It's important to define what we mean by remote. There are a few levels:
- In another office in my country.
- Somewhere in my country.
- In a foreign office as part of a "remote delivery team" aka: off-shoring.
- Somewhere in the world.
The biggest concern I see is understanding how we will support remote workers as well as co-located people. This requires a shift of viewpoint from acceptance of remote to remote first. Every decision needs to be done in such a way that the remote team-member can get involved and contribute. Additionally this level of contribution needs to be encouraged.
Another concern I see is lack of understanding of progress of work for remote people. This can be tackled by that remote-first perspective but also by over-communication of all staff using standups or chat rooms etc. There's also a great deal of importance in having work being properly analysed, scoped each "card" being kicked off before it's started. These things should happen anyway but being in an office gives us the luxury of being bad at these practices whereas being remote means we can't suck at communicating because otherwise our delivery will fail.
Some old-school managers do have a concern around not being able to see people in seats to provide a feeling that money being spent == work being delivered. But ¯_(ツ)_/¯ about those people.
- Language barriers
- Product/project scoping
- Understanding of milestones
- Supporting individual growth
- Creating a feeling of being part of a team