An analysis performed by Flexi Jobs and Global Workplace Analytics provided statistics that “In the span of one year (U.S), from 2016 to 2017, remote work grew 7.9%. Over the last five years it grew 44% and over the previous 10 years it grew 91%. More interestingly they found that between 2005 to 2017, there was a 159% increase in remote work. In 2015, 3.9 million U.S. workers were working remotely. Today that number is at 4.7 million, or 3.4% of the population.” [1]
With the current pandemic, vast numbers of employees had to adjust to the new ways of WORKING REMOTELY. Working remotely can be challenging, especially when one of the core skill sets for many roles (including Business Analysis), is people skills (leadership, collaboration, collaborative problem solving, interpersonal skills etc).
In today’s business world, it is not enough to only possess highly technical skills without possessing communication skills and people soft skills such as interpersonal and relationships building skills. Interacting with customers, key stakeholders, project teams and technology, still needs to continue in the current remote environment.
Having worked on many transformational projects for over a decade now, I had to adapt to modern ways of working with my teams, clients (consulting firms) to successfully work remotely. This at times encompassed working different hours (sometimes late at night), time-zones, locations etc.
Can we really be effective with our people skills, whilst working virtual (on-line)? Are we as effective as what we would be being in the same room / office and having Face To Face interactions?
How to successfully use your people skills in TODAY’s remote world?
Here are some suggestions on making this happen:
1) Start by creating a Communication Plan will get your message heard by identifying the following items:
Purpose of your communication/on-line session(s)
Audience (you need to know your audience)
Direction and timelines
Plan and design what you need to gain from the audience
Resources / Tools (keeping your audience in mind)
Guidance on how you want to run the on-line session(s)
Action plan.
You need to be able to answer the following:
Do I understand who my stakeholder(s), customers are?
Do I know what works with specific individual(s)? If not, pick up the phone, talk to them, get the gut feel of what their personality is, what may work for them.
Do my stakeholders understand value, purpose of what I am trying to achieve?
2) Writing is critical when communicating virtually. You may need to consider how you write by using: Clear, Simple Words. Remember Less is More. “Clear writing leads to clear thinking. You don’t know what you know until you try to express it. If your writing is nonsense, maybe your thoughts are nonsense too!” [2]
For example, some of the clear statements to summarise a virtual meeting could be:
“So we’re all clear on <add your text on key points captured>”
3) Clear guidelines and focus are required to effectively facilitate any virtual session. As a remote facilitator you need to make ensure to:
Focus the group on what’s being discussed
Prepare and outline clear questions
Close the meeting with the summarising statements (statements on what was discussed, agreed on)
Document any decisions made during the meeting. If you don’t already have one, now is the time to create a Decision Register to clearly outline decisions made, who by, who needs to be informed.
4) Active listening and being able to ask open-ended questions is one of the key elements of excellent communication skills. To achieve a desired outcome virtually, the key is to use the on-line chat and virtual face-to-face sessions (eg. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype) and collaboration tools (eg. virtual boards Kanban wall in JIRA etc). You need to know when there is a need to switch between writing and face-to-face on-line interaction. Encourage the audience on the other side to switch their camera on. Ask individuals to see their faces during the sessions. Follow-up chats in the instant chat.
Some suggestions on keeping your audience engaged include:
Open-ended questions so that the individual provides an explanation. Open-ended questions are different from close-ended questions. Close-ended questions result in “Yes” and “No” answers and may not be very useful.
Paraphrase the clients and/or stakeholder’s statements. Repeat the understanding, in your own words. This is a simple yet effective way of confirming that you have not missed anything.
5) Choose the adequate communication medium for each situation. The importance of selecting an appropriate communication tool is key to effectively communicating with your clients and/or stakeholders.
Some of the virtual tools to familiarise yourself are:
Video and audio conference — Video/audio conferencing is highly recommended as close face-to-face communications. During the video conferencing you can observe the body language of the opposite party, which can be close to being in the same room. (eg. Microsoft Teams, Skype Zoom, Join.me, GoToMeeting)
Chatting functionality available in most video and audio conference tools (mentioned above and Google Chat, Hangouts etc)
Web-conference (eg. GoToWebinar, Pexip, WebinarJam, Zoho ShowTime etc)
Social Networking, Collaboration Tools (eg. Yammer, JIRA, Slack, Trello)
You may find comfort using web or video conferencing, chat platforms, and instant messaging to effectively get what you need from your clients, stakeholders. Web-Conference is ideal for a real-time online event based on audio (e.g. board meetings), and/or video communication with essential content sharing (e.g. presentation slides). Video Conferencing is a real time audio and/or video communication session between two or more remote individuals (e.g. facilitating sessions to document high level requirements). I do recommend using the headset when conducting virtual meetings, as it allows you to focus on the conversation and reduce background noise.
Additionally, negotiation and influence skills can also be tricky in the remote world. In virtual negotiations a more formal language needs to be used (clearly outlining and disclosing any complexity, formality, accuracy). It is also important noting that the virtual communication tools in business negotiations could potentially reduce the time needed for reaching an agreement and in the same time save time and resources. For example, there could be reduced travel time and cost.
6) Send a summary email to your clients/stakeholders after virtual session(s) to proactively communicate. Consider sending a summary email to let them know what:
Has been discussed
Has been or has not been accomplished
Decisions have been made
Are priorities for the next week
Actions need to be completed and by when
7) Ensure there is strong collaboration. Consider using shared online documents (e.g. share via Microsoft Teams your MS Excel document saved on your One-Drive or Sharepoint) and daily check-ins to gain the information whilst working off-site (e.g. share via Microsoft Teams your Kanban Wall from JIRA). I have also created team group — instant chats. If you are still struggling to get an answer call using your virtual tool (e.g. Microsoft teams). I encourage using the online tools such as:
Dropbox
Cloud (OneDrive)
and document Software such as:
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)
Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.)
You may choose to use these online tools in conjunction with with the video and instant messaging tools. For example, you can share your Microsoft Office document during your virtual session, and ask everyone to provide their input/updates.
Key learning
Key learning from the current environment is that we need to keep up with new technology. Technology is changing at a fast pace, so even in the future when you are back to your normal way of working you will need to keep up with technology, different ways of communicating in order to be successful in your job.
Reference Material:
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