Improve development team productivity in Covid-19 lock-down

software development is a team activity, and it requires intense team collaboration for producing the results. My team was developing software by sitting close to each other and then creating the design and code. It was a great experience.

But the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020 changed everything. The government put the total lock-down in the whole country. And offices had to shut down for some time. My team members were not able to join me personally, and therefore we had created some mechanisms for producing the same output. I had to set up complete server systems at my home so that my team and I could continue our business activities and provide software automation and web application development services to my clients.

After looking at my team members' behaviors – working remotely and collaborating – I found three things that blocked their productivity. I changed my development strategies for the remote team and found successful results.

My team and I started developing a web application for one of my clients – Jeff Atwood. I did not have any idea of upcoming events, and therefore we started working out usually. And then Covid-19 outbroke. The pandemic effects were drastic, and no one could predict anything.

My team started facing problems from day one because of the lack of experience in remote work. And therefore, I started monitoring my team behaviors and produced results. Based on the collected data, I could make necessary changes and improve team productivity.

After giving sufficient time to analyze, I found three things – detailed below - that blocked my team productivity. I immediately changed the development strategies for remote work and removed those bottleneck activities.

Make senior developers more accountable.

In our development process, each developer is accountable - at the same level - for any development issues; Testing bugs, Design problems, Coding standards, and any other shortcomings. It worked in the office environment because we were together. But it failed to deliver results in remote work.

I changed the accountability of my developers for their development works. And I created software automation tools that were helping me to find bugs, design defects, and other coding standard issues.

For example;

I ran the tools to Jeff's project and found issues in the software architecture. I redesigned the software architecture, refactored the core classes, other source files, and then committed my change.

Now, in remote work, my senior developers are accountable for any development defect. They create the design and core classes, and junior developers help them integrating the other features.

Lesson: Don't give junior developers more accountability. Top developers should be accountable for development works. Junior developers do not have sufficient knowledge to test software architecture and design. Once they have good knowledge, you can give them more accountability.

Passive communication most of the time

In the office, my team member goes to another member and discusses the issues immediately. I call it an active communication strategy. A team member could not wait to discuss any issue. It created a collaborative working environment in the office.

But, the remote work environment raised many issues. Now, team members were spending a long time discussing on chat system or the video call systems. It created two problems;

1. They were distracted by online collaboration techniques.
2. They were working longer hours without producing the expected results.

I immediately changed my communication strategy. I asked members to stop instant messaging and video calls unless it is an urgent issue. And I advised them to use email instead.

It solved many problems. Now, they were focusing on their works, and other developers were responding whenever they wanted. Also, developers started finding their problems and their solutions.

Lesson: Don't use active communication methods - instant messaging and video calls - all the time.

Integrate software automation tools

I love programming and solve many problems using it. But, having team members working in the office, I left many things on them to solve. I had to make sure they are getting experience and fulfilling their responsibility. 

When I started looking into software architecture and found design defects, I also found a way to fix them. I immediately started creating software automation tools that could help me to overcome many problems. 

I am sure these tools are going to stay for a long time unless I find their alternatives. These tools helped me to finish Jeff's project in the shortest possible time frame. I was expecting it to finish at the end of May 2020. My team and I, however, finished it at the end of April 2020. And so far, I did not receive any software bug email from Jeff. 

Lesson learned: Create special automation tools for your development process and its operations. 

Now, I feel delighted whenever I look back and see the outcome. My team and I completed the web application within the shortest possible time, and Jeff is also happy. He received the working application, and he is ready to show it to investors. Overall, a great outsourcing success in the Covid-19 pandemic. 

I feel economic situations are getting harder in the year 2020, and we need to create economic collaboration so that innovations can continue. And I started giving 25% discount to all new clients who are initiating new software development projects – software automation and web application development – in the year 2020.