A significant challenge for remote teams is keeping track of everything happening to the group and its members and then responding to issues that show up. Since the team is spread out geographically, members can’t just drop by your desk to provide a report. Having a tighter remote team feedback loop helps in keeping you informed and acting immediately. Here is a guide on building that loop and ensuring its effectiveness.
Components
Before establishing your remote team’s feedback loop, you need to know the essential components it should have. These affect the quality of information you receive and the effectiveness of your response to this information. They also determine how optimally the loop becomes part of your overall workflow.
Timeliness
As feedback loops are intended to resolve issues as quickly as possible, they need to provide information promptly. You also need to be able to review documents, results, and other items as they come in to avoid disrupting the workflow. The real-time communications provided by the Internet make this timeliness possible for remote teams even when working in different locations.
People
This might seem a given but having the right people oversee the feedback loop is vital to its success. Keep in mind that automation can only do much and that people still need to evaluate the concerns and make decisions. As such, you want those who are reliable and knowledgeable to be part of the team. Additionally, you should ensure that the process will be easy for them to accomplish.
Data
Having the right kind of data helps you make informed decisions on the issues the team might have. But you also need to understand the data that you are getting, such as knowing how to properly contextualize key performance indicators. It is also important to gather external data coming from customers and other stakeholders who might be affected by your team’s actions.
Workflow mapping
One challenge with creating feedback loops for workflows is that the latter is continuously changing. Thus, it is important to properly map each new workflow you implement to better incorporate your feedback loops, it would also help to conduct a workflow audit to ensure that the feedback loops are working as intended.
Automation
Automation also plays a key role in making the feedback loop more efficient. By choosing the right areas in the feedback process to automate, you make it more streamlined and better integrated into the workflow. Automation also lessens human errors that can cause problems in the loop’s approval process.
Building your remote team feedback loop
To start building your team’s feedback loop, you need to choose the right tools for the job. Note that you can create them, such as an in-house survey tool. However, the following third-party tools make things easier by combining data gathering and analysis into one. They also come with features that help you better respond to feedback.
This is an online employee engagement tool that lets you conduct surveys in just fifteen minutes. It also lets you quickly send the survey answers to the people who are tasked with reviewing them. Another handy feature is Group creation if you are monitoring several teams.
Officevibe
Officevibe is an insights-gathering tool for keeping track of different opinions. It has a custom polling option to track opinions on different projects over time. All of the data are presented in detailed reports that you can send to other team members.
Weekdone
This is a great tool to have if you want to track the team’s weekly performance. It features an easy to use interface where members can write their progress on projects, as well as problems encountered. The tool readily integrates with different project management software for better tracking.
Impraise
Aside from being an employee review platform, Impraise also comes with peer praise functionality to highlight positive feedback. This can help motivate team members to work. The tool also comes with a key strengths dashboard where you can monitor the skills of each team member and how adequately they are applied.
Choose the tool to use based on the needs of your team as well as its other characteristics. You should also still use traditional data gathering methods like face-to-face interviews. These not only help you cover more areas but also make the feedback loop more adaptable.
Improving your remote team feedback loop
Once you have set up the remote team feedback loop, you or other members might find it too cumbersome to use. This can often be due to the feedback loop becoming bloated as you try to make sure everyone can provide their opinions. Such complicated loops can slow down your work, which is problematic for remote teams. As such, you want to streamline the loop as much as possible.
One way to make the loop easier to implement is by chopping it into smaller pieces. For instance, you can ask for feedback during the outline stage of an article to be submitted instead of having the article completed first before requiring feedback. This lessens the need for teams to go back to the earlier stages of the drafting process to do revisions.
Documenting processes also help in making your feedback loop more streamlined. These documentations serve as guidelines reviewers can use to determine the quality of the task and provide better feedback on your work. Such feedback becomes handy not just in refining the work results but also improving the task procedure itself.
Providing better feedback
The quality of feedback that you and other members of the team provide also plays an important role in the loop’s success. As such, you want to make sure that it is something recipients would want to respond to more effectively.
A good way to do it is to focus on the positive aspects of your team’s work. Look for positive points on colleagues’ works and highlight them in your review. You would also want to add a regular section in your performance reviews praising the work done by members. These recognitions make your team more likely to listen and respond to advice.
That doesn’t mean you have to eschew negative feedback altogether. However, you want to present these more constructively. For instance, you can emphasize the solutions that a member can do to resolve issues in their work. Let the whole team join in providing solutions to further encourage members to work together.
Improve work using an effective remote team feedback loop
Once you have your remote team feedback loop in place, don’t expect it to be a done deal. You need to continuously review the loop itself to ensure that it is working as intended. And by following the pointers provided here, you can improve it and give your team better information for doing their own work.