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Mind the Product

Innovation

Sunday Rewind: Show your true innovative colours by Julia Shalet

Customer

How behavioral economics can improve product strategy

B2B product management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

Building Product Teams

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Data Driven Product Management

Digital Transformation

Diversity and Inclusion

Minimum Viable Product

OKRs

Prioritisation

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Product Development Process

Product Ethics

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Product Management Career

Product Strategy

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Join us at #mtpcon London in 2025 – mark your calendars

Connecting fans to creators at Spotify (Dariusz Dziuk, Product Lead, Spotify)

Why teams often struggle with OKRs: A conversation with Jeff Gothelf

Deep dive: Crafting your product vision and mission

5 ways to invent and simplify as an AI/ML product manager

Imogen brings more than 10 years of experience in print and digital to her role as Director of Content Strategy for Mind the Product. The core of her experience comes from 10 years working as an editor for Bauer Consumer Media, a division of Europe’s largest privately-owned publishing group, and as Head of Content for Benivo, an award-winning startup.

Director of Content Strategy

Imogen Schels

When the pandemic hit, product managers around the world were forced to adopt remote working practices. Since then, many have adapted well, while others find themselves fatigued by countless hours on Zoom calls, missing in-person collaboration, and ready for a return to the office.
In this exclusive member panel Vice President of Product at <a href="https://www.forbes.com/?sh=14f32c602254">Forbes</a>, Ebony Shears, CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://supernormal.com/">Supernormal</a>, Colin Treseler, and Chief Product Officer for <a href="https://about.gitlab.com/">GitLab</a>, Scott Williamson, reveal what they&#8217;ve learned in this fully-remote time.
Watch the session in full or read on for 13 top tips for successful remote work from our panellists.
<h2>Tips for remote working</h2>
<ol>
<li>As a manager, do your best to manage expectations. As teams prepare to go back to the office (or not) understanding when and how that might happen is key. Not knowing can be stressful. Communicate anything you know, clearly and often.</li>
<li>Consider &#8216;at home&#8217; challenges. At Github, an organisation that was already largely remote before Covid, they recognised that, despite established remote working practices, 100% remote work combined with family and everyday home life issues, did lead to burnout in some employees. The organisation introduced friend and family days to give its employees some much needed breathing space.</li>
<li>Use A-synchronous video to bring that human connection people crave into the everyday. This can also be helpful in tackling timezone issues.</li>
<li>Try nonlinear workdays — employees might check in in the morning, then go for a run or a walk.</li>
<li>In a hybrid remote work environment, adopt communication models that work for the teammates who aren&#8217;t at the office. Consider how to find ways to communicate effectively as product managers through video and text.</li>
<li>Break things down. When you&#8217;re all working remote, it gets harder to collaborate on complex projects. The antidote to that is to break things down as small as you can.</li>
<li>Be mindful of feedback via tools like Slack  — what you think is light and passing could send team members into a spin. Before you hit send, stop and think &#8216;if I was getting this message, unsolicited with no context, what would that feel like?&#8217;.</li>
<li>Have empathy for people trying to solve problems because as your team/manager/organisation navigates a switch to a hybrid or fully remote working environment, while some things will work well first time, others will need to be adapted.</li>
<li>Find and use the right channels for the right things. This means mastering three, four or even five different communication paths so that you&#8217;re able to share information and give feedback to people on your team in the ways that work best for them.</li>
<li>Understand what&#8217;s working for your employees. At Forbes, a dedicated committee is working on what the &#8216;new normal&#8217; will be. As part of that work, the entire employee population has been surveyed to understand remote working preferences putting forward questions such as: Do you want to come back to the office? Are you comfortable coming back to the office? Do you want to stay fully remote? Are you open to a hybrid and if so, what does that mean to you?</li>
<li>If you value a remote environment, pick an organisation that does it well and works for you. Easier said than done of course. But, if you feel the pressure to work in an environment or culture that&#8217;s not right for you, it&#8217;s perhaps not the place you should be working.</li>
<li>As an employee, let your manager know how you&#8217;re doing. When working remotely, it can be hard for them to pick up on the cues that would ,ordinarily, in-person signal a problem, stress, or a lack of understanding. Be proactive about communicating your concerns, or anything you need your manager to know.</li>
<li>Find a great mentor with a great communication style. Whether you&#8217;re joining a new remote company, or part of one already, find the person in that company that is the master at communicating — nice you&#8217;ve found them, imitate imitate imitate until the point at which you can finally innovate.</li>
</ol>
Explore more <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/tag/remote-working/">Remote Working</a> content and, for even more content on a range of product management topics, see our <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/content-a-z/">Content A-Z.</a>

core/freeform

Video

Breaking down misconceptions to create healthier teams by Adrian Howard

Modern-day leadership by Janice Fraser

5 key practices to build a better product, Adam Mullett, ProductTank Perth

Experiment like a boss by Merissa Silk

From opinion-based to evidence-guided product development by Itamar Gilad

A quick look at decision supervision by Lucy Spence

The F words of highly successful product organisations by Saielle DaSilva

Identify and manage imposter syndrome by Phyllis Njoroge

The good, bad, and ugly of OKRs by Jenny Herald

Is your innovation project on track? by Tendayi Viki

Remote work in post-Covid times

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