How I started a new job WFH

Well, last week this time, I was still day dreaming that they would lift Shelter In Place in California. Today, dream crushed. WFH continues, for at least another month!

Believe it or not, I did start this new job working from home! Well, I knew my boss from before, so I cheated a little bit there. But my team is brand new, my cross functional partners are brand new, and my chain of command is brand new. All that I got is a Mac that they shipped to my house. That’s it. Ready, set, go!

To be fair, my company did an awesome job starting off us newbies on the job. Orientation is top notch, we met the CEO, CTO, Chief Design Officer/co-founder, all virtually, of course.

Then comes the real job. Meeting the team. I have five! People that you never met before. Now you need to get to know them, learn their way of working, then, give them advice! Also, deals are trickling in, getting introduced to cross functional partners, learning the new systems, all one step a time.

Now, 4 weeks in. The team is up and running. I set up a daily routine, and laid down ground rules for how we communicate, how we stay organized, and how we work together. I started sending some work products to my boss, my chain of command, and stakeholders. Initial results and feedback have been positive.

So what did I learn in this process?

1. Over communicate. If that’s already the rule of thumb for “managing up” , in the WFH situation it becomes more important than ever. Because now you don’t have the benefit of swinging by some one’s desk for a quick intro or chat, nor the awesome water-cooler encounters, you really need to put in the time to get introduced, catch up, have 1:1s and report progress. Schedule time for it, because otherwise it will not happen.
2. Be more cautious with the tone and the format. When you are working together face to face, you establish a human connection, and get to know each other. With time, you build trust and sometimes you can be a bit “short” on your communication. Because you know the person, and you know the context. Now, you are apart, you never had the chance to get to know the person, nor they know you, so it’s especially important to fully explain the context, provide the background, articulate the why and the how, and be careful with saying everything with the right tone. What may otherwise be sufficient with a quick 5 minute chat may now need a polished, three paragraph email. That’s ok.
3. Align on how to work together. When you are up and running face to face, it’s much easier to have a routine set up and figure out together how things work and how you want things to work. Now you are apart, so it’s far important to figure out a routine that works for every one, and agree on how each of your processes will be set up. I have a daily stand up at 10. We also figured out how to use trello, jira and other systems. We agreed on where we would save our shared documents. This increases efficiency and reduces the back and forth, which is especially important when you don’t get to turn around and ask some one right next to you where the document is.