Building, Joining, Scaling a Remote Team - Lessons Learned Series

For this 4-part series, I’ll focus on my own observations in working remotely and helping grow industry-leading teams. I'll touch on what to do and cautions to avoid when building, joining, and scaling a fully remote team.

The internet is not short of guidance on working remotely since COVID-19. Even after mitigations are in place for this virus, I anticipate more consulting work will be completed remotely. Traveling is resource-intensive, costly, and draining on the workforce. The longevity of COVID required organizations to adopt new delivery models and prove their effectiveness in short order. These new models will persist well after the pandemic subsides and I believe ‘remote work’ has already solidified itself as a standard.

I have been working remotely since 2013 (as has my awesome wife) and have learned a lot about the impacts on work/life balance.

Rapid growth is also well-covered in existing literature. Saying an organization is “doubling or tripling year after year” leaves a lot to interpretation - going from 10 to 30 people quickly is not as daunting as growing from 100 to 300. Quick-growth is as exciting as it is stressful. Rapid scaling brings stress which in turn brings heightened emotions across any team.

I moved from government to private industry in 2006. I spent 5 years at RSA with the Incident Response team growing from 4 to 20 international analysts in 4 years. I then joined Dragos and have helped our company grow from 14 people to over 200 in under 3 years. I have been part of and helped scale organizations large (RSA was owned by EMC which was bought by Dell for 67B during my time) and small (Dragos just closed their Series A during my acceptance).

These are my intentionally-very-brief observations and lessons learned. This list is not comprehensive and all ideas are not my own. I focused on the key lessons that resonated with me, I didn’t learn in other materials and wish I would have known before.

Please start with Thoughts on Building a Remote Team.

The other postings in this series will be:

Thoughts on Building a Remote Team

• Things to Do

  • Start with Proven Experience

  • Establish Culture

  • Identify Tenants

  • Manage Media

  • Organize

• Things to Watch out for

  • Duplication or Work not Used

  • Marathon Sprinters

Thoughts on Joining a Remote Team

• What to Bring

  • Contribute your Style

  • Time Zones Matter

  • Be Agile and Adapt

  • Hit the Ground Running

• What to be Aware of

  • Work will Always Be There

  • Expect Change

  • Delayed Growth Plan

  • Constantly Catching Up

• Interviewing Tips

  • Learn Quickly

  • Experience vs Memory

  • Ambitious vs Hero

  • Ask Questions

Thoughts on Scaling a Remote Team

• What to Prepare For

  • Establish Baselines

  • Enablement for New Hires

  • Refocus Staff Pipeline

  • Reorganize

  • Career Growth Plans

• What to Expect

  • Structure and Culture will Flex

  • Lack of Growth for Senior Staff

  • Attrition