Maren Deepwell

Tag: #virtualteams

  • Virtual Teams Book – Monthly News, May 2022

    Book news

    After finishing a complete draft of the book in April, my reviewer group has been busy working through each chapter. I have ~20 volunteer reviewers who provide feedback and I am really grateful for all the work they have been doing. 
    This week, by 6th May, the review period comes to a close and at that point it will be my job to work through the comments and feedback and get the next draft of the book ready. This will also involve picking up formatting errors and trying to clean up the references as much as possible. 
    During May and June I will also start work on the cover of the book and finalise the publishing deadlines for the production partner. Exciting times! 

    Virtual Teams at OER22

    I really enjoyed talking about Virtual Teams at the OER22 Conference in 28 April.  Long-time colleague and friend Lauren Hanks, Director of Operations at Reclaim Hosting and one of the Co-Chairs of last year’s edition of the OER Conference, and I, are getting together to reflect on the connections between open education and open approaches to online collaboration and work.

    As leaders of virtual teams, we want to critically examine what lessons we can learn from open approaches to learning and teaching and how we can use that knowledge in an increasingly virtual workplace.

    This session builds on a recent episode of the Remote Work Show on DS106 Radio, in which we started to unpack some of this.

    Remote working radio…

    I will be doing not one, but two remote working radio shows this month. Following on from our session at OER22, Lauren Hanks and I will be on the airwaves to continue our conversation. 
    There is also a second show in the works for this month with a special guest joining the conversation, so look out for the dates and times for both. 

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  • Reflecting on different modes of working

    As part of my work on the Leading Virtual Teams book, I have been careful to define what is meant by terms describing different ways of working. It’s taken me a while to bring the various terms together, and to reflect on their meaning not just now, but also before the advent of digital technologies and more widely available, reliable, high speed internet connections.

    In my childhood days for example, selling Tupperware from your garage was a popular way for women to work from home alongside bringing up children, for example, and that didn’t involve Zoom calls or being online at all.

    Similarly, there are many industries in which distributed working (i.e. across a number of different geographical locations) or working remotely (away from a central location such as a campus or corporate HQ) has been commonplace well before we had the capacity to take much of our “office” with us in the form of a laptop or even mobile device.

    Graphic showing an overview of different Modes of Working - CC-BY by Dr Maren Deepwell, Leading Virtual Teams (2022) Home working: The practice of working from home. Whilst frequently associated with working as part of distributed teams or online nowadays, home working has not historically been associated with use of digital technology. Hybrid working: Working both at home from at the office. Employees have the flexibility to work away from the office for some days each week, for example working three days per week in the office and two days a week at home. Working as a Virtual Team: A blend of all other modes of working characterised by: Digital workflows and communication tools, no physical location, a permanently home-based workforce, and workplace policies that reflect the needs of a virtual organisation. Distributed working: Working across a number of locations. Distributed working across number of locations such as different campuses or offices, usually independent from each other and with their own local workforce. Remote working: Working away from a central hub. Remote working can encompass home working, but employees may also work from other locations that are remote from a central hub (such as a campus or HQ).
    Graphic showing an overview of different Modes of Working – CC-BY by Dr Maren Deepwell, Leading Virtual Teams (2022)

    One of the key themes of the work I have been doing is reflecting on how the way we work impacts on us. More specifically, I am interested in how different modes of working impact on particular aspects of our lives such as physical and mental health, work/life balance or a sense of connectedness.

    Inspired by my coach training, in which our coach trainer recently asked us to practice with a coaching tool called Wheel of Life, I have adapted this coaching tool to explore different ways of working such as working from home, hybrid working,
    distributed or remote working and working in virtual teams and reflect on how the way you work impacts on you and your life.

    Here is one example focused on hybrid working:

    Example of a wheel adapted to reflect on hybrid working

    Each wheel contains eight sections, including one which is blank for you to add your own category. I have been experimenting with what categories to include based on the research I have undertaken, and the mix of what’s included changes for different modes of working.

    For hybrid working, you could reflect on and score:

    • Home working environment
    • Work/life balance
    • Physical and mental health
    • Care and family responsibilities
    • Socialising with colleagues
    • Commute
    • Office or campus work environment
    • and… a category of your choice

    Here is another example that I have completed for working as a virtual team:

    Example of a wheel with scores adapted to reflect on working in a virtual team

    In this example, I have added a lower score for “Virtual socialising with colleagues” and high scores for areas like “work/life balance” and “home working environment”.

    Try out this resource

    You can download this resource and use it or adapt it to better suit your particular needs.

    If you have any feedback or comments, I would love to hear from you. Contact me.

  • Virtual Teams Book – Monthly News, April 2022

    Book news

    BOOM! This month I am excited to share that I have completed the first draft of the book. It’s actually more like draft no. 3, but up to now I hadn’t ever written the conclusion, and now I have. 

    Now my 48,570 words or ~160 pages of work in progress have been shared with internal reviewers for comment and feedback until early May 2022. If you’d like to help review the book, please let me know and I’d be happy to share the complete draft with you. 

    There is still a lot of work to be done, but reaching a point at which I have a complete book feels like a great milestone. 

    Coaching update

    In very exciting news I finished the first coach training course this month and thus I am a step closer to getting formally accredited as a coach. One of the things I am working on is a set of coaching style questions to help reflection on leading virtual teams… so watch this space for more updates soon. 

    Remote working radio… with special guest Lauren Hanks

    I am very much looking forward to doing a special remote working radio show this month, with a special guest, in order to share current thinking in the run up to session we are hoping to run at the OER22 Conference in late April… join me and Lauren:

    Wednesday, 13th April 2022
    14:00 BST
    on DS106Radio

    As this is a special episode, you can expect more conversation and fewer songs.. (and unfortunately no special requests).

    Writing buddy update: Posey has helped me think through finishing the complete draft.

  • Virtual Teams Book – Monthly News, March 2022

    This month we are taking a break from sharing updates on the book other than the all important writing buddy pic.

    An escalating shoulder injury has prompted a pause in writing as I need to focus on treatment & recovery.

    Stay well and see you next month for hopefully more updates on the book 🙂

    Posey, my writing buddy

  • Virtual Teams Book – Monthly News, February 2022

    Writing retreat and onwards

    January was extremely busy for me and I am glad that I took a week’s holiday from my day job and focused on writing. It was the first time since my PhD years that I spent so much time focusing on writing, and I really enjoyed it.

    For the week of the writing retreat, I set a number of aims:

    • Decide the title of the book
    • Write “about the book” and “about the author” blurbs
    • Edit the first draft of the book and write the conclusion, which would result in a complete 2nd draft.

    I am pleased to say that I accomplished the first two, and that I have updated the information on the book page accordingly. The book will be called Leading Virtual Teams – Field Notes from a CEO by Dr Maren Deepwell and will be published in 2022 as an open access publication by the Association for Learning Technology, UK. 

    The book is subtitled Field Notes from a CEO because my years as an Anthropologist gave me a researcher’s mindset that I have never quite left behind. Although I have settled into a different mindset in my ten years as a CEO, no longer just observing, but leading, I still find myself just as curious about seeing the world from someone else’s viewpoint and doing my best to walk a few steps in their shoes. Leading a virtual team has challenged that ambition in interesting ways, and provided me with a new field for exploration.

    I also made significant progress editing the first draft into a more coherent and complete 2nd draft. Of the 51,000 words I wrote since last summer, 47,500 have made it into the nearly completed version. The overall book will be ~55,000 words long.

    What’s left to do is to finish editing Chapter 4, which I wrote first in July last year, and which needs the most work and also to rewrite the conclusion and expand it. I left the conclusion to last, dropping in fragments along the way, as I wanted to get a feel for what the book would be like overall, before finalising my concluding thoughts.

    By the end of this month, the complete 2nd version will be finished and then the next steps await me: getting feedback from a wider circle of critical friends and readers, liaising with our publishing partner to progress the copy editing and deciding on a cover for the book, too.

    Exciting times ahead, that’s for sure!

    Talks and events

    Join our monthly radio meet up on DS106radio. This time I’ll be talking about the writing retreat and share news on book progress on Wednesday, 9th February 2022 at 19:00 GMT on DS106 Radio – chat with me or submit song requests #DS106radio.

    Coaching update

    The first month of coach training has given me a lot of prompts for reflection. One of the fundamental coaching techniques I am learning more about is how to use powerful questions and as I was writing, I discovered that many of the reflective prompts and questions included in various chapters could be used in this context, too.

    One of the ideas this has given me is to create a set of questions specifically about working from home and being part of virtual teams, that could be used in a coaching context, and could also be helpful in wider professional practice. I hope to share these in a future monthly update.

    Writing buddy update

    Posey has been an excellent writing buddy, and we have been taking regular breaks from the computer together as well as our regular afternoon walks. However, the best thing for her this month has been to finally be allowed in the office full-time.

    Posey in full home working mode 🙂

  • How to make working from home 1% more comfortable

    On this month’s remote working radio show on DS106radio we talked about how to make working from home 1% more comfortable… and improve your work wellbeing in the process.

    The idea comes from practices like yoga and meditation. As you lie down in order to relax or sit still to focus, your teacher may prompt you to move, wriggle, to use a pillow or a cushion, anything to try and make yourself a little bit more comfortable.

    Most of the time, pausing to consider what you can do to make yourself more comfortable in itself is the most valuable part of that process and can really help you gain more awareness of what’s going on in your physical self.

    So, it’s worth asking yourself that very question, in particular when it comes to working from home.

    The past two years have been tough, so anything and everything you can do to make things even a little easier is welcome.

    Where to start

    If you haven’t done so in a while and especially if you have recently moved things around, checking in on your work set up from a basic health & safety perspective and reviewing display screen equipment guidance is a good first step.

    Many of us become blind to constant factors that make working uncomfortable, like glare, noise, a bad chair and so forth. Try and look at your set up with fresh eyes.

    If someone else had to use it for a week, what do you think they might like or find difficult?

    25 obvious, but effective, ways to improve your working environment

    There are a lot of things you can try, and what will make a difference to you depends on the way you work and your personal preferences. Here is a list of 25 things to get you started:

    1. a plant
    2. a nice coaster
    3. a new mouse mat
    4. wrist rest/mouse rest
    5. glare protector
    6. photos/pictures/art
    7. lights for different times of day, i.e. a work lamp, fairy lights, a candle
    8. scented candle
    9. diffuser for aromatherapy oils
    10. foot rest (cushion or yoga bolster can work, too)
    11. cushioned slippers or shoes (particularly handy for standing desks)
    12. find a window sill or high shelf you can use as a place to have meetings with your laptop
    13. headphones that suit your ears
    14. a mouse you like (mine glows in rainbow colours)
    15. a selfie or ring light
    16. eye mist
    17. an alarm or similar that reminds you to take regular screen breaks
    18. a water bottle
    19. new flavour hot (or cold) drinks to try such as new herbal teas or coffees
    20. a secret snack stash (healthy or not)
    21. music
    22. a mat for your chair/you to stand on
    23. a rock or shell from somewhere you like
    24. cleaning products for your workspace, i.e. eco wipes, disinfectant, screen cleaner
    25. A place for a pet to be… if you can persuade them

    Moving beyond 1%…

    Support from your employer with purchasing office equipment for home working (or if you are self-employed here in the UK, you can apply for support with office equipment costs from the Department for Work) should help with making bigger changes, such as buying an adjustable desk, a suitable chair and other equipment.

    And there are other ways to improve your home working environment, especially when things are stressful. One example are resources you can dip into during short breaks or a subscription to an app like Calm which offers work-focused support.

    Over the past two years many of us have started to value support for managing stress and finding balance more and more. Asking yourself how you could be 1% more comfortable may lead to answers that are less tangible and more about mental wellbeing.

    What are you going to try to make your day tomorrow 1% more comfortable?