• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Projects
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Contact

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.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Real Girls Change the World

    Went to Utah and spoke at the Girl Scout National Convention in front of 6000 young women from all over America.  Pretty insane!  The panel was...

  • World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

    Spoke in Hong Kong at the the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) on 9 July.  The WAGGGS is the largest voluntary organisation...

  • No one puts Baby in the corner

    I was at West End watching “Dirty Dancing” the other night. In the foyer, there were t-shirts embossed with, “I carried a watermelon”, and “No one...

  • Turn off the noise

    The world is so noisy!  Every day there's the breaking news through your multiple most trusted news sources; there's the buzz of your twitter and...

  • Make a wish!

    Go. Do it. Make a wish. Be wild! Be wise! Be audacious! How much does your wish cost? Can you afford it? Then pay and do it. You can’t? Calculate how...

  • Anything is Possible: 100 Australian engineering leaders

    Engineers Australia and Engineering Heritage Australia decided to feature me as one of 100 Australian engineering leaders in their book, “Anything...

  • The most successful students become university professors

    When kids are in diapers, their parents enroll them into primary school. If all goes right, the right primary school could mean the right high...

  • No overnight success: Geoffrey Rush

    When I was touring schools with Geoffrey Rush and we were answering questions in front of hundreds of kids, lots of them said, "I really what to be...

  • Al Jazeera Women Make Science Documentary

    From September to December 2019, Al Jazeera English followed me around and filmed an update on all my projects: Robogals, Aipoly, Teleport, my...

  • Škoda - Brilliant Not Famous

    Car company Škoda decided that I am "brilliant not famous", and created this content piece video to show the strength of their convictions.  :P...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top