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6 templates to help you transition to (effective!) remote meetings

Templates Product Marketing Manager at Miro Kristin has worked in brand, design, and product marketing. She is passionate about building templates and tools so nobody ever has to start from scratch. Communication is crucial on any team. But it can be trickier when your team is working remotely. That’s when visual frameworks come in handy. Here are six templates you can use to streamline your daily routines and run better meetings remotely.

5 things that remote developers want Product Managers to know

Product managers: ever feel like there’s a disconnect between you and your remote developers? If you find that you’re struggling to work together effectively, it may be because your developers aren’t telling you what you really need to know about your shared and individual workflows. I chatted with some remote developers in the Arc.dev remote community to find out what the top barriers to successful collaboration are – and what product managers can do to overcome them.

5 Whys: Examples, explanations, and how to find the causes of problems

Freelance writer Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor is a writer based in California. She is the author of The Ventriloquists, and her writing has been featured in McSweeney’s, Salon, and others. Check out her work at erramzipoor.com. At some point, we’ve all experienced a problem with a process or strategy at work. But figuring out why the problem exists can be a daunting task. When you sit your teammates down for a discussion, emotions run high and miscommunication is common.

Why the remote work trend really matters, in 19 tweets

There’s a lot of pressure on the term “remote work.” It has been — and will continue to be — a trending buzzword. But, remote work as a concept seems to be thrown around loosely, and often fails to adequately convey all of its radical implications. Remote work is not just a sparkly employment perk. It’s not just working from the couch in pajamas. And it’s definitely not a digital nomad sipping a margarita in Bali while founding his next unicorn SaaS product.

Fun ice breaker questions for teams (remote and in-house!)

Ice breakers are a fantastic way to get team members acquainted with each other—especially if teams work remotely or there are new faces in the office. We often spend more time with our coworkers than family or friends. But teams don’t always know the best ice breaker questions or games. You can use these simple team building activities to quickly help diffuse anxiety or awkward silences in meetings.

10 things about remote facilitation we (AJ&Smart) wish we'd known sooner

for many, Facilitating a meeting or a workshop may seem like a dreadful task. Facilitating a remote workshop – even more so. There’s something inherently challenging about not being in the same room with your team. You can’t really revert to small talk when the atmosphere gets stiff. You can’t create a warm welcoming atmosphere to ease everyone into the exercises. And let’s face it, ice-breaking games over video conference can seem nothing short of awkward and cringy.

Best practices for running remote one-on-ones to improve team trust

One-on-one meetings are one of the best ways for managers to build a strong rapport with their teams and create a culture of trust. Unlike standups, status reports, and other types of meetings, one-on-ones are more flexible and create dedicated space for a manager to address an employee’s growth, long term plans and give personalized feedback. In our team, one-on-ones happen every week and last for an hour.

Getting the most out of remote brainstorming: a case study

Brainstorming sessions are challenging enough when everyone is sitting in the same room. Throw remote work into the mix and it can sometimes feel impossible to get a decent result out of it. Here at Infinite Red, we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to make brainstorming work well for us. We’ve developed a process for brainstorming sessions that we love – and, more importantly, our clients love.

Mastering communication: a product manager's superpower

There are a lot of hard skills required on your path to becoming a great product manager such as coding, data analytics, user experience design and digital marketing. But developing your soft skills is just as important, especially as you grow into senior product management roles.