Many teams have had to adopt a remote-first mode of working recently. It can be a difficult transition, where you need all the help you can get.

That is why I have collected a list of the best and most trustworthy free resources for remote teams faced with this situation. I will keep on expanding these lists if and when I come across other great and trustworthy free resources.

Mother Lodes

First up, the resources that have it all, comprehensive collections of everything. These might take a while to go through, but if you are able to navigate them, they will have answers to most of your questions.

Communication in remote teams

  • Basecamp is a famous and successful 100% remote company. Here is their guide to how they communicate

Pair-coding and pair-designing

  • Figma is a design tool that allows live collaboration. It is browser-based. It has tools for: UI design, illustration, prototyping, version control, feedback and developer handoff. Here is an experience report from a long-time Figma user () . And here are some tutorial videos
  • For pair coding, you can for instance use Visual Studio Live Share extension (see Getting started guide & A detailed tutorial video). Live share is available for both free and fully OpenSource Visual Studio Code (Linux, Windows (including WSL), Mac) and proprietary Visual Studio (Windows only) and it seems to work nicely across operating systems.

Remote retrospectives

Fostering a trustful and safe environment in remote teams

  • Wade Foster from Zapier shares his advice
  • The check-in protocol is an effective way to allow for sharing of emotions and context daily or at the start of remote meetings
  • Virtual coffee breaks allow connecting between team members in a humane way
  • Introduce a Kudo practice, a way for team members to thank each other, in your team
  • Hold regular retrospectives (see above)
  • Do some of the work in pairs (see above)

Better online meetings

Tools for remote work

Check these out as well

Productive Remote Teams Interactive Webinar: Games
Explosives and spaceships, connection and fun with remote playable games Connection and positive energy do not flow automatically in a remote teamsetting.Instead, you need to create practices that create connection between teammembers. And let them have fun experiences together. Sometimes we ar…
FlowaJuha Heimonen
These digital tools have enabled us to work as a distributed team
Remote team work is all about fluent interaction with your teammates. Everythingrelated to the work needs to be available online. This is why it is essentialthat your digital tools are up to the job. It is important to notice that there is no such thing as a perfect tool set. Youneed to constant…
FlowaTero Kadenius
Remote team coaching
Has your team just switched to remote-first mode of working? Does it feeldifficult? Maybe you have faced some of the following challenges: * Information is missing because lack in communication * People are silent in remote meetings * General level of happiness is decreasing * Cowboy coding c…
FlowaTero Kadenius