Working Remotely? 5 Ways to Help Your Product Team Thrive

Teresa Torres argues that the belief that product teams must be co-located is outdated, since many successful companies already run fully remote and global teams, and modern digital tools now provide most of the benefits of sitting together. Co-location's real value was faster collaboration, fewer handoffs, and easier communication, which can be reproduced deliberately. She offers practical guidance for teams suddenly moving to remote work during COVID-19 so their continuous discovery habits don't erode. The piece matters because it turns a sudden disruption into a chance to build more intentional, flexible ways of working.

01Key takeaways

• Discuss and agree on working hours, availability, and visibility norms with your team before remote work starts to avoid stalled work.
• Assign a clear purpose to each communication channel, such as chat for real-time talk and email for threads that began there.
• Switch from written messages to a call or screen share when misunderstandings start to build.
• Use a digital whiteboard with real-time editing and templates to keep opportunity mapping and story mapping collaborative.
• Work out loud by regularly sharing progress so the team and stakeholders stay aligned without co-location.
• Protect continuous discovery habits during remote work by keeping the same cadence of customer interviews and weekly testing.

02Key sections

Challenging the co-location myth

Co-location is often assumed to be essential, but many companies have thrived fully remote and across time zones. The benefits people associate with sitting together can now be achieved with digital tools.

Agreeing on working norms

Office norms about hours, attire, availability, and interruptions disappear when everyone works from home, so teams should explicitly discuss and agree on them. Doing this early prevents work from stalling.

Setting rules for communication channels

Each tool should have a defined purpose, such as email for threads that started there, chat for real-time discussion without expecting instant replies, and calls for urgent matters. Clear rules replace the informal cues of an office.

Switching between asynchronous and synchronous communication

Teams should recognize when written back-and-forth is causing misunderstanding and move to a call or screen share. Staying mindful of interruptions helps everyone avoid being constantly on.

Real-time mapping with digital whiteboards

Visual product work like opportunity solution trees and story maps can be done collaboratively with real-time digital whiteboards that let everyone edit at once. Physical sketches can be captured via webcam or photos.

Working out loud

Regularly sharing work in progress keeps distributed teammates and stakeholders aligned. The author recommends this practice and points to a book on a fully remote company's culture.

03From the post

“Product teams should be co-located. This is an often-repeated “truth” in our industry. Today, in response to COVID-19, many companies are instituting mandatory work-from-home policies. This is making co-location impossible for many teams. Thankfully, this “truth” was already on its way to being retired.”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.