Contact Info for your Team Members
Sending Specs to your Team Members
Set Clear Expectations around Deliverables
Tips for Day to Day Communication with your Team
Reporting a Problem with a Team Member
Ending an Assignment

Contact Info for your Team Members

Your team members' contact information is contained in their profiles (the contact info is added to a profile after you invite a provider to interview). Keep contact information in a central location such as your Outlook address book.

Your provider's email and YahooID can also be found in the "My Team" page next to their screenshots.

Sending Specs to your Team Members

Specs should be sent to your team members as soon as your assignment starts. When working with remote teams, written instructions are usually the primary form of communication, and will serve as a reference if the provider has questions when you are not available. Your team members will often have questions and ask for clarifications of your specs, and if not, you should ask them for feedback.

We recommend that you keep your specs in a version control product like SVN to enable easy downloads by your team members as well as a history of changes to the documents.

For a sample specification, see srs_template.doc.

Set Clear Expectations around Deliverables

The more clear you are in setting expectations with your team, the more likely your assignment will be a success. Let your team know whether you want them to spec out the assignment, make suggestions, or follow exact instructions without input.

Also let them know well in advance of any deadlines for particular tasks. We recommend that you outline your expectations in work memos.

Tips for Day to Day Communication with your Team

Here are some tips we recommend:

• You can communicate with your team any way you prefer, but we recommend instant messaging through Yahoo Messenger.
• Try to answer questions from your team members as soon as they arise.
• Read the daily status reports and answer any questions therein.
• Email your team with times that you are available online. If your schedules don’t seem to match up at first, send a reminder of your available times.
• Give as much background as possible on all assignments and tasks.
• Feel free to give skill-level diagnostics tests when you feel they are appropriate.

Reporting a Problem with a Team Member

Our primary goal is to help you make your assignment a success. If you need help resolving any issues with a member of your team, or require any additional service, please submit a help request.

Ending an Assignment

When all the work for an assignment is completed, you should end it. This reduces potential issues from a provider billing time or accessing SVN, Bugzilla, or your email list.

To end an Assignment:

1. Login your account at https://my.odesk.com
2. Go to Hire -> My Assignments tab
3. Select the assignment you wish to end
4. Click End in the Actions column

Before you can end the assignment, you will be asked to provide feedback for the Provider.