Remote Work for

Design Teams
By Ben Goldman, Abby Sinnott, and Greg Storey

1 Design in a remote world

This book is brought to you by InVision, the digital product
design platform used to make the world’s best customer
experiences. Discover more best practices for better
design and get free podcasts, articles, books, and reports at
designbetter.com.

Check out the rest of the Design Better library

Animation Handbook

Design Systems Handbook

Design Leadership Handbook

Design Thinking Handbook

Principles of Product Design

Enterprise Design Sprints

DesignOps Handbook

2
Remote Work for
Design Teams
Learn the best practices for running a remote design team
and discover how designers can play a leading role in helping
all teams collaborate better together even when working
apart. This book was written by our team at InVision, a fully
distributed remote workforce since 2011. Uncover how to
foster a culture of collaboration, processes for remote design
reviews and sprints, as well as leadership and management
skills for remote teams. This book explains how to adapt the
creative process into a remote environment, from ideation to
implementation, and offers practical advice for design leaders
to keep teams motivated and engaged without being under the
same roof.

Copyright © InVision, 2020

3
About the authors

Ben Goldman is a strategic storyteller who began his career

as a producer at MTV before transitioning to hi-tech by co-
founding the local news startup Blockfeed. He later joined
InVision as a content strategist, and now works as the Director
of InVision Films, writing and producing original documentaries
including the upcoming film Squads. Goldman is also a social
justice entrepreneur and co-founder of the organization
Superheroes Anonymous which inspires people to engage
in creative community service. His work has been featured in
dozens of top news outlets including the New York Times, CNN,
TechCrunch, MSNBC, Wired, and others.

Abby Sinnott is a managing editor at InVision, where she tells

the stories of exceptional design teams collaborating around
the world. She has worked remotely as a writer and editor
contributing to numerous publications for over a decade,
and considers the freedom remote offers a true creative and
lifestyle advantage. A fiction writer at heart, she’s hard at work
on her second novel in her spare time. A New York native, Abby
has lived in California, Spain and London, England, where she
currently resides with her two daughters.

Greg Storey is a design leader with many hats. He has earned

a unique perspective of design services and leadership having
started a studio that was awarded entry into the Inc 5000, led a
hundred designers through IBM Design’s onboarding incubator

4
program, and assisted in the development of the USAA’s Chief
Design Office. He recently joined InVision for a range of roles.
Greg lives in the Pacific Northwest with his amazing wife and
writes occasionally at his personal site Airbag Industries.

5
Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone who contributed to Remote Work for

Design Teams

Editors: Susan Kaplow, Wynne Renz, Aarron Walter, Rob

Goodman

Video production: Ben Goldman

These people were instrumental in the production of this

book: Stephen Gates, Richard Banfield, Dave Lewis, Elizabeth
Gafford, Emily Campbell, Rebecca Kerr, Peter Margulies, Jacob
Holt, Alison Rand, Caitlin Wagner, Brian Kardon, Ryan Rumsey,
Randy Gregory II, Alison Entsminger, Sophie Shepherd, Julia
Elman, Allison Harshbarger, Kris Fulton, Jehad Affoneh, Mike
Davidson, Michael Mankins, Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, Clark
Valberg, Katie Baker

6
Contents
Chapter 1
Design in a remote world
How design can thrive despite distance

Chapter 2
Creativity and collaboration
Translate design practices for remote work

Chapter 3
Leadership
Practical management advice for embracing the shift to
remote

Chapter 4
Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely
Advice on the essentials of remote design teams

Chapter 5
Remote work is here for good
The positive impact of working remotely

7
Chapter 1

Design in a
remote world
How design can thrive despite distance
By Ben Goldman

8 Design in a remote world

Creativity and collaboration have long been colored by iconic
images evoking a high degree of physicality—the team
huddled together in a messy studio space, collaborating
with expressive gestures and visual props, like sticky notes
or whiteboards. The air is electric, the ideas fly, and the flow
unstoppable. It’s a deeply appealing image, even aspirational,
touching on core aspects of the human condition—the desire
to connect and create.

For designers, the pull of this image can make the transition
to remote work jarring at first. Much of the user experience we
associate with creativity and collaboration are now different in
a distributed environment, from the physical space of work to
the routines leading up to it.

The good news is that neither creativity nor collaboration are

weakened by distance—merely altered. And the conditions
that make them possible remain the same.

Successful collaboration still depends on trust, psychological

safety, and the open exchange of diverse ideas, perspectives,
and expertise. Similarly, the creative process doesn’t
recognize the boundaries of a studio space or office building.
It still involves the same age-old cycle of research, ideation,
prototyping, testing, and iteration. The difference is that it
requires new tools to replicate certain activities in a digital
environment.

9 Design in a remote world

But while remote work doesn’t change the fundamental nature
of creativity or collaboration, it does more quickly amplify
flaws in culture, process, or leadership that already exist. “The
physicality of us being together in the same space can be a
cheat sheet,” says Stephen Gates, head design evangelist
at InVision. “What remote work does is show a lot of your
organizational sins if you haven’t been doing the right thing.”

Emily Campbell on building trust in a remote environment (Watch

online)

Teams that lack trust or psychological safety will need to be

more deliberate about building relationships and creating safe
space for collaboration. Silos that may have been softened
by co-location will concretize in a remote environment
unless teams are proactive about being inclusive. And teams

10 Design in a remote world

that previously navigated the product creation lifecycle by
happenstance will discover the need to define and advocate
for a shared creative process more explicitly.

In this sense, the transition to remote work isn’t just a

challenge to be solved—it’s an opportunity to improve.
Remote work can help strip away the cover and camouflage
of problems that were previously concealed in an office
environment.

The teams that take the time and energy to address these
problems will emerge all the better for it, and discover a host of
additional benefits besides.

This is something we’ve learned firsthand at InVision.

Since our founding in 2011, InVision has grown into one of

the largest fully distributed companies, with more than 700
employees around the world and zero offices anywhere.
Despite the remote nature of our company, our teams have
done some of the best and most rewarding work of their
careers in this environment. And over years of scaling a remote
company, we’ve learned that for every challenge to be solved
there is an equally compelling upside to be celebrated.

The ability to look beyond the boundaries of a major metro

area to hire talent from anywhere has enriched the character
of our teams with a global perspective. It’s also provided us

11 Design in a remote world

with the opportunity to work with design teams around the
world, from Seattle to Singapore. The improved work-life
integration has enabled many of us to be more engaged in both
work and family life, rather than having to choose between one
or the other. And the intimacy afforded by being beamed into
the homes of colleagues has resulted in some of the deepest
working relationships of our careers.

It’s for these and other reasons that InVision has come to
believe in remote work as an important advancement in the
way people work. While that doesn’t mean that it will be right
for all teams at all times, investing the time and resources to
develop the capability to work remotely is worthwhile for any
team or business.

Of course, as we now know, the ability to work remotely is not

only a worthwhile investment— it’s also a necessary one.

The turning point for remote

At the time of this writing, much of the world is grappling

with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Businesses and
governments everywhere are closing down offices and moving
to remote work as a social distancing measure, to “flatten
the curve” of the infection rate. This serves as the backdrop
for what is emerging as a historic moment in remote work

12 Design in a remote world

history—an exodus of workers from the traditional office to a
home office on a scale that’s never been seen before.

The challenges of suddenly and unexpectedly transitioning

a workforce to a remote work scenario are highly complex
and unprecedented. In this environment, teams don’t have
the luxury to develop a remote culture gradually over the
span of years. Some may not even have the basic tools for
remote collaboration in place. There may be strict regulatory
requirements and the security of hundreds or thousands of
employees to consider.

Every company will have unique challenges depending on their

individual context, and solving these challenges will require
solutions that come from within.

But there are some lessons we’ve learned about remote work
that would be valuable to any team. These lessons primarily
relate to a specific topic: How to foster collaboration and
creativity in teams when working remotely. Many of these
lessons were gleaned from our years of experience scaling a
remote company and building digital collaboration software.
Others come from our firsthand experience working with
remarkable design teams around the world.

We’ve written this book to help share some of those lessons,

and alleviate some of the uncertainty about remote work.

13 Design in a remote world

But we also hope this book excites and energizes designers
about the possibility of being of service to their teams
during this trying time. With their unique specialization in
driving cross-functional collaboration, designers can serve
an invaluable role in keeping their teams and businesses
connected, creative, and collaborative—despite the physical
distance between them.

As Tim Brown wrote in his seminal book Change by Design,

“Only gradually did I come to see the power of design not as a
link in a chain but as the hub of a wheel.”

Designers are connectors, collaborators, and facilitators. They

can bridge the gaps between disciplines, empower diverse
voices, and break down silos. They accomplish this using age-
old tools of the creative process: research, empathy, problem
immersion, brainstorming, ideation, prototyping, testing, and
other best practices. These practices are powerful tools and
not dependent on co-location. If anything, learning to do these
activities remotely strengthens creativity and collaboration
by enabling the inclusion of more diverse viewpoints, not just
those in the same room.

So even as the world moves apart, design has an

unprecedented opportunity to bring people together.

14 Design in a remote world

Further reading

The 3 problems everyone has when first working remotely (and

how to solve them)

12 steps to eliminating remote work distractions

How Creative Market’s remote team launched a new product in

6 months

The 9 best online collaboration tools for remote workers

15 Design in a remote world

Chapter 2

Creativity and
collaboration
Translate design practices for remote work
By Greg Storey

16 Creativity and collaboration

Editor's note: Though many of us find ourselves working
remotely for the first time, Greg Storey has been at it for
more than a decade, leading large, remote design teams at
respected organizations like IBM, USAA, and Happy Cog. Greg
has loads of expert, actionable advice on how to increase
creativity, collaboration and leadership when teams aren’t
co-located. The next two chapters are written from his unique
point of view.

Productivity, agility, collaboration, innovation; none of these

things are tied to a specific place. They are functions of people
and teams. This is important to call out because at this time
there are a historical number of companies and organizations
being disrupted by the sudden requirement to change their
place: from the office, lab, studio, etc. to the home.

Think about how many design job listings require a move to a

city or region because the leadership can not conceive how
to be productive, agile, and innovative unless members of the
team are sitting, literally, right next to each other. Perhaps
because they know of no other way, but most likely because of
their pre-existing bias against distributed teams.

17 Creativity and collaboration

Rebecca Kerr on remote collaboration (Watch online)

After my years of experience in leading remote teams (and

otherwise), I can tell you that working remotely doesn’t have to
be a disadvantage. Yes, it takes getting used to doing things in
a different way. Some tasks take more time and consideration
but distance does not have to impede on your team’s abilities
to create and collaborate with others. Remember, outcomes
come from people, not places! You and your team can be just
as successful working remotely (perhaps more) if you reshape
your team’s thinking, processes, and frameworks without
having to lower expectations to leadership.

As we know, what works for me and my team may not work for
you. For that reason, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a
set of different perspectives; consider it a set of revised ideas

18 Creativity and collaboration

on how to run a successful distributed design team.

Communicate with reach and repetition

Communicating at work is often challenging and working

remotely makes it harder. Without a plan for how your team
will communicate internally and externally to the rest of the
company, a remote team is always one Slack thread away from
turning into Lord of the Flies.

It doesn’t take much for the volume of messages in Slack (or

Teams) and email to pile up. To top it off, most people don’t
care enough to practice proper etiquette when communicating
digitally.

My personal favorite is the three-foot-tall email-chain that’s

been going on for weeks until you’re suddenly CC’d with zero
context and only a “FYI” at the top. And yet you’re expected to
digest the “conversation” and make a quick decision.

My next favorite: The impromptu question in Slack that

generated a twenty-minute exchange of messages, emoji,
and animated GIFs that you’re brought into with a simple @
gregstorey followed by “scroll up.” Neither of these exchanges
are positive or an effective way to communicate, but they’re

19 Creativity and collaboration

done all the time.

It’s important to talk about communication needs and

requirements as a team because you need to develop some
empathy for what it’s like to be at the end of that sparkling trail
of animated 90’s memes and weeping smiley faces.

Likewise, your team should have a communication strategy

for how to communicate with your partners, your line-of-
business, and the company-at-large. If you’re working for a
large company it’s highly likely that a one-and-done strategy
for communication will fail. Take a page from social marketing;
map out what communication channels (the communication
platforms available to you) you need to use to reach your
audience successfully. And then determine what repetition
(if any) you need to employ to get that message across to the
most people.

In addition to these ideas, Jason Cyr, director of design

transformation at Cisco, created a list of ways to improve
remote communication that are worth considering. Here are a
few suggestions from the list that I think are fundamental:

Facilitation is key Every meeting, regardless whether it is

remote or in person, should have someone appointed as the
facilitator/chair/leader (not necessarily the organizer). This
is one of the most important things you can do to ensure a

20 Creativity and collaboration

successful meeting as they will be the person who makes sure
all the other items below are considered.

Act differently Do you remember when you were a kid and you
went to someone’s house for dinner? You knew that you were
meant to act differently and be on your best behavior. The
same idea applies here. Recognize that in a remote meeting
situation you need to act differently than in an in-person
setting. Help the facilitator, don’t dominate the conversation.
And help make sure everyone is heard or invited to be heard.

Ensure a quality audio connection In low-bandwidth

situations ensure that you connect to the meeting audio with
your cell phone or landline so that you always have a stable
audio connection. Be diligent about muting if you are in a noisy
location (seems obvious, but not always put into practice).

Turn your video on! A lack of interpersonal chemistry and

ease of multi-tasking are two things that kill remote meetings.
Ensuring that everyone’s video is on and that you’re not
checking email, Instagram, or ordering on Amazon helps to
solve both.

RACI The more people on the call, the harder it is to make it

effective. Use the RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted,
Informed) matrix as a way to evaluate who needs to be in the
meeting versus who needs to be simply consulted beforehand
and/or after.

21 Creativity and collaboration

Prepare, prepare, prepare The organizer and the facilitator
should put some extra effort into the planning. Test tools, dry
run any activities, and create breakout groups ahead of time (if
needed). Try to identify things that could fail and have a plan B
in place.

Without successful communication your team is set up to

fail. It’s right up there next to working electricity and internet
access in terms of necessities for a successful remote team.
Invest the time to discuss this as a team and devise your
communications plan. Don’t leave communication protocol up
in the air.

Making creativity explicit

When co-located, key stages of the creative process emerge

organically. This can be as simple as stopping someone in
the cafeteria to show them a new user flow (testing), to jotting
down an idea for a colleague on a piece of printing paper
(ideation).

In a remote environment, all of these activities remain just

as critical as they are in person. But achieving them requires
being more deliberate about aligning, documenting, and
communicating your process with others.

22 Creativity and collaboration

Stephen Gates, head design evangelist at InVision, describes
this need as “putting structure” around creativity:

“Remote work shows you the flaws in your

process and culture,” Gates says. “That’s why
a lot of the more mature companies are able
to do it more easily. They’ve spent the time
to be more deliberate about how they work—
for brainstorming, process, running a design
critique, coming together as a team or working
apart. A lot of teams do this stuff mostly
through happenstance, as opposed to saying,
‘This is the way we’re going to work.’ If you look
at the hallmark of high maturity teams, they are
much more deliberate about this.”

Structure and creativity are not words you see used together
often, but people—designers in particular—work best when a
structure is put in place. And the “happenstance” that Stephen
mentions? If left unchecked for too long in a remote setting
you’ll learn a valuable lesson in what happens when you leave
too much decision making to a designer. Manage your team’s
process with intent, from start to finish.

23 Creativity and collaboration

 Stephen Gates
Listen Online: Putting Structure
Around Creativity

Fostering creativity, building designers

To deliver dependable, successful design outcomes, leaders

have to keep their teams curious, creative, collaborative,
energetic, and always empathetic. It might take a bit of “plate
spinning,” but you’ll end up with a productive team that
delivers quality work. A primary responsibility of a design
leader is to create an environment that fosters creativity
and divergent thinking that takes physical and mental forms.
Design teams often surround themselves with artifacts from
all types of design: posters, desk accessories, LEGO, Funko
figures, books, and furniture. They end up with a communal
inspirational space that gets them into the right frame of mind
in the morning and continues to inspire them throughout
the day. Other “decor” comes in the form of artifacts of their
work—from a journey map made of Post-It notes to nearly
finished work printed on gigantic, nine-foot plotters. It’s not
hard to be inspired in these spaces, but they are hard to
replicate for a remote team. Even if you give everyone the
same super motivational desktop image it doesn’t come close

24 Creativity and collaboration

to having the same impact as being surrounded by physical
things that inspire great work.

Without the typical surroundings of the design

team space, fostering creativity remotely requires
thoughtful planning and ideation. Thankfully our
profession comes with a number of tools that we can
use to create new experiences; we just need to turn
that inward and come up with activities that work
within the constraints of remote work. Here are a few
ideas to start:

Make time for design: Like show-and-tell that we all used to

do as kids, create dedicated time per week for everyone to
share at least one thing pertaining to inspirational design (or
even just cool things that they read, saw, or did recently). It
could be anything from someone’s UI portfolio, a podcast, a
new typeface, a TED Talk, or an article in the latest issue of
Eye Magazine. Take turns introducing your inspirations, who is
behind the work, and why it inspires you or why you think it’s
cool. Stretch your designers to present these things as if it was
their own work. This helps them develop the ability to observe
and interpret the work of others, create their own perspective
based on rationale, and reflect on the experience.

Eight-hour design sprint: How often do we get to put our

own tools to use for things we’d like to see out in the world?

25 Creativity and collaboration

Set aside a day to do a quick design sprint to create a new
process or tool to help your team better collaborate with your
partners or create a new service to support a different area of
the business.The designers at Home Depot call this “one-day
problem framing.”

Steal like Austin: Speaking of taking pages, let's grab a whole

handful from Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist. A core
message of the book is on stealing from the artists and people
who inspire you. However, instead of simply stealing their style,
dig into that person’s history and find what inspired them.
Learn how to blend your own sources of inspiration into the
muse that powers your creativity.

Side note: Kleon’s book is the perfect selection to read and

discuss as a team. It’s a quick read and each chapter provides
not only inspiration but activities to complete and share with
one another. Austin has two more books, Show Your Work! and
Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad.

Weekly design challenges: Put aside 10 minutes at the start

of your weekly team meeting for a quick design challenge.
Have fun with it but find ways to incorporate different design
thinking activities combined with new constraints to keep the
challenge fresh.

As creativity comes in different forms, consider stepping

outside of your existing design practice, company, and

26 Creativity and collaboration

industry to look for new ideas. Examine how creativity has
an impact on other industries; and then, take those learnings
and build new exercises. The important thing is to prioritize
creative exercises in your team’s activity. And if it should
happen outside of your efforts, throw every ounce of support
on it you can provide.

Ideating in a remote environment

I had the pleasure of working for a few years on the IBM Design
team in Austin, Texas. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to
watch The Loop, an InVision film on the design program at the
heart of IBM’s design-lead transformation. It tells the story
of the Herculean task given to a small team to change how
IBM solves problems for its clients and creates new products
and experiences that are firmly grounded in user-centered
design principles. It’s a classic David and Goliath story, but
more importantly, you’ll get an inside look at IBM’s Austin
studio space that was custom designed to provide the best
experience possible for design-driven activities.

There are four spaces: Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow; these can
also be split into sub-spaces: A, B, C, and D. Sixteen teams of
up to six persons can work simultaneously in relative comfort.
The entire space has a top-mounted track system designed
to accommodate rolling whiteboards that are approximately

27 Creativity and collaboration

four-feet wide and seven- feet tall. To a designer it’s a wonder
of the modern world and I have yet to see another system like
it. My oh my, if those whiteboards could talk. They would have
thousands of stories about designers testing hypotheses,
pivoting after user research pointed to a different need, and
the insane amount of ideation generated to solve for that need.
It was hard not to be creative in that space. Whether the space
was set up for one or sixteen spaces, it felt “design-y” and it
definitely helped people change how they went about working
to create better user experiences.

And then one day you go from that amazing in-person

experience to trying to do the same thing sitting behind a
computer screen with an active webcam. As much as I’d love to
make the online experience better, one of the most challenging
activities in a remote environment is also the one that’s easiest
at a place like IBM Design in Austin—ideation.

In a physical space, ideation is much more accessible.

Everyone knows how to drag a marker across a whiteboard,
or jot an idea down on a sticky note. And yet in a remote
environment, this is usually where teams first stumble.

To successfully ideate remotely, it’s important to approach

this as a “user experience” challenge.What is the purpose
of ideation? It is to make sharing and communicating ideas
as accessible, frictionless, and fast as possible. We use

28 Creativity and collaboration

whiteboards because everyone knows how to use them. Sticky
notes work because they’re small and disposable, forcing us to
limit what we jot down and making ideas easy to discard.

Yet digital collaboration software is often the opposite

of accessible, fast, or frictionless. Most collaboration
software is purpose built to solve complex technological and
communication problems at scale. They’re full of distracting
and intimidating features. And they optimize for orderly,
organized information sharing.

Digital ideation tools should be simple, accessible, and allow

for unstructured creative freedom. Fortunately, there are
digital tools now available that seek to replicate the experience
of whiteboarding including InVision’s own tool, Freehand.

Freehand was created to solve for the inclusivity and

speed of in-person ideation sessions, allowing for real-time
collaboration via a simple online canvas. Teams can sketch
images, type out notes, and review designs together, just like
they would on a whiteboard. The toolset is intentionally limited,
making it easy for any person to contribute (no matter their
role).

Side note: The first time I saw Freehand was at InVision IRL
2018, an “in real life” internal company event where we all

29 Creativity and collaboration

get together for a few days to break bread, have some fun,
and prepare for the coming year. I was a design executive at
USAA at the time and was there to tag along with my boss,
Mariah Garrett, chief design officer at USAA. She was invited
to sit on a client panel. After the panel was over, we sat
through the next presentation given by the CTO. The entire
presentation was conducted on this weird, sketchy digital
whiteboard where other people contributed in real-time with
drawings, commentary, and animated gifs. It was one of the
coolest presentations to date and at the end of it, the CTO
introduced Freehand to the rest of InVision. He provided a URL
for everyone to use to log in and add to the board. As people
logged in, you saw cursors of different colors fly across the
screen and start creating. And that's why I love this tool. Just
like in a real-time space, people can jump in and start adding to
the work.

Here at InVision, Freehand has become our default for

whiteboarding, brainstorming, sketching, wireframing, and
other ideation activities. Everyone in the company—from
product to data science, to marketing to HR—uses it. It's
the core tool in everyone’s quiver because it mimics the
whiteboard so well.

Your mileage may vary, but the important note here is to find a
space or your team to ideate quickly and often. With all of that
fostering of creativity, you’re going to need to find a way for

30 Creativity and collaboration

your designers to use it.

Performing design critiques remotely

After many years in business, InVision product teams are

still evolving our methods for weekly design critiques.
While getting used to doing these things remotely may take
some time, there are a few positive outcomes. At InVision,
each design team gets one hour a week for critique. Time is
divided equally depending on the number of projects that are
flagged as needing review for the week. Critique sessions
are facilitated by the design lead of each team and partners
in product management and engineering are invited and
encouraged to participate. All of the work to be reviewed is
placed in a Freehand (read Ideating in a remote environment
earlier in this chapter) along with a uniform outline the designer
uses to provide constraints for feedback:

• What I am sharing today: (please include the actual

problem you are seeking to solve with this work)

• The work is at the stage of: (e.g., discovery)

• The constraints I am dealing with are: (e.g., I only have two

weeks, we don't have x data available, etc.)

• I am looking for the following feedback: (be as detailed as

31 Creativity and collaboration

 necessary)

During the critique, participants are encouraged to focus on

providing feedback and asking questions. We have tried more
formal frameworks in the past, but they ended up taking longer
without improving the quality of the sessions and didn’t justify
the additional time. InVision designers prefer to use Freehand
to present their work because if a new idea comes to mind,
the team can quickly jump in and work on it in realtime. Having
been a part of critiques in the past I can tell you that being
able to quickly sketch out ideas in the same space as the work
being reviewed is truly valuable for team ideation.

Everyone attending the critique is required to have their

cameras turned on at all times. This helps to show that people
are engaged, but more importantly it conveys the tone of
the feedback and provides a sense of shared vulnerability.
Providing feedback through voice alone comes off as absent
of empathy. And I’m going to show my age here, but what are
we—Charlie's Angels?

Now it gets better. Sessions are recorded and shared out

afterwards which lets the designer focus more on interaction
with the people providing feedback and ideas during the
session (rather than trying to document everything).

32 Creativity and collaboration

If there is one aspect about working remotely
that’s super positive, it’s that right there: the
ability to focus on interacting rather than trying
to transcribe in real time.

Note: The design teams tried using a dedicated note taker

in the past but reviewing the video leaves nothing up for
interpretation.

Other considerations:

• The leader should set the tone for the session when they
log in. Focus on making the interaction productive and fun
during the review. This event is super important to design
team culture. The key is to provide enough process, but not
to the point of rigidity.

• It’s easy to be less personable when you have a screen

and camera in your face. Lead with empathy: How are the
people presenting feeling? Be personable and positive. Be
a reminder that you’re all there to critique the work, not the
person.

• For a team working remotely for the first time it will take a
bit of trial and error to find the right virtual experience. It’s
important to remember that what works for us at InVision
may not be the right fit for you. Charge your team with

33 Creativity and collaboration

 exploring new ways to host a better critique and have fun
with it.

Ensuring visibility of the work

It's often easy to know when you’re near a team of designers

because the walls are typically covered with their work,
everything from hundreds of sticky notes to print-outs of
nearly finished designs of an application flow. These are the
artifacts that business folks tend to gravitate towards because
it provides evidence of their money being wellspent. It's vital
that when switching to a remote environment your team
doesn’t lose this visibility. The last thing you need is to suffer
from you and your team being out of sight and out of mind.
Without the walls to showcase design, you still need to remind
the company of the capabilities, outcomes, and value that
design provides.

As the leader, ensuring the visibility of the work will likely take
extra effort on your part because you will need to take the
work to them (there are no hallways in virtual space). Not unlike
drumming up support for an internal initiative, getting design
in front of business partners and executives requires creative
thinking and promotional moxy. You need to communicate to
your stakeholders, partners, peers, and executive sponsors.
Also consider including the following groups: marketing, public

34 Creativity and collaboration

relations, risk, compliance, and legal.

Newsletter: Nothing is more to the point than an update

delivered straight to stakeholders and executives. A good
newsletter should be visually interesting and editorially
provocative. Try to tell concise stories that link to more
detailed versions, full prototypes, or design presentations. Be
careful not to include everything in email; if it’s too long and
not scannable people will stop opening it. Share your longer
stories by publishing them to your company intranet or blog.
This will also allow you to link to the stories and promote them
in other channels like Slack.

Boards: InVision teams use Boards to do everything from

provide a “war-room-like” space to showcase finished work in
a case-study format. Design teams use this to collaborate on
work with their partners (engineering and product) and across
various areas of the business. The product makes it super
easy to pull together group visuals, add comments, etc. in a
way that’s reminiscent of the walls that you’re used to covering
with work. It’s a nice non-PowerPoint option to help socialize a
team’s activity.

Executive reports: Most executives leave the office on Friday

with a weekend packet of reports, articles, etc. to read and
review. Each month, the design directors of USAA’s Chief
Design Office prepare a 3 to 5 page brief on their team’s

35 Creativity and collaboration

activity for the month. The briefs are just that, short stories of
the work completed with images showcasing the design team
at work and the work itself. Each team brief is collected in a
larger report for the entire line of business and sent out to all
relative execs. Not only does this keep the executive in touch
with the design activity of their product line(s), but also the
activity across the entire business.

Playbacks: A wonderful practice from IBM Design is the

“playback,” a type of meeting/presentation between the
team, stakeholders, and executives/clients to keep everyone
in sync. A playback is a reminder of the team’s current
mission, priorities, a review of the current work, what the team
learned, and it ends with a review of the next steps. Playbacks
are conducted any time the team at large needs to get in
alignment, which is often after the design team has finished a
phase and is about to move onto the next.

Open house: Just because you’re remote doesn’t mean you

can’t host an event. While he was global head of design at
Citi, Stephen Gates used to host an open house on Friday
afternoons. Designers volunteered to show the work they
had accomplished for the week. Anyone in the company was
openly encouraged to attend as part of an effort to teach what
his design program is capable of doing.

No matter what combination you end up using, it’s more

36 Creativity and collaboration

important that you’re able to share and distribute your
team’s work on a regular basis (not too frequent or interest
will eventually drop, but enough to keep visible). Remember
that repetition is super important. Don’t leave this vital
communication up to a single distribution method. Post links
to prototypes in Slack. Add the links to your team’s Confluence
page. And add Trello cards to “Review Design Activity” in
various backlogs. Get creative and be seen!

Develop better collaboration with engineering and

product management

There are plenty of articles online with ideas for collaborating

with our partners in engineering and product management.
Working remotely can make collaboration a bigger challenge,
but it also presents an opportunity to understand your
partners’ teams and needs. For all of the advice design passes
around for developing empathy for others, it’s not often
practiced internally. We’re not taking the medicine that we
prescribe.

From my experience, it’s always illuminating to work with

your engineering and product partners to discover what
assumptions they have of design and of their roles. I once
worked with a product manager who worked under the
assumption that most of the design role responsibilities

37 Creativity and collaboration

belonged to them. It took me a few months to figure this
out, but when I did, I had an understanding of why it was so
challenging to work with them. When I had this ah-ha moment, I
wanted to scream—not at them but at me. How did I go so long
without going through some simple activities to understand
their perspective and vice-versa? What a gut punch. I didn’t
feel very much like a design leader that day.

To build an effective, collaborative relationship we first need to

listen and understand what makes our co-workers tick, what’s
important to them, what they feel is important to us, and how
their work is measured by the business. Likewise, they should
have the same information and the same understanding about
us. Set aside time between you and your collaborators to work
together and run through discovery exercises so you can build
empathy for each role. Keep doing this until you reach all of the
major roles that you need to work with. Share these techniques
and get more people in your company developing empathy for
their partners.

Once we have a collective understanding of one another,

then it’s possible (and very powerful) to co-create how we
should work together. We can build work agreements (social
contracts) that speak to how each role prefers to work.
Together we can reshape our processes to be inclusive and
thus set up the conditions for real collaboration. And we can
do all of this while helping each other reach our objectives as a

38 Creativity and collaboration

team and as individuals.

Speaking of collaboration, let's talk about

facilitating remote workshops

As time goes on in this new world, so must design and

collaboration. Our profession has come a long way in
demonstrating that we can provide value to the business.
Working remotely or not, we have to continue that momentum.
One of design's strongest offerings is the discovery process to
test new product or service ideas quickly and at fraction of the
cost of a full engineering team.

Facilitating workshops remotely may seem difficult, but in my

experience it’s really the same amount of effort and emotional
energy that are focused slightly differently. Remember, design
is not a function of a place and design-led workshops fall
directly within that statement.

You will still need to set up the “room” and make sure there are
enough supplies. Invitations have to be sent out and followed
up to make sure folks are going to participate. And yes, there
will be that person who is late and needs help finding the right
link. I wrote a separate guide on facilitating remote workshops
available on the InVision Inside Design blog complete with a
view of a sample workshop setup we use in Freehand.

39 Creativity and collaboration

I can’t stress enough how important it is that design shows up
with its A-game. And bringing our facilitation skills to future
company problems is one of the best ways to do that while
helping to ensure visibility for you and your team’s work.

Design-to-code when side-by-side isn’t an option

Translating work achieved during the design phase into

development is perhaps one of the most important stages
of creativity, because it’s when our design work becomes a
reality. In other words, it doesn’t matter how well a product
is designed if the end result looks and behaves nothing like
what the team intended. It’s incumbent on every designer and
developer to take this phase of work ultra-seriously.

A constant argument I hear against distributed teams is the

need for designers to sit next to developers to cut down
on time spent during the design-to-development handoff.
Location aside, the desired outcome is a faster process with
an increase in the quality of the code. Working remotely allows
us to get there with a people and tools-first strategy.

Start by identifying what each role needs from each other

during the phases of a project and who is responsible for
delivery, communication, or both. Set up regular and ongoing
times to check in. Next, bring in a tool like InVision Inspect to

40 Creativity and collaboration

help reduce designer ambiguity and the need for developer
interpretation between design and code. This combined
approach should not only improve your time to market, but
also help to build trust between the two groups.

Meanwhile, do what you can to improve communication

between designers and developers. When I was at Happy
Cog, we had designers in Austin working with developers
in Philadelphia. During crunch times it was common to see
someone with an iPad open to a video chat session with a team
member in the other studio. It wasn’t for a meeting or a quick
“call.” They left it open and on for hours at a time to help mimic
the feeling of sitting next to one another.

We did this a few times at the leadership level and I have to say
it worked pretty well.

Centralizing and organizing resources

Trying to keep all of your team's assets stored and

documented in a single place is difficult enough. Working
remotely can exacerbate the situation if you don’t have
identified storage, directory architecture, naming conventions,
and automatic and manual backup schedules mapped out for
everyone to follow. Document everything and place that file in
your root directory. And then pin that file to your team Slack

41 Creativity and collaboration

channel for easier access in the future.

Your IT organization should already be on top of this, but if

that’s not the case, you can invest the time now to ensure work
does not get lost. Spend time as a team looking at where work
should be stored and what tools should be used for which
tasks. Document all of these things to serve as a reference for
the team and use for onboarding of new team members.

Organize regular rituals around cleaning local drives and

ensuring files are moved to cloud-based solutions that have
their own backups. Perhaps use this as the activity to be done
before you all head into a virtual weekly happy hour.

• Sidebar: One of the goals of InVision is to create a

“single source of truth” or “home” where design lives. By
organizing all projects in InVision, distributed teams have
a centralized place to explore all the work that a team
produces. This can make InVision an invaluable system of
record for product design. And when design collaboration
is centralized in InVision, all comments and activities are
stored, preserving invaluable institutional knowledge for
the business.

42 Creativity and collaboration

Team documentation and better handoff process
for OOO

In a remote workplace documentation rules the school. This

is especially true for anything operational. Documentation,
stored in the cloud and pinned to team channels, are
table stakes. And when something changes, update those
documents as soon as possible and ensure that everyone on
the team and your collaboration partners know what changed,
why, and where those changes can be found.

This practice may be easy to remember for team operations,

but what about individual team members? When someone
on the editorial team leaves work for an extended period of
time (vacation, maternity leave, etc.) they create a Directly
Responsible Individual (DRI) transfer plan to ensure a seamless
transition of responsibilities and decision- making authority.

Identify who is leaving and for how long. Designate the

temporary DRI along with their contact information. In addition,
list out your own contact information while you’re away and
indicate your communication situation (Will you have your work
laptop? Will you have Wifi or cell service? Is there a huge time
zone difference?) and finally the projects you’re working on,
their status, and any notes about what needs to happen while
you’re out.

DRI transfer plan template

43 Creativity and collaboration

Right people, Right tools

Critical to success is ensuring you have the right people

working to solve problems together. Traditionally this meant
designers working alongside developers and product
managers. But we need to look beyond this core group and
be more inclusive; we need more roles to bring their hard-
earned perspective to the experience creation process. Take
a look at the end-to-end customer experience and document
all of the parts of the business that help to make that happen,
from marketing and account executives near the beginning
of the experience, to the day-to-day use which likely involve
customer success managers and different levels of customer
support.

Just as designers hate to work solely from marketing’s “voice

of the customer,” why would you just settle on prioritized
notes from customer service? Designers are equipped with
frameworks and facilitation to get multiple voices in a room
and empower them to co-create together not as a single voice,
but a harmony of voices.

When we work remotely our day is typically filled using

applications to connect and collaborate (e.g., Zoom, Freehand,
Slack, Google Docs). And it begins to feel like everything we
do needs a tool in the form of another application. I’m here to
remind you that is not the case for design! We have a powerful
toolkit that enables us to understand people, validate the

44 Creativity and collaboration

problem(s) to solve, find needs to fill, and create innovative
solutions that customers want to use. Your most powerful
tools don’t require software; they require people.

Design thinking should always be your primary toolkit, working

remotely or not. And you should know all of the people and
all of the “voices” that you need to bring together to create
the right, user-centered experiences. Get to know these folks
and invite them into your team to hang out. Don’t know who
these people are? Go find them! Don’t wait for them to find you.
You’re the designer; you’re the curious one in the room. Stay
curious!

Lastly, do what you can to make sure everyone has access to

the same tools and information. Few things are as challenging
as not knowing what you don’t know that you don’t know
because in the remote workplace it’s difficult to stumble upon
answers to questions that you don’t know to ask.

All of this will help you promote and foster a creative work
environment beyond the virtual borders of design. Share your
knowledge and be an open book. The secret sauce is never
in the what or the how, but the who. If you are known as the
person who brings everyone together to solve problems then
you may have ninety-nine problems—but working remotely
won’t be one.

45 Creativity and collaboration

Think inclusively. Be inclusive. Work inclusively. Design
inclusively.

46 Creativity and collaboration

Further Reading

Remote work for design teams: InVision’s essential resources

4 ways remote designers and developers can collaborate

better

How to help your team excel at remote collaboration

How ACS Technologies cracked the hybrid-remote

brainstorming code

Designing distributed: collaboration on Doist’s fully-remote

design team

The 4 rules of remote design collaboration

Collaboration workflows for remote design teams

4 exercises for your remote design sprint

How books became 99design’s ultimate collaboration tool

6 tips for remote user testing

47 Creativity and collaboration

Chapter 3

Leadership
Practical management advice for embracing the shift
to remote
By Greg Storey

48 Leadership
This is a milestone year for me. It marks twenty-five years
of being a leader, and more importantly, it marks my quarter
century anniversary with my dear wife (who I affectionately
refer to in my writing as The Rocket Scientist). So, I’ve got a lot
of miles on my engine. I’ve seen a lot and been through even
more. That is to say, I’ve observed just about everything you
can imagine when it comes to being a leader. I’ve led teams
in small companies to gigantic global conglomerates; large
national operations to small-medium business (SMB).

As I write this, the world is on lockdown due to the Covid-19

pandemic. What can I impart from over two decades of
experience that will genuinely be helpful to you during a time
only previously imagined as science fiction?

Whatever leadership or management style you had yesterday,

I recommend switching gears quickly. You may evolve back
into who you were before, but for now, your team needs
strong servant leadership. Your designers need a work and
life support system and, ding you’re it. That doesn’t mean
you have to have all of the answers and you won’t—nobody
does right now. But you can listen. Fall back on your discovery
process and use it to map out new requirements for your team,
family, and community. There will be a time for strategic and
transformational leadership later. Right now, your team needs
a coach.

49 Leadership
You’re likely still trying to process what’s happening. What’s it
like to lead a team that you can’t hear or see? That is to say a
team that’s not seated in the same room as you. People who
aren’t even in your peripheral view—perhaps for the first time
ever.

It’s time to let go of our definition of normal—because that’s

gone. Make no mistake, we’re on a path to a new reality that’s
forming in real-time—from entire industries to the GDP (Gross
National Product) of countries. As leaders, we have to do what
we can to help our teams, partners, and companies weather
this storm-and-form period as best as possible.

Take the lead on reimagining cultural norms into a virtual

equivalent or better. Just as our work is not tied to a place,
neither are meetings or happy hours. Don’t overthink this and
start simple. From what I’ve observed in client conversations
and chats with design leaders, people want to talk. They need
to vent and hear themselves think out loud. Be the leader that
people need right now by bringing people together; because
we all need more conversations and more interactions—
including you.

The following ideas are based on a lot of lessons learned,

mostly the hard way, over my long career. When I started
working remotely there wasn’t a lot of great content on the
subject. People called working remote “telecommuting.” This

50 Leadership
was around the same time people “surfed the web” or cruised
the “information superhighway.” And we all wore acid wash
jeans. Ugh.

Work with your team to remix concepts into a playbook that

works for you. And then please reach out and share it with me;
I’d like to hear about what you’re doing. Last thought: Take care
of yourself. There are people who depend on you, so make sure
you’re strong, healthy, and here to stay.

People first, work second

I want to repeat the sub-headline in case it did not “auto-save”

to memory. When working remotely people need to come first
because you’re no longer around each other all the time. There
is a certain connection you get from being around others and
that disappears completely when you’re distributed. Grabbing
time together now requires an invitation link and meetings only
last so long. Out of sight, out of mind happens way too easily
when working remotely. You have to prioritize time with your
people—all of them.

It’s time to exercise those soft skills and put intent behind your
standing 1:1s. This will give you time to “see” your people and
an opportunity to observe their behavior. The business will
always provide distractions and want your attention, but you’ve

51 Leadership
got to give your people the priority. Never, never, never-ever
assume that anyone who reports to you will be “good” if you
want to skip their weekly 1:1 session! And don’t skip out on
your regular rituals with your team—more on this later.

Remember that you’re the one responsible for building up

your designers— to make them better, stronger, and smarter.
Time with each designer is critical to build them up, so they
are prepared to crush it when they get back to their desks. If
the business needs your attention, respectfully tell those co-
workers to please find another day and time.

52 Leadership
Some do’s and don’ts about remote working and
1:1s

Don't do this… Do this……

Don’t wait for your designers Schedule all of your 1:1s

to schedule time with you. at least one quarter at a
This shows a lack of care and time and lock them in. Add
disregard for that person’s information to the invite
career and well being. asking people to seek
your permission before
scheduling another event at
the same time. If they add
you to the schedule without
your permission, decline it
automatically.

Don’t think a quick Slack Do use Slack to keep

“checkin” provides anywhere ongoing threads with each of
near the same experience your designers. Post links to
or fulfills the interpersonal interesting content or make
needs of your team. a work-appropriate joke.
Create the means to have an
ongoing, positive connection
with each designer.

53 Leadership
Don't do this… Do this……

Don’t use team time to Do use team time to provide

diagnose the health of a transparency in company
team member’s work. People activities. Help interpret
may act differently when what’s going on outside of
group dynamics are in play. your team. And do everything
Just because someone you can to continually reduce
appears to be okay in a anxiety throughout the week.
stand-up doesn’t mean that
reflects reality. Thus why 1:1
time is so important.

Don’t host a 1:1 without Do keep a “living document”

documenting the discussion to include any agenda items,
and any decisions made what was discussed, and
between you and the what goals, objectives, and
designer. priority decisions were made.
The next week, add a new
date and repeat the steps.
More on this in Chapter 2.

54 Leadership
Don't do this… Do this……

Don’t let interruptions Disable notifications

interfere with your 1:1 times. (especially Slack) and turn off
your phone

Don’t make your 1:1 only Do use this time to ask how
about work. your designer is doing on
a personal level. Ask about
their family’s well-being. If
they have pets, how they
are etc. Have they picked
up any new hobbies or are
they binge watching any new
shows, etc.

Don’t feel that you have to Do shut up and actively

talk the entire time. listen.

55 Leadership
1:1s and journals

While we’re on the topic of 1:1s, let's dig into an important

detail. Another recommended practice is to keep a living
document or a journal for each person that reports to you.
Why? Your people are the most important part of the company.
They are the greatest investment your company makes, so
you need to take care of them. But as I wrote earlier, you also
need to turn them into better designers and collaborators.
Documenting their path week-to-week provides alignment
between the two of you on what steps each of you need to take
in order to build that person's skills and abilities.

Create a private document that is shared between you and the

designer. Write out the date of your next meeting. Under the
date, set three categories in the document:

• Main area of focus/attention

• What’s going well/updates

• Questions/topics to discuss

And make it look good! I don’t like thinking about how many
times I’ve had to read a Google Doc set in Arial. We have
access to every typeface in Google Fonts, but, no thanks,
Arial will do. Who does that say to people? The only thing
worse would be Helvetica, but I digress. You may be a leader,

56 Leadership
but you’re still a designer, so there’s no need to make anyone
suffer from default typography, type scales, and composition.

Prior to each meeting, you and the designer add topics under
each category to set up the agenda of your time together. If
you have topics left over from the previous session, add them
to the list. Give the designer time to prioritize the list. This will
help you get an idea of how the person might be feeling/doing.
After the session is over, document any decisions made, move
that appointment down, and create a new date and category
group above it. Repeat each week.

Taking these steps will go a long way in making your designers

feel like the priority they are. Keep these times sacred.

Standing team interaction time

Now that your team has dispersed into working from their
home, you’ll begin to miss the ability to put together ad-hoc
team activities like happy hour or team lunch. As working
remotely can lead to feelings of isolation, group functions
become even more important to the health of your team.

Setting standard interaction time is a way to ensure that your

team has a built-in requirement to connect socially. Sure,
happy hours and coffee times aren’t exactly the same when

57 Leadership
everyone is interacting through a camera, but you’re better off
pushing your team to connect than not at all. And is anyone
really going to miss those crappy well drinks?

When we work remotely it’s easy to think that all of our

interactions have to take place over a video feed but that’s
not necessarily true. I know teams that use online games like
World of Warcraft or Mario Kart to spend time together. I’ve
read about other teams embracing the video camera and
using a digital whiteboard experience, like Freehand, to play
virtual Pictionary or charades. Don’t like games? No problem!
Try a cooking challenge, wine and painting, or karaoke. Need
something that doesn’t require as much time? Take turns
teaching each other how to say morning and evening greetings
in new languages. Or spend five minutes in group meditation
or a breathing exercise. Dig deep in just a few minutes by
exploring that insanely creative world of poetry together.

These are just a few ideas for team activities that could be
translated into virtual experiences.

Side Note: You say it’s your birthday? At InVision we use

Freehand to create “cards” for team members on their
birthdays and work anniversaries. People draw, write well
wishes, and throw in an abundance of silly animated GIFs.It’s a
lot of fun.

Designers at IBM tinkered with the idea of starting an online

58 Leadership
radio station behind the company's firewall. They brought in
turn tables, mixers, microphones, etc. while their developer
friends created a webpage that featured a streaming player.
They started small, but a year later IBM gave the group a
budget to build a full studio with better equipment. Today the
radio station has programming around the clock with volunteer
IBM DJs around the globe playing everything from funkadelic
to EDM with a little old-time country music in between.

Group activities are important when you work remotely.

Especially now during a time of global crisis, we need to get
together— virtually—as often as we can. All of the above
ideas aside, not every team gathering needs an activity. Just
get together on video chat and leave the agenda open. The
important takeaway here is that you need time together to
keep your team balanced and in check. Start small and build a
new routine. Then build from there. Take an idea from here or
start a quick design sprint for you and your team to come up
with your own unique event.

Re-create your team’s working agreement

Working remotely means not being able to “drive-by” a desk

or run into someone in the hallway or kitchen. This type of
interaction now requires pinging them on Slack to see if they
are in front of their computer, asking if they have a few minutes

59 Leadership
to chat, and cut-and-pasting a link to a video chat session.
Team stand-ups by video now take longer than a few minutes
as people log in and play with settings—“You’re muted! Nope—
still can’t hear you” and “Hold on, my airpods aren't working.”
You get the idea.

On the flip side, working from home also means that it’s now
possible to rearrange your workday to adjust for running
errands, managing your household, and taking care of children
if you have them. Some of you will have too much time on your
hands while others are double-booked.

Be empathetic towards each other! Otherwise it won’t take

long before we see each other’s situation with envy. The single
person may look at someone with a family as lucky because
they’re not lonely, while the person with three kids will look
at the single person and wish they had an evening of quiet.
Everything we all know about work and how we interact with
each other has changed—a lot.

My point is this: Take the good with the bad and consider this
to be an ideal time to be compassionate towards one another.
And what better activity to understand what you all are going
through than a quick workshop on your team’s new reality.
Using a virtual whiteboard, like Freehand, have your group work
through the following:

60 Leadership
• Hopes and fears: Create two columns, one for each
label. Spend enough time to capture the hopes and fears
of every member of the team, andake sure everyone
participates. When finished, have someone from the team
read out what’'s posted and synthesize the notes into
themes as a team.

• Identify problems: After synthesis is finished, discuss

the themes as a team and formulate problem statements
that address the concerns. Once problems statements are
done, have the team prioritize the list. If necessary, take
the next step and place these items on a feasibility grid as
there may be problems that may be outside of the team’s
jurisdiction. Save those for discussion later and move on.

• How might we: With problems prioritized, the last activity

is to spend time thinking about how the team can tackle
the problems. And consider how those solutions can be
used to re-write your work agreement. Repeat this process
as new problems emerge.

Publish the team’s working agreement in the root directory

of your shared storage solution and pin it to your team chat
channels. Lead by example and share the story of your team
activity with others in the company. You may find other leaders,
especially in non-design roles, who are looking for ideas like
this to help realign their team as well.

61 Leadership
Squash all of the elephants fast and quick

Bringing radical candor into your team’s culture is difficult

for in-person teams, but it’s just as hard for those working
remotely. The screen isn’t a shield and being “on camera” is
even more daunting for many people than speaking up in an
in-person meeting.

This is why as the leader it’s important to be as transparent

as possible without creating any new anxiety. If you thought
backchannel conversations were bad in the “workplace,” they
can be exponentially worse in a remote environment.

If you see something negative going on, set up a dedicated

time to get it out in the open and encourage the team to talk
about it in a productive way. Addressing the “elephant in the
room” doesn’t mean it’s time for an intervention. This is likely
going to be awkward enough. Be inclusive and invite everyone
to participate in the discussion.

Remind the team to focus criticism on the idea, not the person.

In a distributed team, the longer elephants are allowed to

fester, the more risk you run of toxicity entering the team.
When we’re working remotely and can’t see the team, we
can’t observe the workplace as a whole. The isolation can
compound the perception (real or imagined) and it doesn’t take
long for mob mentality to take over. Consider how a little thing

62 Leadership
can get out of control online if it isn’t managed.

When you see an elephant, pounce as quickly as possible!

Provide a north star and gain autonomy for your teams

Design got its “seat at the table” by delivering on a central

promise: Design can identify the thing to create, validated
by customers, very quickly, and without the need to engage
developers. A key tenet to the whole process is the ability to
deliver on this promise fast.

To succeed in increasingly complex and accelerating markets

requires speed. You could say that this is where the business
and design are aligned, but that’s only true if teams are given
autonomy and empowered to make decisions quickly.

This is especially true in a remote environment where

communication can take more time and getting approval or
the “green light” can be more time intensive and convoluted.
The last thing a business wants is to have a busy design team
grind productivity to a halt as they track down stakeholders,
schedule meetings, and await approval, but it happens all the
time.

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Mike Davidson on managing remote teams (Watch online)

For situations where getting approval from stakeholders

is important, try to establish clear processes for decision
making. Distinguish between those who simply need to be
kept in the loop versus those with true decision-making power.
When you have this information consider the following steps
to set up conditions for success and gain autonomy for your
design team:

1. Invite members of the executive’s team to join the design

team during the project. To help provide justification for
providing autonomy for your team consider these words
from Richard Banfield, VP of design transformation at
InVision: “Remote teams do better when they have a clear
vision and the autonomy to implement it in their own way.

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 Leaders would do best to set value-based boundaries and
let the culture blossom inside that space. Linking executive
vision with practical work is essential. A high-level mission
aligns the company with a purpose, but individual product
teams do better when they decide their team-level vision
and values.”

2. Depending on your company's culture there’s a 50/50

chance they will join, which is a great chance to convert
another person into an advocate for design.

3. Identify the executive who is sponsoring (paying for) the

work to be done. Make sure they are at the project kick-off,
key milestone check-ins during the design process, and at
the end when the final outcome is presented.

4. Identify a proxy for the executive who is empowered to

make go/no-go decisions for the executive when they
are not available to interact with the design team. Make
sure they are invited to every check-in as a backup for the
executive.

5. Co-create conditions for when decisions can be made by

the design team versus the need for executive approval.
This step is important because it allows the executive to
box in the team enough to control risk while also offloading

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 low-level decision making (which good executives hate
having to make anyway) to the design team.

6. Use Playbacks to communicate the design team’s

progress, findings, and their next step(s) as a way to keep
in constant alignment with collaborators, stakeholders,
and executives. This will help avoid any surprises further
in the project and provide assurance to the sponsoring
executive.

Expect hiccups and bumps in the road—it’s inevitable.

Whatever level of decision making you’re empowered to make,
set your expectations with your designers. They will need to
understand what is at stake if design doesn’t hold up it’s end of
the deal. Trust, when lost, will require double or triple the effort
to gain it back.

Establish principles and process with your team

Now it's your turn to provide autonomy to your designers by

co-creating a set of principles and processes to guide their
work. Again, here’s InVision’s Richard Banfield: “Take the time
to co-create rules or principles or process as a team. That co-
creation builds trust. The point is not to make a set of rules and
drop it on my team. It’s in the act of co-creation itself that the
stories start.”

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As we discussed earlier, for a design team to thrive, to go fast
means they need some form of decision-making power.

Create your principles to provide a high-level set of statements

that help guide the designers’ work and their collaboration
with others. If you find yourself suddenly working in a remote
environment, give it a few weeks for the new environment
to sink in and then review your principles with the team to
determine what, if anything, needs to change.

Processes help guide the team’s effort to create new

experiences from start to finish. Working remotely will
definitely gum things up, but like the principles, it might take
a few weeks for them to know exactly where and when. Pull
together a list of new pain points and set about using design
thinking to come up with needs and creative solutions.

Repeat these steps as often as necessary but revisit them at

least twice per year. And consider doing this for your design
team and your collaborative team at large.

Onboarding remote workers

How you onboard new hires can make a huge difference in the
time it takes for them to become full, contributing members
of the team. This is especially true when working remotely

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because it’s almost impossible to shadow someone or even
observe what the other team members do from a distance.
The worst thing you can do when onboarding is to leave new
hires up on their own without any support. It’s impossible
to know what you don’t know that you don’t know—not to
mention extremely very frustrating for the new hire. More time
and effort spent onboarding will provide the confidence new
hires need and seek while helping to reduce frustration and
eventually attrition.

Alison Entsminger, a designer at IBM, writes about her personal

experience and observations of onboarding new employees:

“Take me for example: I studied print design

in school. I had never worked with developers
before landing at IBM—much less built
products for them. You can imagine my
confusion and learning curve when I joined
IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure team. Within this
team that provides IaaS (Infrastructure as a
Service) on a platform for developers, I was
working on the UX and visual design of block,
object, and file storage offerings. Provisioning,
virtual machines, OpenStack, public vs. local vs.
dedicated—jargon was flying over my head. For
months, I tried to decipher conversations and

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prioritize tasks—unsure who to ask for help. I
sat silently in meetings—afraid to speak up in
case I said something dumb. Soon, I realized
mine was not a unique experience. As I talked
to other recent design hires across IBM, I heard
more stories of knowledge gaps and isolation.”

Alison Entsminger
Designer — IBM

Your company may not be as large as IBM, but the knowledge

gap and comfort level is compounded in a virtual setting.

New employees should be afforded inclusion, context, and

instructions for each layer of your organization: industry,
company, business unit, and team (there may be more layers
depending on the size of your company and how it’s governed).

Inclusive practices: For each level of the industry, it’s best to

bring employees onboard together until you get to the team
level. This gives everyone a shared experience that they can
build on as their comfort within the company grows. Part of
these practices are to provide activities for everyone to get
to know each other, such as the people who support internal

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services (e.g., HR and IT) and company leadership. If possible,
try to set up “lunches” where everyone gets used to the
experience of socializing in front of the camera. At InVision,
our onboarding experience, called Xenia, culminates in an
afternoon session where new employees are put into small
teams and tasked with creating a new user experience with
our software. This gives everyone a collaborative task with a
shared goal while learning how to use the company’s products.
Once you get to the team level (after “graduation” from the
company-wide experience) you can provide activities that
will help raise their comfort level and establish trust quickly.
Consider introductions where everyone, including the new
people, tell their story in only five slides:

• Where are you from?

• What got you into design?

• What is your favorite work thus far?

• What brought you to the company?

• What do you hope to learn in the next four hours, four days,
four weeks, and four months.

Also, Alison recommends another activity at the team level:

“Ensure no one eats lunch alone on their first day.” Having a
chat over a virtual lunch is a great informal way to get to know
each other too.

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Context afforded: Information is crucial to the success of
new team members. Provide a shared history of the company
and the industry or industries it operates within. What are
the company’s main products and what business models are
in place? The same goes for the line of business: Provide an
idea of how that business works and how it is governed and
positioned within the company.

When you get to the team level you’ll need to include additional
details around how the team operates, who your partner
teams are, and how often you collaborate with them. Provide
the shared language of the industry, business, and team. Be
sure to spell out every acronym (Enterprise-level businesses
tend to have an affinity for acronyms)—anything you can do
to elevate ambiguity in language will help tremendously. Use
both TL;DR: and TLI5 (i.e., too long; didn’t read; talk like I’m five)
to help provide quick content using plain English. There will be
plenty of time for rewiring the brain with industry-speak later.

Contribution instructions: The last drill down is to review

how the team works and collaborates along with a detailed
review of the experiences they’re responsible for, what’s in
the backlog, and what the current roadmap looks like. Bring
new team members onto each product or tool and explain
how it fits into the team's process and rituals. Provide hands-
on time to ensure their equipment works properly, syncs with
the right things, and connects to the right backup solution.

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Leave no detail uncovered. Do they have access to the right
SAAS applications? What about all of the typefaces, so they
can work across branding and the company’s design system?
The last step is to assign each new hire with an onboarding
buddy. This person is responsible for ensuring that a new hire
has been properly onboarded, gets their questions answered,
has scheduled 1:1s for the first three months, invitations to all
team events and rituals, and introductions to all of the people
the new hire will work with. Ultimately, the onboarding buddy
is responsible for doing what they can to get the new hire
integrated and positively contributing in a meaningful way as
soon as possible.

Playbooks: Creating recipes for common work

Now that designers can’t just pop over and ask how you
want something done, it’s a great time to consider providing
bumpers to help keep them in their lane. Playbooks are a great
way to empower your remote teams with tactical activities and
frameworks for repeatable processes and practices. This type
of repository is super useful in a remote setting to help provide
enough detailed guidance to keep designers moving in the
right direction while reducing the risk of how much process is
left up to individual interpretation.

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And let me tell you, interpretation when left
unchecked will always go in a direction you
didn’t think was possible.

These types of documents can be created and curated

for everything from HR to design practices to product
development (and more). When done well, these experiences
are several steps above a wiki and really shine when they
reflect the company's culture. Our friends at Atlassian have set
a high bar with their Team Playbook website, which includes
tools and documents for a wide range of topics.

Here at InVision the editorial team uses playbooks to

document the full process for writing a book like this one while
the design transformation team uses similar tactics for all of its
workshops.

And did I mention they are also useful for onboarding?

To get started, begin documenting the processes, activities,

and tools that you want to make repeatable and available to
your design teams. Link all documents to a table of content
somewhere that’s easy to find. If this “MVP” succeeds, then
consider a full product process to create your own playbook
repository in a format that best works for you and your team.
And if you really want to nerd out, print all of the pages and
keep them in three-ring binders.

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Check-in with your peers: How are they doing?

When you feel that you’re on the right path to providing the
support and leadership that your team needs, consider
reaching out to your peers and partners to see if they are doing
the same. As always, practice empathy and don’t presume
they’re in the same situation as you. Different parts of the
business are measured and managed differently. Make time
to talk to your colleagues and look for problems you and your
team might help to solve.

You and your design team will likely be under a spotlight that’s
shared by other departments, and this spotlight may not be
considered as essential to the business in the future. Now is a
good time to find ways to help your colleagues succeed during
this extraordinary time of distress and distractions.

Thankfully the practices from modern-day product design

give us the tools to facilitate all kinds of problem-solving,
product-related or not. Bring as much value as you can to your
teammates. Help other departments identify the right problem
to solve, the balance between the needs of the business and
the user, and most importantly, the ultimate universal problem.
Teach them how to facilitate their own team workshops and
design thinking-based activities.

As a leader you have access to these tools that

can help you help others. Become a universal
74 Leadership
resource and empower your colleagues to help
themselves.

The remote design leader

If you’re a visionary or transformational leader, going remote

will present you as someone in the company who can provide
an energetic, positive voice to the entire company while the
company is going through difficult times. And this is certainly
one of those times.

Successful leadership in a remote environment requires more

use of your soft skills: listening and diplomacy to name just a
few. And you’re going to need to practice patience in a way and
at a level you may not be accustomed to providing. All of this
extra effort is going to drain your energy. This also applies to
members of your team. Other people outside of your team will
look to you for how to deal with this new reality.

How are you taking care of yourself? This is where you need to
lead by example. You have to help guide and set your team’s
approach to work/life balance and how you recharge. There are
two batteries that you need to recharge: physical and mental.

The physical side is pretty obvious and most of you likely

already have a routine. As a baseline, walking is generally the

75 Leadership
most common form of exercise. It promotes good health,
reduces stress, and you can possibly get some work done
during the activity—namely meetings. Try to stack meetings
and walk your way through them, but don’t make everything
about work. Get some music on those AirPods and give your
head some space. Encourage your team to get outside and
move.

Your mental battery is equally important. As a team leader

you have people coming to you with problems throughout the
day. Engaging people—active listening, practicing empathy,
and patience—all require mental energy. We need our leaders
sharp during a crisis! We need your A-game, but you can’t do
that without recognizing the need to recharge.

Find a peer, someone who you can talk to and share your
stresses. This will help clear your mind and reduce your
cognitive load. If possible, set up a standing meeting so you
have time blocked off to get the support you need. And get
plenty of sleep. All of our futures are up in the air, so rest and
prepare. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re
just getting started.

We are going through a remarkable time that is way, way

bigger than anybody wants to deal with right now. My last
thought for you is to remember that you are a human being.
And there are limits to what we as human beings can process.

76 Leadership
If you’re feeling overwhelmed don’t be afraid to let yourself
have a moment to be scared, to be numb, to not understand.
Let yourself be vulnerable (maybe not in the middle of the
company all-hands video conference) but at a time that feels
right. Find the space you need to take a deep breath and let it
go.

Be well. Stay well. Design better.

77 Leadership
Further Reading

How to build (and sustain) culture in a remote environment

6 things remote companies must do to build great culture

How Zapier is building a remote design culture

78 Leadership
Chapter 4

Tips, tools,
and tricks
for working
remotely
Advice on the essentials of remote design teams
By Abby Sinnott

79 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

We often hear from other design teams that building and

maintaining a collaborative culture in a remote environment

is one of their biggest challenges. The good news is that

creating highly productive teams is all about the people, not

the space they inhabit. As Julia Elman, director of design at

the distributed company Zapier, said: “To do great design,

your team doesn’t have to be in the same room.”

Design is a process of solving real problems for users, which

can be achieved remotely while still preserving the spirit of
collaboration. To do so, distributed teams must continuously
cultivate the fundamentals of a collaborative culture:
psychological safety, trust, communication, and inclusivity.

This chapter will show you how to build the core

characteristics of high-performing collaborative teams,
despite the physical distance.

The Basics

By now, much of the basics of remote work are well known. But
it’s worth revisiting some of the fundamentals for those who
may be new to it.

80 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Pablo Stanley on maintaining a separation between work and home

life (Watch online)

Working remotely is a big change to your typical work

environment. Take the time to solve for some of the basics in
order to best set yourself up for success. Some of the most
common tips :

• Create space It takes time to rewire the brain to work in a

new environment. One way to help is to create a dedicated
space in your home for work. Small cues like a dedicated
desk or room can go a long way to sending your brain the
right signals for “work.” And once you’ve established a
comfortable home work setup, try venturing outside the
home to a local coffee shop or library. The ability to work

81 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

 from anywhere is one of the great joys of remote work, and
a change of scenery can be invaluable for reenergizing.

• Get ready Even if your commute is now a few steps,

prepare as though you were going into the office. Take time
in the morning to eat breakfast, get dressed, and do other
morning rituals before sitting down to work.

• Keep consistent hours Teams should try to keep

consistent hours to reduce confusion. For teams that work
in different timezones, be cognizant to schedule big or
important meetings in overlapping areas of the workday.

• Block time away from the desk. One of the central

benefits of remote work is that one can step away for a
doctor’s appointment, to grab lunch, or run an errand.
We encourage remote teams to take advantage of this
flexibility. But block these moments on your calendar or
set a status in Slack so colleagues can expect when you’re
away from the desk.

• Stay healthy Go for a walk. Get a chair with healthy back

support, or a standing desk. Get up from your desk at least
once every two hours.

• Stay social We all need human contact. Set up time each

day, or at least a few times a week, to get together with
friends—or at least get a change of atmosphere.

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Tools of the trade

Remote work has exploded alongside the rise of digital

collaboration tools. While there is no shortage of tools in the
market for enabling remote work, we thought we’d provide
a glimpse into the tech stack we use at InVision to remain
connected.

• Slack We live and breathe in Slack. It’s our primary

communication channel, and the water cooler around
which we all congregate.

• Zoom All video conferencing is done through Zoom. It’s

a secure, fast, and reliable solution with robust features
including polling, breakout rooms, screen share, and
more. Tip: Keep your video on! This is an important signal
to the room–and yourself–that you’re fully engaged
in the conversation at hand. This is less important in
large meetings when your participation isn’t required or
expected, but still a good general best practice.

“I think one of the most important things is

cameras on. Having cameras on with video is
important, but especially for a design critique.
One statement could sound so absent of
empathy, so getting to see everyone’s faces
and that they’re engaged and asking questions

83 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

is important. It’s not the same as being in the
same room, but it’s so dramatically closer than
just text or comments on a document. And as
long as the room is small enough, less than
nine, you can see their faces and still pick up on
a lot of the nonverbal communication.”

Dave Lewis
Director of engineering — InVision

• G Suite From simple slide presentations to 100-page

long Google Docs, G Suite keeps us productive. We also
use Google Drive as our primary cloud storage solution,
through which everything is searchable and accessible.
Whatever your cloud storage provider, make sure to keep
things organized and tidy to make it easier to track down
items.

• InVision InVision is an entire platform built to help design

teams collaborate remotely and it’s what we use in our
own design teams to brainstorm, create, prototype, test,
and collaborate with engineering. Freehand is one of our
favorite collaboration tools that makes it easy for anyone
to jump into an infinite canvas and work together in real-

84 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

 time. We use it for everything from project planning to
creative explorations, whiteboarding, design sprints,
design reviews, and much more.

• Confluence Confluence by Atlassian serves as a central

repository for all sorts of critical internal documentation,
from AMAs with the CEO to new product updates.
While centralizing knowledge is something every
company could benefit from, it’s especially important
in a remote environment as there is much less “ambient
communication” floating in the air.

Getting the basics in place is an important step to making

remote work successful. Teams will need shared tools for
video conferencing, messaging, and documentation. Design
teams will need extra tooling to accommodate key stages of
the design process in a digital environment.

But try not to overthink things. The success of remote work

depends primarily on the human relationships we develop.
The value of taking the time early to establish shared tools
and processes is that it frees teams to focus on the real work:
being creative and collaborative.

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Mythbusters

Over the years, remote work has developed baggage in the

form of myths or misconceptions. Some of these have been
internalized at a deep level. So before we go deep into specific
strategies and best practices, let’s take a moment to dispel
some of the most notorious myths out there.

Alison Rand on remote work and productivity (Watch online)

Remote workers are less productive

The most common fear of managers concerning remote work

is the fear that it makes teams less productive. But the reality
is that all evidence points to the contrary. Research out of
Stanford University found that remote employees were on

86 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

average 13% more productive than office-bound peers, and
a study by Google concluded there was “no difference in the
effectiveness, performance ratings, or promotions” for remote
workers compared to co-located teams.

“We found a highly significant 13% increase in

performance from home-working, of which 9%
was from working more minutes of their shift
period (fewer breaks and sick days) and 4%
from higher performance per minute... Home
workers also reported substantially higher work
satisfaction and psychological attitude scores,
and their job attrition rates fell by over 50%.”
-–Stanford University Research by Nicholas A.
Bloom, James Liang, John Roberts, Zhichun
Jenny Ying

Stanford University Research by

Nicholas A. Bloom, James Liang, John
Roberts, Zhichun Jenny Ying

87 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Creativity can only happen in the same room

Being creative in a remote environment is just as feasible,

though it requires more deliberate communication and
benefits from a clearly defined process. In an office, lots of
creativity “emerges” from teams being in close proximity. In a
remote environment, the creative process must be made more
explicit. But when this is done, creativity can flourish no matter
the distance.

“Creativity comes from the ability to feel safe

being curious, to try, fail, and learn. Creativity
comes from culture. It takes more intention
to build in a remote environment, but it’s not
something that remote does or doesn’t make
happen.”

Emily Campbell
Director of experience
strategy — InVision

88 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Remote workers are less engaged

Remote workers tend to be happier and stick around longer,

largely as a result of better work-life integration. A report
by research firm Gallup found that “job flexibility increases
engagement” and that “the optimal engagement boost occurs
when employees spend 60 to 80% of their time working off-
site—or three to four days in a five-day workweek.” This has a
cascade of benefits, from employee productivity to reduced
attrition.

Working remotely is less personal

Remote work removes the artificial barrier between work and

life. There are few interactions more personal than beaming
into a colleague’s home office, living room, or local coffee
shop. In our experience, this intimacy tends to foster deep
personal relationships between colleagues. While there are
obvious benefits to in-person meetups as opposed to virtual
ones, we see these as complementary features of remote
work—not mutually exclusive ones.

Remote work will hurt my culture

Fully distributed teams can develop cultures just as strong as

co-located teams. The difference is that remote work tends to

89 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

amplify existing cultural problems in ways that may be hidden
in an office. Teams lacking psychological safety will further
isolate themselves when working remotely. Organizations
with rigid hierarchies will find it harder to manage distributed
teams. Going remote provides an invaluable opportunity to
address these problems and strengthen culture by removing
bureaucracy, fostering trust, breaking down silos, and
empowering teams.

Culture is so fundamental to keeping teams healthy that it

deserves a closer look.

Solving for culture with trust and psychological

safety

A healthy corporate culture is built on shared values, trust,

relationships, and empathy. It’s defined by a common set of
values, norms, habits, and characteristics that shape the way
we work together.

“Psychological safety, in an organizational

sense, is the feeling that it’s okay to take risks
and be vulnerable in front of each other.”

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 Mike Davidson
VP — InVision, Former VP of
design at Twitter

As Michael Mankins, a partner at Bain & Company and a leader

in the firm's organization practice said, “Culture is the glue that
binds an organization together.” And while leadership sets
the core values that define the culture, it’s not about just one
person, but rather about teams—how they work, communicate,
and grow together.

Culture is vital to a business’s overall success. It’s been

proven to directly influence things like employee happiness,
engagement, retention, recruiting and even the bottom line. In
fact, our 2019 Product Design Hiring Report found that 84%
of product designers identified a strong internal design
culture as the number one most important criteria when
evaluating new job opportunities.

Company cultures look different for every company. While

unique and nuanced, there are universal characteristics to
cultures that promote effective collaboration. Specifically,
collaboration thrives in cultures with a high degree of trust
and psychological safety.

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One famous Google study code-named Project Aristotle
found that, above all other factors, psychological safety was
the hallmark of high performing teams. Leadership expert and
author Simon Sinek famously said: “A team is not a group of
people who work together. A team is a group of people who
trust each other.”

High-trust teams are high performing teams

Regardless of the type of work environment, trust greatly

influences a team’s performance and health. A Harvard study
compared employees who work at high-trust organizations
to those working at low-trust companies and found that
employees at high-trust organizations experience:

• 106% more energy at work

• 74% less stress

• 50% higher productivity

• 76% more engagement

• 40% less burnout

• 29% more satisfaction with their lives

• 13% fewer sick days

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While fundamental to any relationship, trust is even more
important in a remote environment because you must be
counted on to do your job, even though no one’s watching.
And trust is a two-way street: managers and employees need
to be honest with one another about any challenges they are
experiencing—work related or personal—that may impact
their ability to perform. It’s easy to hide what’s really going on
in a remote environment.

“It’s easy to suffer in silence when working remotely,” said

Stephen Gates, head design evangelist at InVision. “You have
to empower vulnerability in your teams to be honest about
what they’re going through, because it’s easy to show up on
Zoom for 30 minutes and be really chipper, then turn your
camera off and put your head on your desk. So you need to
build those relationships.”

But how do you build deep relationships and trust with a team
that’s not in the same city, or even the same country, like at
InVision, where we have employees in nearly 30 countries?

“Although the outcome is trust, that’s not where you start,”

said Richard Banfield, VP of design transformation at InVision.
“It’s the result of specific things you must continually work at,
such as establishing psychological safety with each member
of your team, before trust happens.”

93 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Here are 3 ways to build trust and psychological safety

1. Be reliable

Reliability is the backbone of trust, especially in a remote

environment where teams need to count on one another to do
what’s expected of them, in the absence of regular in-person
check-ins. In a remote environment, employees are held
accountable for the work they produce, not the hours they
work.

“Setting expectations and meeting them is a way of creating

trust. It’s a flywheel. The more you’re reliable and say you’ll
do something, and then do it, the more trust you create
and it becomes an expanding circle. You start with a small
agreement, then build on it, until you have a bigger repository,”
said Banfield. “But it’s important that those agreements are
clearly defined by managers so that people know what’s
expected of them.”

He added that one way of mapping people’s responsibilities

is through OKRs. At InVision, each individual team designs
quarterly OKRs that align to the company’s overall strategy
and North Star, so that there is no confusion about goals
and expectations. These OKRs are transparent and can be
shared with anyone in the company, which helps to foster
collaboration, productivity, and trust between managers and
their teammates. OKRs also help prioritize work and boost

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morale by ensuring to people that the work they’re doing is
valuable and contributing to the company’s overall success.

Research has found that 60% of employees aren’t well

informed about their company’s goals, strategies, and tactics.
Uncertainty about a company’s direction results in chronic
stress, undermines teamwork, and reduces trust.

On a microlevel, Banfield said that in a remote environment,

it’s important that managers make it clear how and when they
want regular progress to be communicated to help people
stay committed to their tasks and goals. It might be over Slack
on Fridays, during weekly stand-ups, or documented in a Jira
board or 1:1 doc.

2. Be vulnerable

Society has taught us that vulnerability is synonymous with

weakness, especially in the workplace. But things are starting
to change.

Brené Brown, research professor and bestselling author,

believes that every business can benefit from a more
courageous company culture and braver leaders who are
willing to be vulnerable, which means being honest and
transparent in the face of uncertain outcomes. Simply put, it’s
admitting that you don’t have all the answers.

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“Vulnerability is the new leadership currency. Especially
because creativity isn’t 2+2=4,” said Gates. “Create a space to
be honest so people know they can trust you. Care beyond the
bounds of work or a meeting.”

People don’t start to truly know one another until they let
themselves be vulnerable. But how does vulnerability happen
in a remote environment? It starts with making it a priority to
get to know one another.

During a recent leadership team meeting, Brian Kardon, CMO

at InVision, led a “vulnerability” team bonding exercise by
asking the group to describe a challenging personal event that
resulted in an enduring and meaningful life lesson.

“In order for this exercise to work effectively, there really needs
to be an environment of trust and complete confidentiality,”
said Kardon. “You’ll find that when people share these kinds of
profound personal things with their teammates, such as the
death of a loved one, divorce or sickness, people and teams
bond in very strong and lasting ways.”

3. Start with the human

When working remotely, developing empathy for your

teammates means appreciating the person on the other side of
the screen as a human being.

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One of the upsides of working from home is that it
automatically creates a kind of intimacy that doesn’t exist in
traditional offices. We all know the famous BBC scene of the
kid walking in on the interview. Remote means that your work
and life are closely integrated, so it’s only natural that aspects
of our personal lives—our homes, kids, and pets—are shared
with one another (whether we like it or not!). We consider
this unique aspect of remote working a great way to get to
know one another. If someone’s kid unexpectedly interrupts a
meeting and comes into the frame, we want to meet them and
even ask them a few questions.

A classic remote work moment: The kids bum rush a live call with the

BBC. (View animated figure online)

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We also make it a point to start with the human, rather than
work. For instance, we begin meetings by spending some time
catching up with one another on a personal level. We share
how our day is going, or what we did over the weekend. This is
a great way to engage and connect with people. Some teams
also start with a brief online meditation exercise, which helps
to clear and focus the mind before work begins.

In a remote environment, it’s important not to neglect the

fun, social aspects of work where relationships blossom
and cement themselves. Just because you’re not physically
located in the same space doesn’t mean you can’t have a beer
together after work on Friday. We have virtual happy hours,
coffee breaks, and lunches where we make it a point not to talk
about work.

PRO TIP:

Establish a rotating team Show & Tell (10-minute presentation)

where people practice what we call “purposeful vulnerability”
by sharing something personal, or teaching teammates a new
skill (not necessarily work-related).

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Eli Woolery shared photos from a dive trip in a team show and tell

session to help his colleagues get to know him better.

Remote requires purposeful communication

Communication is important to any team, but especially on

design teams because of the collaborative nature at various
phases of design work. And communication is everything for
distributed design teams because they’re at a higher risk of
becoming disengaged, disconnected, and siloed. Without it,
remote work falls apart.

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“When everyone is in the office together the
assumption is that everyone is communicating.
That’s a dangerous assumption.”

Richard Banfield
VP of design transformation — InVision

In a remote environment it’s important to over-communicate.

However, there’s a fine line between over-communicating and
communication overload, which is ultimately paralyzing and
bad for productivity.

Eggs versus bacon

Loop in the right people, but not all the people. In a remote
environment, it can be tempting to involve more people than
are actually needed. This creates the danger of meeting creep
and produces a lot of noise. Having too many “Brady Bunch”
heads on a Zoom call can make a huddle feel more like an all-
hands. Be conscious of not burdening your colleagues with
unnecessary communication.

Another good rule of thumb is to consider the age-old “eggs

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versus bacon” question. A chicken lays eggs, but isn’t as
invested in creating breakfast as a pig is—who gives its
entire being to making bacon. When inviting people to a
remote meeting, consider who is most invested in the work
at hand. Try to include all the “bacon-makers,” but consider
whether those just “laying eggs” could be better looped in
with asynchronous communication such as a Slack or email
message.

Move hard conversations to calls

When the message is too complicated or nuanced, don’t

be afraid to suggest jumping on an impromptu Zoom call or
picking up the phone. If you have to ask four or more clarifying
questions by Slack or email, do yourself a favor and talk
instead.

A quick five-minute call to ask questions, gain clarity, or

provide more info about that wireframe can save you hours of
time fixing mistakes down the road.

Structure and clarity

In a remote environment, you also need to be much more

structured and scheduled around collaborating and

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communicating, which ultimately results in a cadence that will
help you scale.

“Remote teams with routines and rituals generate consistently

positive outcomes. It can be helpful to commit to a daily,
weekly, monthly, quarterly, and even an annual schedule of
communication activities,” said Banfield. “These standing
meetings signal to team members that communication is a
priority.”

And because impromptu meetings are less common, remote

communication demands that you’re more purposeful and
intentional about expressing the goal of a call, the message
you’re trying to convey, and what you need from your
teammate. It’s a great idea to create a meeting agenda in
advance and link it to the calendar invite so that people know
the purpose of the meeting and can prepare. Respecting
your teammates’ time is also essential. Show up on time for
meetings, and when possible, wrap up on time.

To keep the conversation focused during bi-weekly design

critiques, our design team uses a very specific set of questions
as a framework, including:

• What’s the goal of the project?

• What are the constraints you’re working within?

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• What stage is the work at?

• What kind of feedback are you looking for?

“Asking presenters what kind of specific feedback they’re

looking for from the team has been really successful in
creating purposeful conversations, rather than just saying,
‘Okay, let’s talk about the project,’” said Caitlin Wagner,
product designer at InVision.

Staying in touch with standups

The whole point of standups is to check-in as a team and

actually see each other. They’re a way for design leaders to get
a quick read of how each team member is doing that day— and
any blockers. You can tell a lot from seeing how a person is
engaged or withdrawn, and even in the tone of their voice.

Standups can feel like a major challenge in a remote

environment. But we’ve found that once you get the hang of it,
remote makes for better, more focused standups. All you need
are a few ground rules.

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Tips for conducting remote standups

Find the right time

Remote teams commonly span several time zones. Ideally, hold

your standups at an “overlap” hour where most of the team
will be able to participate. It’s important to establish a regular,
consistent day and time to check in as a team—and stick to it.

And for those who can’t make it (like teammates in Australia,

for example), make sure you have a dedicated notetaker
and always record your standup, which you can store in a
centralized place and share afterwards.

Never start with work

As we said earlier, to get people engaged and feeling

comfortable, don’t dive straight into work. Our design team
spends the first 5 to 10 minutes of stand ups just chatting and
asking each other how they’re feeling. On Fridays they spend
most of the time talking about fun stuff, like someone’s new
dog, an interesting article they read, or an art show they’re
planning on checking out over the weekend.

“I think it’s important not to lose sight of the human aspect

of collaboration, especially when working remote,” said

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Wagner. “This kind of personal reveal helps create a rapport,
build relationships, discover commonalities and create
psychological safety.”

The team also plays the rose/bud/thorn/gem game, where

everyone’s encouraged to share how they’re feeling both at
work and on a personal level.

🌹Rose: I’m happy with…

🌱Bud: I’m excited about…
🤲Thorn: I’m worried about…
💎Gem: I saw this awesome thing...
Have a clear agenda

A clear agenda is critical to conducting a successful standup

in any work environment. Our design team uses a Jira board
that tracks all the work in progress across the team. The team
goes around the “room” with each designer who answers the
following questions:

• What am I working on today/this week?

• What stage is it at?

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• What is today’s goal with this work?

• What help could I use from the rest of the group?

There’s frequently time left over at the end of standups, which

are used to review smaller pieces of work that can be resolved
quickly, plan for the week ahead, or just end early to get some
time back.

Find what works for your team

“It’s traditional to have standups every day, but that felt

overwhelming for our design team,” said Wagner. So instead
the team established a cadence of 30-minute standups on
Monday/Wednesday, one hour design critiques on Tuesday/
Thursday, and a “happy half hour” on Fridays to talk about
decidedly non-work related topics.

“When it comes to planning standups, it’s important to figure

out what works best for your individual team,” said Wagner.
“Standups don’t have to be every day; you don’t have to follow
what everyone else is doing. Different things work for different
teams and that’s okay.”

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PRO TIP

“In both traditional and remote working environments, it’s

easy for your calendar to be completely overrun by meetings,
and that can be devastating for designers who need to have
large chunks of time available to get into deep focus work
mode,” said Wagner. “So be respectful of time—if a standup
ends early, give that time back! If a 30-minute meeting can be
accomplished in 15 minutes, do that instead.”

Being inclusive in a remote environment

Inclusivity and diversity are critical to design teams that are

responsible for building products that take into consideration
the needs, experiences, and preferences of the widest
possible group of people.

Designers have a responsibility to challenge the assumption

that there is an “average” user or that audiences fit neatly into
a set of personas.

“Designers now have a responsibility to understand and design

for the needs of individuals with varying cognitive and physical
abilities,” said Clark Valberg, InVision’s CEO and co-founder.
“In other words, designers have a responsibility to design
inclusively.”

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But in order for designers to build inclusive designs, they need
to work in an environment that’s truly inclusive, too.

Remote working can be especially challenging for people

who are naturally introverted (a common characteristic of
designers). There’s more of a risk of the few same voices
dominating the conversation, which often means good
ideas go unheard. In order to get a diverse representation
of thoughts, it’s critical to create an inclusive working
environment. This starts with establishing psychological
safety so that everyone feels like they can contribute and
are being heard, which takes some extra effort in a remote
environment.

But remote collaboration also benefits from the lack of

constraints around geophysical boundaries, making it possible
to include a much more diverse set of stakeholders. One of the
main reasons Valberg co-founded InVision as a fully remote
company (we don’t have any headquarters) was to be able to
recruit the best talent in the market, regardless of location. So
in that sense, we’re a company without borders.

With colleagues working in 30 different countries around the

world, our diverse workforce and their unique perspectives are
one of our biggest competitive advantages.

"For years, the majority of the products I helped design

were built by teams of people based in New York City. After

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working at InVision and experiencing what it's like to design
with people all over the world, I would never want to return to
designing with a team based in one place,” said Susan Kaplow,
VP of brand and content at InVision. “Different points of view,
lifestyles, experiences, and backgrounds are so essential in
making impactful products."

Encouraging diverse voices in meetings

In a remote environment, team meetings are the main

opportunity for people to share their ideas and express their
opinions, but if not managed and run properly, this can turn
into a problem. It’s the responsibility of managers to create
psychological safety and find ways to encourage introverted
team members to share their ideas.

“Meetings are the ground zero of isolating experiences.

Voices of the minority can be suppressed or marginalized by
the majority without an advocate or process to make space
for them to be heard,” said Jehad Affoneh, head of design at
VMWare, who knows what it feels like to be one of a kind in
a meeting room. As a Palestinian living in Palo Alto, he rarely
encounters anyone at work from his background.

As a team leader, Jehad works to find ways to bring those who

feel isolated into the group, not only to promote inclusion but

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also to help retain top talent. His best tip for making meetings
more inclusive and productive: Give team members more ways
to share their ideas than just talking in the “room.”

To help make the change at VMware, Jehad structured

his meetings differently: He began to send out an agenda
ahead of time and asked everyone in attendance to take a
look and make any comments. He found that this created an
environment where people felt their opinions were valued and
welcomed.

Jehad Affoneh
Listen Online: Making sure diverse
voices are heard in meetings

There’s an added bonus in this approach: meetings become

more productive. Being clear about what’s going to be
discussed and capturing your team’s perspectives ahead
of time will make for shorter, more focused, and worthwhile
meetings.

“This is not about, ‘let’s have a loud conversation,’” Affoneh

said. “This is about ‘I truly want to listen to everybody in the
room.’” He also recommends spending the first couple minutes
of a meeting setting the context.

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PRO TIP

At InVision, we start team meetings with a fun ice breaker to

encourage people to engage and feel more relaxed, such as:
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” “What’s the first
concert you ever went to?” These conversations also give you
a window of your teammates as people outside of work.

Relationships are key

“You still want the same outcome in remote work, which is

developing trust, an inclusive environment, and relationships
with your colleagues,” said Richard Banfied, VP of design
transformation at InVision. “Though in order to achieve those
things, you need to get creative.”

The most important way of creating inclusivity is through

relationships, which don’t happen naturally if you’re not
sharing the same physical space. In a remote environment,
you simply need to cultivate relationships with intentionality.
Send someone a non-work related Slack message to say hello
and ask how they’re doing. At InVision we have a bot on Slack
called Donut designed to “encourage trust, collaboration, and
good will across your team.” It pairs you with random people
and says: “Go get to know each other.” For example, a couple of
InVisioners bonded over their family history of Jello salads,
sharing recipes like grandma’s lime green jello salad

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concoction.

Case Study: Pivoting to remote to build inclusivity and

connections

Like many companies around the world, InVision had to cancel

our annual sales and marketing revenue kickoff meeting (what
we call RKO) due to Covid-19. We were less than a week away
from 250 InVisioners hopping on flights from 20 countries
around the world to convene for the first time at our three-day,
million-dollar meeting.

Brian Kardon and Katie Baker

Listen Online: Pivoting to a remote
event

These annual kickoffs are especially important in a remote

company because they offer a rare chance to interact in
person and build relationships. It was going to be an inspiring
three days of training, eating, and epic late-night bonding. We
were all preparing and looking forward to it for months.

When the warnings about Covid-19 became more urgent,

our team had just a few days to pivot and plan a virtual event
instead. While InVision lives and breathes #remotework, we’d

112 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

never held a multi-day remote conference before and weren’t
sure how it would go, especially with such a tight turnaround.
How would we possibly keep people engaged for three days of
five-hour video presentations? How would we make the event
feel inclusive? How could we make up for the lack of IRL (in-
real-life) connection?

But based on our employees’ feedback and post-RKO surveys,

our virtual RKO was actually the most inspiring, engaging—and
cost effective—event yet.

Team events can be magical and fun, even in a remote setting as seen

here at InVision's RKO event.

“Team members told us that the virtual experience—versus

sitting in a crowd of people in silence in a dark hotel ballroom—
allowed them to feel more connected to the content and

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each other,” said Brian Kardon, CMO at InVision. “And for
presenters delivering content from the comfort of their homes,
without the nerves of a large stage and big audience—their
enthusiasm was infectious.”

Of course, nothing can fully replicate aspects of an in-person

experience, but our team designed a bunch of “fun stuff” to
make the virtual experience personal, authentic, and inclusive.
There was music, costumes, a “Share Your Remote Life” photo
slideshow, InVisioner MTV-style “Cribs” videos where people
gave tours of their houses, and several rounds of “Guess That
Desk!” Team members got dressed up in their finest attire
to attend our virtual sales and marketing awards ceremony
that would have been a full evening dinner event. And we
used the online polling tool Poll Everywhere to make sessions
interactive and personal.

In the end, the positives of hosting a virtual event outweighed

the negatives of not getting together in real life. We’re
leveraging the lessons learned from our virtual RKO to
transition our upcoming events to virtual platforms.

“Our team worked for months to plan every detail of RKO. When
the decision was made to pivot to virtual, we had just a few
days to execute. We'd never done a multi-day, 250-attendee
remote conference before and were extremely nervous," said
Katie Baker, senior program manager at InVision, who led the

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planning of RKO. "But in the end, virtual RKO was amazing—
attendee engagement was high, presenters' energy was
palpable, and we were able to be more efficient and effective
with content delivery than we ever thought possible. It showed
our strength as an agile remote company and it brought us all
together in a way that none of us could have expected."

Filtering signal through the noise (Slack and Email ≠

Communication)

“Be deliberate in how you want to communicate

with people. Email says to me: Get back in a day
or two. Slack is: Get back to me at some point
today. Text is the red bat-signal of: Get back to
me now!”

Stephen Gates
Head design evangelist — InVision

In a remote environment, it’s only natural that everyone relies

heavily on text-based communication. And while technology
has helped mitigate many of the legacy communication
challenges of working remote, endless Slack channels, threads

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and email chains undoubtedly create a lot of noise.

Being clear and concise when communicating is critical, but so

is selecting the right tool to communicate your message, which
should depend on the circumstance. For example, InVision’s
CEO and co-founder Clark Valberg says, “If the conversation
is emotional, move it to Zoom where you can have a ‘face-to-
face’ chat and quickly get to the heart of the matter.”

Here are some of our best practices for effective,

remote communication:

General tips

• Don’t make assumptions. If something isn't clear—ask.

• Thoughtfully over-communicate and get comfortable with

being more forward.

○○ Ask for what you need and note when you need it.

○○ Be specific with regard to the desired outcome and

the time by which you need it. This sets you and the
person you're communicating with up for success.

• Start by believing in positive intent, as both a giver and

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 receiver of information.

• Don't be afraid to switch methods in the middle of a

conversation. Do what's right to make sure your message
is appropriately delivered to your audience.

Video conferencing tips

• When chatting over video, it’s harder to convey and receive

non-verbal communication cues. This is why having
your video on (when you can), making eye contact with
your camera, and using hand gestures while using video
conferencing software is so important. Pay attention to
your own body language so you don’t send the wrong
message. For example, arms crossed may make people
think that you’re angry or defensive. Instead, try sitting
up straight to convey that you’re engaged and paying
attention, and smile and appear calm so that people feel
comfortable when communicating with you.

• Use visual communication to support your written

communication. We are a Slack-heavy culture at InVision,
but we also use emojis and gifs frequently to make up for
some of the non-verbal communication that's lost in a
written message. Get your gif game on!

• Highly-sensitive laptop microphones pick up background

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 noise and keystrokes on video conference calls. Do
everyone a favor and use a headset when in public places,
and mute your audio before typing.

• Light the front of your head, not the back! If your lighting is
behind you, people will only see a silhouette.

• It’s a good idea to keep your space (at least the part that’s
in the camera frame 😉) neat and clean. While it doesn’t
need to be anything fancy, you may want to “curate” your
backdrop a bit to reflect your personality, such as by
hanging some cool artwork or positioning yourself in front
of your book collection. Your space reflects you and if
you’re talking to customers, you represent your company.

Messaging tips (G Chat, Teams, Slack, etc.)

• Keep your status up-to-date to let your teammates know

when you’re available in real time or will respond later.

• Most messages are answered within a day unless you’re

out of the office (which should be noted in your status 😉).
• Emojis and gifs are communication, too. You’ll commonly
see emojis used in lieu of a response like:

○○ 👀 for “taking a look”

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 ○○ 👍for “got it” or “understood”
○○ 🎉or 👏 for "congratulations"
• Be transparent. Not sure if you should send a message to
one or two people, or your full team? If you’re questioning
it, send it to everyone who may need the info.

• Replying in a group DM or channel? Use a thread. This

makes it easy to follow the conversation, keeps the main
message space clean, and is more easily searched later.

Email tips

• Start with a greeting and end with a salutation when

sending an initial email. This is less important when
replying.

• Be thoughtful about using Reply to all.

• Get organized with folders and rules.

• Reply in a timely manner—this is usually within a week,

depending on the subject matter.

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In conclusion

Mastering the art of working remotely is the future, but now

that we’re faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, it has also been
an immediate necessity for most companies and their teams,
many of whom have had to make the transition overnight.

At InVision, we believe that design makes everything possible.

And from our experience, we also believe that remote working
makes everything possible—whether that’s a 250-person
three-day virtual kickoff meeting, or high-performing, cross-
functional design teams collaborating across the world.

However, there’s no denying that transitioning to remote work

is a huge change and it’s natural at first to feel anxious and
worried about how things are actually going to work. To get it
right, you need to be willing to try new approaches, fail, and
continually iterate—slowly building that new remote work
muscle—until you find what works best for you and your team.

We hope the tips and insights we’ve shared here will help you
get started, and see remote not as a blocker to doing great
design work, but as an opportunity to innovate and improve
the way you communicate, collaborate, and build relationships
with your team—ultimately bridging the gaps and bringing
everyone closer together—despite the physical distance.

120 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Key takeaways

1. To build a strong remote work culture, you need to start

by establishing trust and psychological safety with your
teammates—the hallmarks of high performing teams.

2. Without effective communication, remote work falls

apart. Over-communicating is our rule of thumb, but avoid
creating too much noise by practicing intentional and
purposeful communication. And choosing the right tool to
communicate is as important as the message itself.

3. Standups are a vital ritual of any design team. By

establishing a few ground rules and experimenting with
what works for your team, remote can lead to better, more
focused standups.

4. Creating an inclusive environment is one of the biggest

challenges of remote work.

5. By developing new processes, such as how meetings are

run, you can create an environment where everyone feels
like they can contribute and are being heard.

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Further reading

The Neuroscience of Trust

How Zapier is building a remote design culture

How to Build (and sustain) culture in a remote environment

6 things remote companies must do to build great culture

The best tip VMware’s head of design has for making your next
design meeting more inclusive

122 Tips, tools, and tricks for working remotely

Chapter 5

Remote work is
here for good
The positive impact of working remotely
By Ben Goldman

123 Remote work is here for good

This guide was written during the Covid-19 pandemic. As

we all take social distancing measures to limit our potential

exposure, companies are now immediately transitioning

their workforces to remote. Amidst all the uncertainty

about the pandemic’s impact on the world, this move to

remote has engendered even more uncertainty as company

leaders and their teams struggle to cope with potential long-

term impacts to their business. This provides an unusual

context that may complicate the way many people perceive

remote work, viewing it as a temporary emergency measure

instead of an important milestone in the history of work.

We believe this perception is a mistake.

Long before the current circumstances, remote work

was already gaining momentum as a result of new digital
collaboration technologies, and an increasing body of
evidence that proves that remote workers are just as
productive—and often more productive—as their co-located
counterparts.

One famous study out of Stanford University followed 1,600

employees who recently transitioned to a work-from-home
arrangement, and discovered a 13% increase in productivity.

Not only are remote workers just as (or more) productive as

124 Remote work is here for good

those in an office, there are a number of additional business
benefits. When employees are engaged, they’re more
productive, and they also stick around in their jobs longer,
reducing turnover and absenteeism. This in turn reduces the
amount of time managers have to spend navigating attrition in
their workforce, freeing their time to focus on solving problems
for the business and its customers.

Caitlin Wagner on collaborating with intention (Watch online)

Consequences of the commute

But speaking only to the business benefits of remote work

doesn't do the topic justice. Because it’s impossible to have
a conversation about the benefits of remote work without

125 Remote work is here for good

also discussing the insidious consequences of a particularly
regressive feature of the modern world:the daily commute.

The detrimental effects of the daily commute on both personal

health and the global environment are impossible to ignore.
According to the World Wildlife Federation, transportation
accounts for anywhere from a quarter to one-third of total
greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and driving
is the single biggest source of emissions for the average
American. But one need not look at the numbers to see the
effects of commuting on our planet. Anyone who lives in
a dense urban area is familiar with daily traffic jams, hazy
skylines, and dangerous roads created by our car-centric
society. And one of the immediately tangible silver linings of
the recent global transition to remote work are the positive
effects on the environment. For the first time in decades, the
skyspace above major cities has returned to blue, canal water
in Venice has cleared, and air quality has improved in cities
around the world. Though these results are temporary—a
side effect of the intentional slowdown of the global economy
because of Covid-19—they provide a glimpse into how aspects
of everyday life impact the environment.

Yet in addition to commuting’s damage to the environment, its

toll is most immediately felt on an individual level. Commuting
impacts both our physical and psychological health, and the
longer the commute the greater that impact becomes.

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Some of these risks include increased blood pressure,
cholesterol, anxiety, and risk of depression. One study out
of Sweden even found that the relationships of those with
a 45-minute or longer daily commute are 40% more likely
to end in divorce—a staggering statistic that illustrates its
consequences not just on the individual, but on the family as
well.

One of the less talked about consequences of commuting is

how it exacerbates income inequality by tying workers to major
metro areas, such as San Francisco and New York, where the
cost of living is often extravagant and home ownership is out
of reach for many. As a result, increasing numbers of workers
are forced to move to distant suburbs just to afford a home,
paying the price instead through extreme commutes that
further clog highways, degrade personal health, and damage
the environment.

In light of all those consequences, it’s no wonder that remote

work has experienced marked growth over the past decade.
One study found that 70% of knowledge workers now work
remotely at least some of the time, and 57% of workers identify
remote work as a top priority for perks offered by a business.

But most telling of all is that of the employees that have

experienced remote work, 98% agree that they would like to
continue to work remotely (at least part of the time) for the rest

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of their careers.

Be good to one another

Remote work is here for good. The consequences of the

commute are too severe to ignore, and the benefits of remote
work to the individual, their families, the business, and planet
are too profound.

Though there are challenges to overcome when transitioning

to a remote work environment, any of these challenges are
solvable, and designers are uniquely equipped to solve these
challenges thanks to a particularly valuable skill: empathy.

Empathy is what enables designers to put themselves in the

minds of users, understand their pains, desires, and wishes,
and design experiences that will improve the lives of the
people using the technology they help create. In the context
of remote work, developing empathy means appreciating the
people on the other side of the screen—our colleagues—as
human beings.

When faced with a new or unique challenge, try to maintain this

focus on the human being when communicating and making
decisions. Try to look past the text or video and appreciate
what’s lying beneath the surface of the screen, and empathize

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with the experience of the person you’re working with. If a
problem or disagreement arises, default to conversation rather
than assumption.

While these principles are worthy for any team, in any

environment, they have never been more important than they
are today. In a world of uncertainty, empathy has the power to
refocus our attention on the important things.

“My hope is that after all of this has passed, what we’ll take
back is an appreciation for what’s important,” says Stephen
Gates, head design evangelist at InVision. “That this is a reset
that allows us to see alternative ways of doing things, like
being able to trust your employees, or that it’s okay for leaders
to be vulnerable. Because there’s always been awareness of
many of these problems. There just hasn’t been a willingness
to change. And now is that opportunity.”

Further Reading

Remote work’s next generation

129 Remote work is here for good