

·         Trade (GATT)

·         Security (NATO)

·         Governance (U.S. reversed its position on national sovereignty).

His book, The Bottom Billion, is now on my ‘must read’ list.

Al Gore- Activist

Of course, Al Gore talked about the other big issue, the environment. There were lots more facts and figures, delivered in the engaging fashion that he is known for.  What really struck me was how much of what he said echoed two of the previous speakers.  Like Paul Collier, he talked about the actions of America and Americans after World War II and used the phrase ‘hero generation’.  What is needed is another hero generation.

This phrase reminded me of Phil Limbardo’s talk about evil and how ‘good’ people do evil things.  Phil called for ordinary heroes. Not special people but people who are who they are but do the right thing when the moment needs it. 

In this way we can all be part of the hero generation – not because we’re taller, stronger or smarter than anyone else – but because we do and say what is needed when it is needed.

Jonathan Haidt – Social Psychologist

Finally, Jonathan Haidt was the last speaker that I saw.  Haidt was on my ‘must see’ list with his book The Happiness Hypothesis being one of my ‘must reads’ for 2007.  He didn’t disappoint with a compelling talk on moral diversity and what makes people liberals versus conservatives.

In the initial draft of the mind we are presented with five moral elements:

1.       Harm/Care

2.       Fairness/Reciprocity

3.       Ingroup/Loyalty

4.       Authority/Respect

5.       Purity/Sanctity

Items 1 and 2 are typically strong in liberals while items 3-5 are typically strong in conservatives.  We need to understand our design and cultivate moral humility seeking to understand and not dismissing those with whom we don’t agree.