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Innovating with remote teams
Innovating with remote teams
Want to create more engaging learning materials? Do it with a team.
Need to bring people together across time and space? Do it with collaborative tools.
This session will show you how to build and maintain remote teams, design innovative courses, produce higher quality outcomes, make real improvements to student experience and do it on time and on budget.
Apply this model to your next project and succeed.
Making it ready
Turning challenges into positives
Project tools for sharing
Collaboration made easy
Setting the scene
Walking the Walk –
the new normal
Facts:
Distributed team working remotely
Set deadlines
Regular reporting
Check-ins and status updates
Contact availability
Visibility by outputs, not presence
Biggest challenge – switching off when your work email is pinging in the other room!
Facts:
Can be benefit or disadvantage
Find ways to re-create culture remotely
Ask people what works for them, how they feel about processes
Build social capital online – get to know each other by video chats
Establish ground rules for communication – video chat, emails, phone – when and why
Let people know when and how you’ll respond
Problem: Development too slow and expensive
Solution (The new normal):
New process streamlined and effective
Rapid development
Agile team
Experts in specialised area
Come together and disperse as needed
Project management using traditional approach in “agile” way
Kick off to identify needs and solution – Workshop, SWOT analysis, existing approach, new model agreement
Agree communication methods
Set deadlines and expectations
Brainstorming meeting with development team
Style guides, processes and templates for development
Role descriptions for team members
Ongoing collaboration throughout development
QA and compliance throughout and at end before sign off
Output driven
Specialists in own area of expertise:
Team Leaders
Subject Matter Experts
Assessment Designers
Curriculum Designers
Content writers
Instructional Designers
Multimedia Designers
Quality Assurance & Compliance experts
Project and Admin support
Team Leader:
Work allocation Facilitate
collaboration Review & approve
stages
Assessment Designer:
Unpacking and gap analysis
Assessment tasks Marking Guides
Mapping
Curriculum Designer:
Unpacking and gap analysis
High level design Activities
Content Writer:
Writes new content
Re-writes existing content
Instructional Designer:
Build content in LMS Learning books
Activities Quizzes, Wikis
QA & Compliance:
Final proofing Documentation
Client review:
Feedback provided &
implemented
Final approval
Remote Rapid Development Cycle
Consultation with SME throughout development
Consider:
What reason would you have to set up a remote team?
What would be your outputs?
Tools you will need
Benefits:
Real time face to face communication
Screen sharing
Uses:
Great for meetings, inductions, introductions
Record meetings for updates / training
Tips:
Be purposeful – process, structure and agenda for meetings
But allow time for small talk, social cohesion Examples: Zoom, Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts
Lead to transparent communication
Everyone can chime in
Examples:
Google sheets, docs, slides
Slack
Scribblar or Twiddla for brainstorming
Streamline your workflow
Provide project status updates, information and resources Examples:
Teamwork projects – Tasks lists and activities, milestones, chat facility
Workflow Max – Tasks, timesheets, milestones, budgets
Dropbox – File repository
Trello – Project tasks, milestones, resources, messages
What tools do you currently use?
What tools would you like to use?
How would you use these tools?
Jump into my Twiddla space (https://www.twiddla.com/acyspf) and start brainstorming
Learn more about Teamwork Projects (www.teamwork.com) or Trello (www.trello.com). How could you use these tools?
Working differently
Thinking differently
Productivity
Clean, consistent look and feel to
development
Lower overheads for organisation
Satisfied workers
“MIA” staff
Not meeting deadlines, impacting on others
Version control
Accounting for time, deadlines, budgets
Scope creep
What benefits could you gain by developing a remote team?
What challenges can you anticipate with a remote team?
How might you overcome your challenges and capitalise on them?
Focussing on outputs
Quality
Compliance
Reporting
Feedback processes
Achieving final sign off
What would you need to do to produce your outcomes?
Outline the steps you would need to take
Describe the tools you would use
Who would need to agree?
How would you get that agreement?
How would you overcome blockers?
Consider a cost / benefit analysis – how would you sell it?
into this…..
Turn this….. Turn this…..
