The Best Ways To Manage Your Remote React JS Teams

The one new skill that every project manager, product manager and senior tech executive has had to learn in the past two years is how to effectively and efficiently manage their teams working remotely.

Managing a team of React JS developers working remotely falls within the same purview. From clearly defining KPIs to setting achievable deadlines, people who manage teams have had to really dig deep and look for solutions that synergise the overall workflow and deliver solutions.

But what are a few specific things that you need to keep in mind? In this article, we shall take a look at a few.

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Establish A Clear Channel Of Communication

The way teams communicate has undergone a seismic shift in the past two years. With video calls becoming the norm, managers today have plenty of video conferencing software at their disposal to conduct frequent team sessions and strategy discussions.

Managers need to create a structure of communication that lets them spend enough time with all their React JS developers to make sure that every member is on the same page at all times and the manager themself isn’t out of the loop at any stage of the development process.

A good way to do that is to give each developer a designated time slot on different days and have one all-team meeting where the overall project's progress is discussed. This gives each team member a chance to give feedback on other members’ work, share new ideas, discuss changes and plan for the days ahead.

What you do need to avoid is over-communication i.e. micro-management. In the early days of remote work, we saw a lot of stories of employees feeling stress and anxiety due to the micro-managerial approach their managers adopted. It is understandable that as the project manager, you’d like to be on top of all the developments, but constantly interfering with their workflow can lead to a loss of confidence in your team, which may ultimately impact their productivity.

You don’t have to wait for your scheduled call with a team member either. You can always ring them up for something that’s come up on priority. Just make sure that you don’t make it a regular occurrence.

For your reference, here are a few tools you can use to establish effective communication channels*:

1. Slack
2. Chanty
3. Fleep
4. Microsoft Teams

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Task Allocation and KPI Measurement

If you’re going to have a full team of React JS developers working remotely for a sustained period of time, you’ll need to create a structure to discuss time-bound KPIs and commensurately allocate tasks, which doesn’t overwork them, and gives them plenty of time to work towards building the final deliverable.

You can always turn to the plethora of project and workflow management software that have gained currency in the past few months to set up tasks and break them down into individual KPIs. That shall give your team a clear sense of what they need to work on, and it’ll help you keep track of the things you need to discuss with every member during your scheduled calls.

One trick that may help to improve task allocation is to appoint a POC to every team member. That shall give them the option to reach out to the POC to hash out any minor issues, without disturbing their workflow. 

For your reference, here are a few tools you can use to clearly allocate tasks and KPI:

1. Trello
2. Asana
3. Fairtable
4. Favro

And you always have MS Excel!

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Unified Documentation and Code Sharing Mechanism

It’s a given that a team of remote React JS developers will have to share their code with other team members at some point. To make that sharing seamless and confusion-free, implement a unified naming convention for all their files and sub-files. 

This alleviates all confusion among team members since each member will know the naming convention and consequently avoid to and fro with other team members over tiny details. This will save time and also set a template for other projects in the future.

For your reference, here are a few tools you can use to streamline your documentation process*:

1. Lerna
2. Codeshare
3. Storybook
4. Styleguidist
5. Bit

Zero in on a set of acronyms, file naming format, dependency trees and overhead formats so that all the existing members and even new members who join can immediately understand how the mechanism works.

Most of all, make sure that every member of the team is using the same version of every file. Try to maintain Readme files of your different versions on Git or Github for future reference.

Even though remote working has become normal over the past two years, there are still certain inconspicuous aspects that managers need to catch up on while managing their remote React JS resources. In this time, try to be a bit empathetic to your team and also show patience for any lags or delays.

None of them, including you, has ever had to work this way before. It’s hard enough already, so try to engage them informally as much as possible. Motivate them to reach out if they feel burnout or exhaustion. Encourage them to take leaves whenever they feel they need a break. Empower your team to constantly keep in touch with one another and help each other out with the little stuff.

Try this, and the productivity will take care of itself!

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*Source: https://www.uplers.com/blog/managing-remote-teams/