Imagine a modern workplace where teams are encouraged to work on autonomous and self-organizing projects. Teams are motivated to value integrity, be curious, strive for excellence, and have the flexibility to work remotely.
No, it’s not a fantasy, it’s a reality for the more than 7,000 employees at ThoughtWorks.
“As a global company with customers all over the world, we often work with colleagues and clients who are not in the same office. “Autonomy and trust are so ingrained in our culture that if someone has to work remotely, we believe they can self-manage to get the job done.” Says Sumeet Moghe, product manager at ThoughtWorks.
ThoughtWorks is a global software consulting company with teams and employees in 43 offices in 14 countries and territories around the world. ThoughtWorks operates in a hybrid mode of work, which means they have distributed work teams that can deliver innovative software delivery solutions, services, and products to customers from the office or remotely. The ThoughtWorks team believes that the goal of each project is to ensure that clients have access to the best talent and services, no matter where their employees live and work.
ThoughtWorks prides itself on being agile and adaptable. In fact, they invented the concept of distributed Agile! Agile is a set of methodologies on how to communicate ideals and principles that help teams change and respond effectively to create value more quickly. This is especially important for distributed remote teams that rely on flexibility and iteration to accomplish great tasks together (especially if the teams are not in the same space or time zone). ThoughtWorks has honed their ability to work as a distributed team over its 27 years of operation with strong guiding principles and core values, cutting edge technology, and adaptive processes.
But, like many organizations around the world, that agility is being tested in 2020, the year COVID-19 has thrown the world into turmoil.
ThoughtWorks has 43 offices worldwide, including one in Wuhan, China. ThoughtWorks has 1,800 employees in China, including 300 in Wuhan alone, and managers had to act quickly to protect the health and safety of employees and customers.
They closed their Wuhan office and transitioned employees to a 100% remote working environment, following decisions and processes that became guidelines for the entire Organization. From China to Chile, and every home office in between, Trello is an online collaboration tool that ThoughtWorkers, as they say, can rely on to efficiently work remotely.
Previously, we were using Trello’s very basic functionality, like putting cards or post-it notes on the wall. Now, we take advantage of many features and create a richer experience for using the tool. ANDY YATESThoughtWorks Head of internal Strategy at TechOps
The way a global company works to accelerate remote collaboration
ThoughtWorks is a large client of Trello Enterprise, and Trello has changed the way internal teams collaborate with each other and with customers by enabling them to extend and optimize their workflows based on the growing needs of their team, organization, and external partners.
“The global management team set up a task force to coordinate the company’s response to COVID-19; “Since the special Projects Team had members from different departments and regions, it was natural for the team to coordinate their efforts through the use of Trello.” Says Andy Yates, director of strategy at ThoughtWorks TechOps.
On Jan. 21, ThoughtWorks set up an emergency response team in Wuhan to develop plans to ensure the safety of ThoughtWorkers employees and customers. The next day ThoughtWorks China managers decided to close the Wuhan office, and the next day the government announced a city-wide lockdown of the city.
** Managers and the emergency response team at Our Wuhan office rely on their experience in distributed agile delivery to make informed decisions quickly and in a deterministic environment, allowing employees to smoothly shift to remote working mode. ** Now, the organization relies on Trello to prepare and coordinate plans to safely reopen offices around the world.
Their use of Trello took on a whole new form as entire organizations moved to a 100% remote work environment in a very short time. Historically, ThoughtWorkers initially used Trello for internal projects as well as task management and project management with clients.
“We used to have our own project management tools,” explains Andy Yates. “But in the end we decided not to do our own research, and when we started looking for project management tools, we found that most teams were using Trello to manage other projects. And Trello was so widely believed to be the right choice that we decided to make it official for the entire company.”
Why Trello as a communication and collaboration tool?
As the head of strategy at TechOps, one of Andy’s core responsibilities is to evaluate the use of tools and technologies across the organization with Marina Rodrigues Moschetta, Sumeet Moghe, and other stakeholders who are product leaders at ThoughtWorks.
“We have a culture that encourages exploration, so people are always looking for the next best tool and way to collaborate,” Andy says.
What does this mean in everyday work? Andy and his team receive at least five requests a day to review tool usage and options offered from thousands of employees and hundreds of customers. All of this work is managed by Trello and allows Andy and his team to coordinate and communicate with other departments in the process, such as legal and finance.
Whether someone is working in an office, at home or in the field with a client, everyone can share contextual information through Trello. SUMEET MOGHEThoughtWorks Product Manager
Overall, ThoughtWorks uses a standard set of tools, such as Trello, Zoom, Mural, and GoogleWorkspace, so everyone has a common starting point for collaboration and communication. With Trello at the heart of this technology stack, ThoughtWorkers use Trello in a variety of ways to manage efficiently.
With enterprise initiatives, they can use Butler to create unlimited teams, panels, plug-ins, and local task automation. These powerful features make it easy for anyone to launch a project and collaborate in Trello. Trello can create panels in seconds, and users can start planning any fully structured project to organize and prioritize and take action. The ease of use and flexibility of the tool make it easier for ThoughtWorkers to self-organize and self-manage. In addition, Trello Enterprise provides a centralized dashboard experience that allows administrators to easily manage permissions and users in real time.
“We used to use Trello in a very basic way, like putting a card or a post-it note on a wall. Now we take advantage of many features and create a richer experience for using the tool.” Andy explained.
One of the most common ways ThoughtWorkers use Trello is for internal and customer project management.
In face-to-face meetings to plan a project, whether at the ThoughtWorks office or on-site at a client office, the end result is a stack of physical cards on the wall or a few ideas written on a whiteboard. Because their teams liked this way of brainstorming and collaborating, they needed a digital solution when they all started working remotely.
Trello becomes an online whiteboard and workspace for its teams to plot project plans, tasks, and timelines, then easily assign owners and provide additional context for what is needed to get the job done.
“Even if we go back to a physical office, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to reuse a physical whiteboard. Many people in companies now understand the value of online collaboration and how to make it an inclusive experience. Whether someone is in the office, working from home or on site with a client, everyone can share context and information through Trello.” Sumeet Moghe explains.
Sumeet, for example, led an event called Converge. Of course, for COVID-19, they have to adjust their plans and hold events online. Zoom is the choice for hosting online events, while Trello is the choice for planning events. Their activity boards are kanban style, with lists to track progress and tasks completed. Kanban is a way to visualize work, control the work in progress, and maximize efficiency. It is a process of continuous improvement of workflow and quality. Kanban is a framework that allows extensive customization, and Trello’s interface and functionality allow the team to visualize this flexibility and easily adapt to any changes.
They use the “calendar” function to know exactly when tasks are due. Tags are used to identify the type of task (for example, “communication status,” “Guest speaker,” or “Registration Status”). The panel is a central hub for the event team to coordinate, collaborate and communicate remotely to ensure the smooth running of online events. From marketing to guest speaker coordination, there are several steps to consider when planning an event, and Sumeet and his team found Trello to be the most intuitive tool for efficient management.
“I like Trello’s flexibility. It can be customized to meet the needs of any project. You can choose the approach and process that works for you.” Rags-to-riches said.
Promote unity through Trello
When all offices at ThoughtWorks closed, teams in all regions quickly created new ways to stay connected and simulate the office experience online. They’ve always been a distributed company, but how do you bring in new team members in a virtual world or bring people together for coffee or birthday cake?
ThoughtWorkers has created a solution. And once again, they found the answer in Trello.
Trello became a social place. For example, the team in Brazil is using the Trello panel to record and track team members’ birthdays so they can celebrate and create that sense of togetherness when they are physically unable to be together. MARINA RODRIGUES MoschettaThoughtWorks Product Director
In addition to birthdays and celebrations, ThoughtWorks uses Trello to share what is happening in multiple other regional organizations. Everyone can access the panel, increasing transparency and inclusion.
The HR and recruiting teams have also successfully transformed their processes into digital workflows in Trello. Even as the organization began moving to a 100% remote model in early 2020, they were still hiring new employees and managing processes in Trello.
An onboarding panel, called a First Year experience (FYE), is used to welcome new employees and provide them with the information and background they need to know to help them understand who is on the team and how the project they will be working on is working. This panel has a variety of reference information and actionable lists. The Panel Overview list shares information on how to use the panel, first-year expectations for new employees, and resource links. The next list is the “Week 1 Checklist” for bringing new employees on board and assigning them tasks to start working at ThoughtWorks. Each card in the list is a to-do list, and the advanced checklist is used to provide detailed information based on the needs of each task. There is also a list of “ongoing activities” and “goals”.
In addition to its core responsibilities and projects, ThoughtWorkers will collaborate with other team members in different regions on internal projects. They use Trello to work together on these internal projects related to their interests and passions. As more employees work remotely, the use of Trello has increased as it provides a more intuitive interface for online collaboration and communication.
“Our goal is to make it easier for people to do the right thing. Trello gives us a flexible framework for collaboration that we can easily customize to our specific needs without being tied to any other process, project or team.” Andy said.
The Future of Collaboration
ThoughtWorks continues to use a hybrid work model even when the office is safe and open. ThoughtWorks wants employees to collaborate, innovate, and communicate effectively with the right tools at all times.
When teams have the support, tools, and trust to self-manage and self-organize, they can create amazing things. Even for a company that has honed its remote workflow for more than 20 years, ThoughtWorks has found new and innovative ways to use online collaboration tools to maintain productive collaboration, provide quality service to customers, and create a sense of unity and belonging among teams.
One thing that will remain constant, whether the ThoughtWorks team returns to the office or stays home, is that Trello will become the online workspace for ThoughtWorkers’ offices around the world.
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