The notion of a successful distributed team seems like a wonderful yet unobtainable dream.

But stop and think: How often are your nondistributed teams successful? When have they been successful, and why? It’s never because of your plan, or because you hired the best people. It’s not because you bought expensive, new project management software. It’s not even because you had executive buy-in and freedom to make your own decisions.

Successful distributed teams have only resulted from one key ingredient: clarity.

People need to know what work is being done by whom, what their own roles are, when to ask for help or provide information, what decisions they can safely make on their own, what is being completed (imagine, seeing progress makes you successful), and they need to know the people they are working with.

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