How To Handle Conflicts And Disagreements In Remote Engineering Teams
Conflicts and disagreements are inevitable in any team, most especially in software development. As you know, a software development project requires a team of engineers, developers, project managers, and more to be successful.
Even if they work toward the same goal, their different roles and responsibilities can be a factor in those conflicts, especially if there’s no proper communication within the team.
And while it’s already challenging to resolve those issues in general, it’s most difficult to manage in the remote setup. Since you don’t see your workforce, sorting out matters can be pretty puzzling.
So, to help you, we will share a few tips to help you handle and even avoid conflicts in your remote engineering team. Let’s get started!
Ways To Manage and Resolve Conflicts
Address The Issues Quickly
If you notice that there’s something off with the engineering team, it’s critical to take quick action. Do not delay some issues, as they may only become more severe in the long run if neglected. What’s worse is that it will negatively affect the quality of their work and productivity.
Ask The Right Questions
When addressing issues, you want to make sure that you’re always asking the right questions. For instance, when starting the conversation, you can say something like, “I sense something off with the team, especially with the current status of the project. Is there anything you want to share?” By doing this, you can encourage them to share what’s going on, given that it’s affecting the entire work.
Listen On Both Sides
You can only resolve conflicts and improve communication across a remote engineering team if you, yourself, know how to listen. When there’s a disagreement within your team, allow yourself to be open on both sides. Listen to them and avoid having any biases. That way, you’ll get a hint of what’s happened and give more unbiased solutions.
Since you have a remote workforce, we advise a one-on-one video session with each participant. But if you think it would be best to call them in for a private discussion of the issue, you can also opt for that.
Investigate
The next step is doing your investigation. You need not stop with just listening to them, you have to do your own research and get to the root of the problem. Try to track down what happened using their claims. Ask their colleagues and also monitor their performance. All these could help you get a bird’s eye view of the problem.
Give An Unbiased Opinion
Once you’ve uncovered the real problem, think of the best resolution that’s not influenced by favoritism and other biased factors. Plan a course of action that would help them come to a compromise.
Follow up and monitor
After resolving the conflict, make sure to do a follow-up with the situation and see if your resolution is really implemented and effective. By doing this, you can prevent these issues from going back and even strengthen your engineering team’s relationships.
Now that we’ve learned how to manage and resolve issues. Let’s see how we can prevent them from arising or worsening.
How To Avoid These Problems
Foster A Healthy Work Environment
While AI has multiple benefits in software engineering, it may not be the same case in preventing conflicts in a remote team. Beyond technology, you want to have a healthy work environment that fosters open communication. This will encourage everyone to speak their minds and avoid any miscommunication.
Have A Shared Online Workspace
Along with a healthy work environment, it would be best to have an online discussion board where you can keep everyone on the same page. For instance, you can use Slack and create dedicated channels for specific projects and anything under the sun. That way, you can streamline conversations and avoid jumbling topics in one place.
Conduct Regular Team Meetings
It’s also ideal to arrange regular team meetings to check in on your workforce—see how well they’re doing on the current projects. That way, you’ll be aware of any problem they might be experiencing and provide possible solutions before it becomes serious.
Have Team-Building Activities
Aside from the work-related meetings, it’s also best to provide team-building activities to improve your remote team’s engagement. They’re an effective way to foster your team’s spirit and strengthen their relationships.
Team building activities create a sense of camaraderie, which is very crucial for a team. When team members know each other better, they can hold more productive conversations and avoid miscommunication that always leads to conflicts and disagreements.
The Bottom Line
Conflict is very natural in teams, especially in a work-from-home setup. However, there are ways to manage and even avoid issues that may arise. By following the tips on our blog, you can make your team of software engineers stronger and overcome every challenge together.