Having worked on dozens of projects around the world in my career, I have had the opportunity to work with teams that are co-located, remote, or both. Working with a local team is fairly straightforward, as long as you actively collaborate and have a shared team area. Working with remote team members, no matter what the discipline, is more challenging.
Learn the culture of the team(s)
All teams have a shared culture. One recent team I worked with were aggressive ping pong players, and setup a tournament. Even if you don’t share in the passions of the remote team, you can cheerlead from afar. And if you and the remote team members do have shared interests, then it’s an opportunity to bond and engage better.
Use Teams or Slack to converse and engage
Having a central point of interaction allows you to engage with your team members no matter where you are. And installing the mobile version of whatever collaboration tool your team uses allows you to answer questions and collaborate “on the go.”
Turn your camera on
“Face time” is important, and turning your camera on during web conference calls allows the team to see each other. Don’t mandate it (because sometimes people are indisposed and or dialing into meetings via phone). But if you lead by example, others will also do likewise, and this helps everyone see and appreciate the faces of their fellow team members.
Openly share work in progress
I’m an “open kimono” kind of guy, so if I’m working on something I share the work products on a regular basis – especially design artifacts that need validation with the development team. Leveraging file sharing services such as OneDrive or Dropbox allows you to easily post links to artifacts and track feedback and comments.
Do as much “collaborative design” as possible
While you can’t do in-room “whiteboarding” with a team half-way around the world, you can leverage technology such as Microsoft’s Whiteboard to do collaborative sketching with remote teams. Expect some latency and technical issues, but in my experience once you get past those hiccups you can have some very effective design sessions using such tools. And the more you do this type of activity the more engaged your remote design partners are in the work.
Have regular “standups”
You may not need to do these standups daily, but be sure to schedule regular meetings with the full team to allow everyone to “round-robin” and provide updates. This sharing allows people to know what everyone is doing, and also to identify potential blockers that you (or another team member) can knock down to help keep the team going.
Understand everyone’s perspectives and needs
Working with a remote team of, say, developers, is different than partnering with a visual designer or a usability test team. Each group and each person has their own perspective on the -project and what they need to do (or get from you) to be successful. There is “no one size fits all” approach.
One of the most influential books I ever read was “The Platinum Rule.” An extension of the Golden Rule, The Platinum Rule is all about doing onto others the way they WANT to be engaged with – Coming to the business or personal relationship with the other party’s needs in mind. This is the core of user centered design, and also the key to proper partnering and teamwork – no matter where the people you are working with are located.