5 best practices for remote development teams

As the world grapples with COVID-19, the only proven ways to contain the virus are isolation and social distancing. For obvious reasons, this creates a major disruption to development teams' daily work routines.

The global IT industry has been looking for innovative ways to cope with the challenges and effectively adjust to a work-from-home culture. As such, software companies and development shops have taken certain measures to ensure business continuity while still protecting employees and sensitive business assets.

Instilling the right work-from-home culture for your remote developers will help teams suffering from isolation remain productive. Development teams absolutely need to use proven collaboration tools like Skype and Zoom to ensure constant, dependable and timely communication. It's also important to have your team focus on overall development goals, objectives and culture, rather than trying to micromanage employees. If those goals are consistently and effectively communicated to team members, it will help them understand why and how the work they do matters even if they are further away from their colleagues than ever before.

The strain this virus has taken on world's economy and working culture is both profound and frightening. But by implementing the strategies, tools and technologies that foster a productive and manageable work-from-home culture, you can still hope to maintain continuity through these tough times.

Joydip Kanjilal is a software architect.