How can collaboration in remote or virtual teams be improved?

There are various ways in which you can increase teamwork and collaboration in remote or virtual agile teams:

• Clarify expectationsCreate working rules or working agreements together as a team in which you clearly define how the team should behave in certain situations: How is feedback given, how quickly should messages in the chat be answered, etc.?
• Asynchronous meetingsDiscuss which meetings you could possibly hold asynchronously via Slack (e.g. dailies) and which meetings should definitely take place together (e.g. retrospectives).
• RetrospectivesConduct regular agile retrospectives with software tools such as Echometer to strengthen team spirit and continuously improve yourselves
• Coffee rounds: Hold regular meetings that are not about work and instead provide space to exchange ideas freely and get to know each other: for example, play online remote games such as Monday Painter or go for a walk together remotely (all at the same time). The latter, for example, is a weekly routine meeting within the Echometer team where we discuss a recently published podcast.
• 1-to-1 meetingsAs a manager, hold regular one-to-one meetings with your employees in which you ask about blockers, challenges and satisfaction and maintain a close relationship.
• Dedicated toolsUse software tools such as Echometer that are specifically designed to improve remote team collaboration.