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At Strata we consult with clients on digital strategy, embed teams to build innovative digital experiences, and optimise our clients digital performance through analytics.

Heres the paradox: as a people company, we rely on close collaboration with each other and with clients, but we are thriving remotely. We are thankful to be thriving when so many in Ireland and globally are not. Here are our observations on technology and ways of working for succeeding with remote work during the Covid-19 crisis and beyond.

The remote working scenario may not be temporary

A recent Strata office refit forced us to go through an everybody work from home business continuity test for a few weeks. We could check peoples ISPs, home wifi router setup, and it gave a good test of VPN scalability. Working from home (WFH) started as an emergency response to business continuity. But, now, we have a chance to question office-based strategies and catch up with the productivity-life balance and global talent pool benefits of taking remote work to the next level.

Weve learned the lesson from fully remote companies that, rather than recreating an office at home, we should reorganise work, culture and technology around fully remote working.

Gartner asked executives in a March survey how many of their employees who are working remotely will not go back to the office; 10 per cent of employees was the average response.

The pandemic crisis has turbo-charged technology shifts that were happening anyway

Technology adoption shifts you were already making just got road-tested, and the business case for accelerating that transformation improved. For example, migration out of on-premises data centres on to cloud hosting and SaaS, and the trend towards a zero trust security model (the same security principles apply inside your office locations as anywhere).

Long before enforced remote working, Strata adopted G Suite, Slack, JIRA, InVision, Abstract, Figma, Miro and other SaaS tools for collaborating designers and developers. Where Strata3 has been building products for charities and organisations as corporate social responsibility efforts as our response to Covid-19, we have been creative about minimising cost. One example is a public cloud-based design for a donation platform with video upload. Weve carefully chosen the cloud resource types based on scale, resilience needs, and requirements for archiving the videos for future campaigns.

Keep it simple, but dont forget new risks, compliance and security considerations

Basic laptop hygiene with up-to-date malware detection, a VPN for behind-the-firewall resources, SaaS for everything else, and a Multi-Factor Authentication solution, should cover 90 per cent of your needs.

You still have data privacy and protection responsibilities for personal data that fall under the GDPR. They havent been suspended because you are WFH. Also, cybercrime has increased in the period when most people are WFH. Employees should be vigilant to new cyber threats, noting the recent controversy with Zoom that has forced the company to fix vulnerabilities.

Its not what collaboration tools you have; its how you use them

Technology is important, but we should focus on how were working together and let the tools enable, rather than drive, behaviour. Making a decision about which tool to use for interaction isnt easy. For example, Is this better using a quick Slack message, or discussed face-to-face on a video call? For Strata3, collaboration isnt the tools, its our culture of feeling like you can express an idea in safety, even if it isnt the one that a client picks up now.

Our agile practices stand up to fully remote teams and protect our business model

Some of Stratas agile team members have already been working remotely before this crisis. So, established agile ceremonies such as the daily stand-ups, sprint demos and retrospective meetings continue fluently over video. For designers, used to working together in a room, weve moved effectively from the physical whiteboard and sticky note workshopping with clients to tools like Miro for working out information architecture or customer journey maps.

One observation weve made is that when everyone is remote, it de-emphasises the relative seniority of people. In some cases the more technical, but perhaps more junior people, are speaking up more.

Stratas agile practice also supports digital teams within our client organisations to keep their digital programs going. Agile product teams that have delivered an already viable product (thats the V in MVP) and a roadmap of continuous value delivery have a momentum of their own. That momentum is harder to cut as discretionary, than a semi-delivered waterfall project. We must all view this current crisis as just that, a temporary situation, and an opportunity to invest thoughtfully.

Clients are looking for us to guide them through this crisis with digital strategy and solutions

Creatively working with clients doesnt stop at recreating face-to-face workshops in Teams and Miro. More significantly for Strata3 as an agency, weve shifted into more proactive ways of working with clients. They need us now to come to them quickly with solution ideas for growing their digital business. We offer a rapid engagement product, Ignite, to help clients test and accelerate their digital business pivot. One example of a proposition for physical businesses, such as public transport or retail, is real-time and statistically accurate occupancy tracking solutions, to reassure customers that they can make choices about avoiding busy times.

Finally, all the technology planning and execution should be subordinate to putting people first. Are we looking after our teams psychological needs, not just their technical requirements? This current scenario with enforced restrictions isnt just WFH; its everybody and everything during a crisis at home. So, lets not confuse that with long-term remote working.

For details, visit: http://www.strata.com

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Putting people first to enable effective working from home - Business Post