Even if the technical preconditions, available work and willingly remote workers are distributed everywhere, remote work runs not by itself.
Distractions
Most critics are complaining the possible distractions you can have at home or at the coworking space. Distractions are possible, but by far most of the remote workers would have more distractions in the office environment than at home. My actual job is 4 days onsite and 1 day at home. The home office day is the ‘work day’ the 4 others are the organizing stuff days, packed with meetings and 1-to-1 discussions, regarding my work as project manager. Reading specifications and do longer planning sessions is only possible at home.
Off-topic work
Another problem of remote work is the content, meaning what tasks will be performed. If the project information and tasks are not properly distributed over the team, people tend to perform task they like most and not the ones which are needed most. This can only be faced by good project management. Be it agile or more traditional the core points are:
- have the necessary information at the right time at the people who are needing it
- provide a clear overall picture to all stakeholders
- have a clear structure in your project
- trust your team members (clear point but often missing) – see also ‘Trust is the key for successful remote work‘
- transfer responsibility to your team members, but monitor the results
- make agreements about delivery times not orders
Failure at remote working situation is rarely based on the people, but mostly about bad communication and bad project management.
Self-motivation
Anyway you need a good portion of self-motivation. Most people need a good environment for that. You can achieve that with a good company culture which is even effective for remote workers or, if you are working for your own, by a good coworking space. I’m referring here not only to the fancy, busy spaces in big cities, but primarily all that small office spaces which are available in your direct neighborhood. And this unspectacular place to work together with other remote workers is a thing that hopefully will spread further in the near future.
Here are some more points, ‘Why Remote Work has Not Exploded yet‘ and here is my ‘The Ultimate List of Remote Work Pros and Cons‘.
What is your experience about the success factors of remote work? Let us know in the comment section!
English 
Deutsch