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How I manage

Published: Thursday, 23 February 2023

For one of the projects I’ve been leading for over the past 2.5 years, I manage a team of 20 people remotely. I meet with all of my direct reports every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning. I batch all the meetings so they take place one after the other.

My team is located all over the world - mostly all over Australia, so we need to work remotely.

People need to show up to our meetings on time to discuss their work. And they can set their own hours to work outside of that. This allows us to work truly asynchronously. I meet frequently enough that I don’t need to be constantly messaging each of them throughout the day. It’s ok to mostly batch what I have to say until the next team meeting. Since remote work began in full force in 2020, I’ve been trying different ways to optimize the team’s performance. About a year ago, I decided this was the optimal solution for my morale, productivity and happiness.

The team love the flexibility of working whenever they want, while connecting closely with their team three times a week at their meetings.

This process works really well for steady-state work.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

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