Telecommuting has real problems, especially when it's a larger team (8+ is a large team in this situation) There'e a real danger of an "us versus them" mentality setting up, from everyone involved.
First, assume the team is intelligent and wants to produce.
Second, establish a backlog and have clear weekly items that need to be completed. The team gets to decide which ones they can complete -- or not.
Third, make it clear that they can screw it up for a couple of weeks, but no more. There will not be a third week of dissapointment. (But you may be dissapointed with what they say they can do for each week. Different topic) The team will be judged as a group, not individually.
Then get out of their way and let them work it out.
At the end of the day, however, you're probably best off sacking just about everybody. The ones who are not performing are in a rut, the ones who are performing probably have copped an attitude, and your ability to interact and work with a telecommuting team has probably developed some seriously bad edges.
Can't sack yourself, though. But whatever you do, heck if I'd start right back up with the telecommuting. Bring the new team in for 90 days of intense working together. Stick with the weekly goals thing. Get a development rhythm going. Learn who is good at what. Learn how different people communicate when there are problems. Get a pattern of folks helping each other out. Then slowly transition folks out to telecommuting status.
I trust the team above everything else, but you can get teams into places they don't come out from. Assuming you're writing the checks, this is serious stuff. I sure wouldn't be asking HN for advice (including asking me. Although I do this for a living, there's a tremendous amount of contextual information I do not have) If it's as bad as you say, you've got some tough choices ahead. I also wouldn't put a lot of money on your perception of the problem -- you're just as mixed up in whatever problems there are as the rest of them. [insert long discussion about the benefit of using outside eyeballs, which, unfortunately, is a conflict of interest for me to give. I apologize.]
First, assume the team is intelligent and wants to produce.
Second, establish a backlog and have clear weekly items that need to be completed. The team gets to decide which ones they can complete -- or not.
Third, make it clear that they can screw it up for a couple of weeks, but no more. There will not be a third week of dissapointment. (But you may be dissapointed with what they say they can do for each week. Different topic) The team will be judged as a group, not individually.
Then get out of their way and let them work it out.
At the end of the day, however, you're probably best off sacking just about everybody. The ones who are not performing are in a rut, the ones who are performing probably have copped an attitude, and your ability to interact and work with a telecommuting team has probably developed some seriously bad edges.
Can't sack yourself, though. But whatever you do, heck if I'd start right back up with the telecommuting. Bring the new team in for 90 days of intense working together. Stick with the weekly goals thing. Get a development rhythm going. Learn who is good at what. Learn how different people communicate when there are problems. Get a pattern of folks helping each other out. Then slowly transition folks out to telecommuting status.
I trust the team above everything else, but you can get teams into places they don't come out from. Assuming you're writing the checks, this is serious stuff. I sure wouldn't be asking HN for advice (including asking me. Although I do this for a living, there's a tremendous amount of contextual information I do not have) If it's as bad as you say, you've got some tough choices ahead. I also wouldn't put a lot of money on your perception of the problem -- you're just as mixed up in whatever problems there are as the rest of them. [insert long discussion about the benefit of using outside eyeballs, which, unfortunately, is a conflict of interest for me to give. I apologize.]