#Remote Work Primer

This primer contains a collection of best practices to follow when one or more team members are working remotely. It's split between advice for the team and advice for the members working remotely.

##Team

###1. Have sound ticket tracking software

It's important that the team has a good overview of who's working on what. When working together in the office, you can quickly check with your co-workers but if some of the team is distributed, it becomes really important to have a good workflow and keeping things organized in a central place.

###2. Use communication tools for chat and video chat

Good communication is essential. More so when not being in the same physical space. Make sure the team uses agreed upon tools for messaging, video chat and screensharing.

###3. Make extensive use of pull requests and code comments

Pull Requests

Every feature should relate to a pull request and be small enough that it may ideally contain 1-3 commits and only touches 1-10 files. Commit messages should be clear and short. A good frame of mind is to think about how you would phrase a commit message if you wanted to contribute to a popular open source repo. You probably wouldn't write something like WIP building js logic to add shareholder to a yet non created company or typo.

In case of WIP commits, please use git rebase -i to clean up your own branch history before merging the pull request.

Keeping a reference to the related ticket in the PRs description will provide context for other team members to see why you're adding your code.

In addition to this, arrange to have a code review partner who is up-to-date on what you're working on so in case you can't meet a deadline, someone else can take over easily. However, keeping PRs small and focus should make it easy to have anyone take over.

Code Comments

This is equally important. Instead of using chat tools to talk about updates that need to happen to a PR, Github should be used. Extensively. The exchange will be visible to all team members and they will benefit from it.

Having small PRs will encourage people to take a look at them. Even if they're not working on the same feature, they will be able to comprehend what you aimed to do.

##Remotee

###1. Be available

This is a no-brainer really, but when you're working remotely, make sure you're available and your team gets timely responses from you. This means you should make sure to have a good enough internet connection to allow for skyping and screensharing and have data coverage for your phone so you can receive email and chat messages.

###2. Be flexible

Even when working in a different time zone, you should try and aim for some overlap with your team. Ideally between 2-4 hours. However, be prepared to work outside of your normal schedule if something important comes up.

When moving to a new place be prepared to work less the first week in order to get settled in. Generally allow for a buffer. If working 40 hours a week, give yourself 45. When working 32 hours, aim for 37.

###2. Be realistic

When your team members rely on you and you can't communicate as much on a day-to-day basis, it's important to be realistic about the work you can get done. Especially if others depend on your work. If you're in a different country or visiting family, you may feel obliged to be more active outside of work instead of staying in late to get work done. When in doubt, it's always a good idea to work on something that isn't crucial to the current sprint.