Forem: Leandro Ferreira

Communicating the right way and to the right people

Leandro Ferreira — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 14:22:00 +0000

Ever had that feeling that nobody recognizes your work? Well, that can escalate real quickly when you work remotely.

Communication is a key factor when working remotely, but you need to be ready for the nuances of remote communication. It is nothing like learning a foreign language for example, but it has its own methodology.

A parrot can talk too

If you are an extrovert, you may find it easy to talk directly to people in person, but when the person can not see you, or maybe sees you through a small video, it is hard to use all that unspoken communication. Hence the importance of speaking clearly, saying it twice, asking people what they understood if needed. Also, if you were not much of an email person you may want to practice reading and writing in formal business language. It is quite different from internet language and you will use it more often now.

Although formal writing may not be a problem for introverts, they have their own struggles too. People that don't talk much can benefit from the increase in written communication, but suffer much more while bringing the in-person connections down to zero. In the office you would probably cross paths with many people and, whether willing or not, would talk occasionally. But remotely you can be left alone all day long.

But don't get too cozy being all by yourself. Remember, to hide, in remote work, is the last thing you want.

Being seen used to mean you were working. What now?

Yeah, the focus changed and you need to change too. What you really want now is to use your communication skills to address only important matters in the best way you can. And to do that, you will start by keeping your status updated on the company calendar, on instant messaging platforms, on Jira. You will update your status on anything that can track status. Let's say your company uses Skype, Trello and Outlook – well, you may want to keep those updated. You don't have to write "went to the bathroom" on your instant messaging app, just keep it online when you are available.

OK Leandro, but do I have to do that all the time?
Of course not, only when the status changes.

Again, your boss can't see you in your chair anymore. Make sure you communicate what you are doing, especially on long tasks where they may think you disappeared. And if you are the boss, create this culture and lead by example. People are not used to giving this type of feedback by themselves.

Believe me, it was easier to fool your boss before when you were present

If you need to leave the "office", for let's say 30 minutes, let people know. They won't get angry because you had to go out to do some personal stuff, even if it takes one hour instead of 30 minutes. But if you vanish, and they try to contact you in that right moment when you were out doing something 'real quick', things can get complicated.

In the end, it is easier than you think. We are all humans and we know unforeseen events may happen. So, if you communicate all the foreseen events everything will be fine. So Grandma doesn't have to die every time you go out and get caught :)

Last but not least: Check your communication channels, don't let them let you down. Have a backup plan in case your internet connection breaks or a blackout happens in your neighbourhood. A simple charged smartphone can do the trick.

Now tell me, do the people that work with you know what you are doing right now?

Are you asking stupid questions?

Leandro Ferreira — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 13:16:29 +0000

I remember back in 2003 when I got my first job as a trainee developer for a company where juniors would go through an intensive three-month training program before they could actually start working on real projects. Most of the training was self-taught with online courses and programming language books that the company would provide - yeap, real books. Of course, it took more than three months to prevent me from doing deletes without where, but it was great because I had the opportunity to get in contact with modern technology as opposed to what I'd learned during my recently finished technologist course.

You know, we are all researchers by nature. When we are kids, we go from not knowing anything, to trying things ourselves, then to asking the seniors, and finally we are led to believe that we know it all.

Socializing is a perfect barometer of one's knowledge. You can put your ideas to the test by discussing other people's doubts, and you can acquire knowledge by bringing your doubts to discussion as well. It's a win-win situation. But working remotely can severely impact not only our social skills but our learning skills as well.

Back then when I finished my three-month training, I was assigned a project and soon realized that training is not a three-month thing, it's a thing for life. Luckily for me, I had this colleague that was the perfect senior that any junior would want to come across one day. I would ask him all sorts of questions from the most varied aspects, and he was that type of person that wouldn't give you the fish, but teach you how to fish. And I learned a lot.

Every three months that process would be repeated with somebody that, just like me, would start from knowing nothing and evolve to being sure that they knew nothing. I went through it, until one day I found myself teaching the new guys. Isn't it funny that a person that, a few months ago, was asking about "index was out of range" exceptions could have something to teach?

Think about these situations:

You are trying to setup your local environment. So, you go on a never-ending Stack Overflow endeavor by yourself. After a few hours you find out that you need to configure some local settings, and you still have to ask your manager about it. It was a simple task, it took you four hours and you didn't even start it.
You are not so sure about the requirements of a task, but you made an assumption and after completing your task you find out that you made the wrong assumption. It took two hours and will take two more to fix it.
You ask all the obvious questions upfront just to make sure you understood the requirements, then you ask some more questions about the solution you proposed and finally you go straight to the point and do the task at hand. It takes one hour to be done. You are the hero.

We all know which one is the right path, but in real life it's not so simple. Unfortunately, it is fairly easy to go from adventurous kid to stupid grown-up in the eyes of people. It's like if we had to balance showing strength and weakness just the right amount. Because if you are old and you are constantly questioning, people can get you wrong.

You shouldn't feel stupid for asking anything, but if I had to give you a tip, it would be this: I'd rather be the guy who took only one hour.

If you are reading this and thinking: 
"one hour to do the task plus 30 minutes of two people talking about the task,
it should be two hours", get off my blog!

So, if you own a company, make sure you are creating an environment for questioning, especially if the work shifted from onsite to remote recently. Your employees may be missing the small talk in the office and the group lunches. And, if you are working for a company, make sure they have that environment for your own sake (or you can help create it). Basically, be sure you are asking all the stupid questions and answering all the stupid questions, too.

Anyway, is your work question-friendly?

Working {Remotely} Together: The untold stories

Leandro Ferreira — Fri, 29 May 2020 19:51:35 +0000

What is a remote worker? What do they do? What do they eat?

I know, the internet already has many home office and freelance gurus, as well as a bunch of recipes to be successful working by yourself. So what I will try to address here are the uncommon topics, and provide a new look on the common ones as well.

Since you asked, in my personal opinion we first need to get some concepts clear before we talk about what it is to work remotely. People are talking a lot about working from home, especially nowadays, and I want to differentiate “working from home” and “working remotely”.

Working from home is what happens when you can't normally get to work (your car broke, COVID, streets blocked by snow) or just because your company allows you to work outside the company building once in a while - the so called home office. Remote from Dublin, remote from US and remote during COVID are also new variants of home office.

and

Working Remotely is when you work for a company but you don't have to physically be there at any time. You are not limited geographically, but it's common to find some limitations when it comes to the timezone (specific hours you have to be available). The hiring process may vary, and, in some cases, you would have to be in the office during the interviews, or right after you start onboarding, but that's it.

I will be talking mostly about remote work, but to complete the list let me also mention the two extremes of work freedom: the onsite work where you have to be at the company office 100% and the freelancer who, at the other end, is completely free - restricted just by the deadlines of the projects.

The differences you see here will anticipate what you should expect if you decide to go on a remote journey yourself.

The recipe… (spoiler alert) there is none

Using a recipe metaphor: if I give you a Feijoada recipe I'm pretty sure you will be able to do something similar to a Feijoada. But it is also true that a person in Brazil, where I am now, may do a more similar version to mine than a person in China. The recipe is the same, the amount of each ingredient is the same, the process is the same but the meat, the beans and the condiments may be different. I think you got the idea but expanding on it you will realize that simple instructions like: get into a routine, buy you a second monitor, separate work space from home (I love this one) are not actually so simple and may just not work for you.

The formula

So, what I think is best is to consider remote work an approximation formula and write it using as many variables as possible. That's what I will try to accomplish here by giving you my personal variables, and you will come up with your own successful formula for remote work.

Wait a minute… who are you?

Before I start talking about what I came here to talk about, please, let me give you a bit more information about me. And, with this, I am not trying to promote myself, it's just that knowing more about me will help you understand how I see the remote work and will also help you balance what is important for you. And over the course of this series I will read comments like "you are saying this because of that" and I will be able to answer "yes, and I told you that before you read this".

"I am a software engineer with 15+ years of IT experience. I prefer to work at night and I love changes and freedom". That's all you need to know to understand how I feel about remote work. I’m done talking about me, let's get back to business.

The stories

During the next few weeks (or months, ‘cause I am not a YouTuber) I will be posting about some topics related to remote work, and most importantly how to connect despite the physical distance. My initial idea was to chat about it with a few colleagues, but then I decided to bring it to a wider audience, and maybe help some more people with the discussion.

Talking about discussion. What is your idea about remote work?