Remote Teams: Non-verbal Communication
Scrum mastering remote teams demands an extra set of skills than those required for co-located teams. The non-verbal cues we've learned growing up and throughout our careers are often not available with remote teams. Consequently, we have to train our ears to listen more attentively and follow-up to verify any assumptions regarding meaning from conference call, email, or instant message communications.
As scrum masters, we also need to coach team members to deliberately introduce practices that accommodate the lack of non-verbal cues during scrum meetings. For example, there are two practices I implement during remote stand-ups that facilitate the feel of co-located stand-ups.
I call out the name of the team member who'll kick off the stand-up conversation. When they’ve completed informing the team what they’ve worked on yesterday, what they’re working on today, and anything in the way of success the delivery team member calls out the next team member to take the conversation. I've found this keeps the rest of the team focused on the conversation better as they won't know when they'll be called. Everyone will have to track who has already presented to the team. In the past I would randomly call out names until everyone on the team had their chance to speak. While they didn't know when their name would be called they could still count on me to make sure everyone had their turn. Frequently, however, I'd have to call out a name several times to get that person's attention away from whatever it was they were "multitasking" on. Having the team call out the next person to present has helped resolve this issue.
After the team member has presented and before they pass the conversation to the next team member, I coach them to pause and ask if there are any questions from the team. In addition to signaling the end of their presentation, this makes the remote stand-up a little less mechanical and puts the thought "Do I have any questions?" in the minds of the rest of the team. More specifically, I coach the team with some version of the following: "Pause after your presentation and ask the team if there are any questions, observations, suggestions, comments, or clever remarks."
Using techniques like this with remote teams does not replace the richness of co-located scrum meetings. They do, however, move the two a little closer.
Photo by Ivars Krutainis on Unsplash