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He doesn't really address the biggest issue I (and many of my colleagues) have faced with remote work. If you're head down on a coding task or writing a docume

He doesn't really address the biggest issue I (and many of my colleagues) have faced with remote work. If you're head down on a coding task or writing a document or doing some piece of design... having your own space is amazing. I love that I can work at home (put music on speakers, not headphones) and just go for it. But it sucks for collaborative meetings. There is really no substitute for getting people in a room with a whiteboard. Yeah, there are online whiteboards and video conferencing and whatever, but they still aren't as good and likely never will be (at least until we get some kind of amazing VR/AR workspace). I'm curious as to how other people have solved this.

eikenberry 6y ago
You get good at communicating via other means. Free software developers have been doing this for years and have pretty well established patterns that work.
artpi 6y ago
I work for Automattic and done fair bit of these collaborative meetings. We settled on something like this: - Write a memo asking for obvious requirements - Get feedback - Ask more questions - Get feedback - Schedule a call, launch into chatting in detail - Write a memo - Get feedback - Prototype - Schedule a call... There is nothing really you can do live that you cannot do online. You don't get progress thanks to some fantastic insight while "brainstorming". You get progress by chipping away at the idea and having space to think. Having a weekly cycle of memos and Zoom Calls will handle this. Face-to-face really shines when you have to sync up on priorities and goals. It's a great way to get everybody feeling they communicated and are part of the same group. I don't mean this in a derogatory way - people need this feelings to work and overlooking that part of communication is causing the breakdowns. But after you get all your human rapport building out of the way, async is really effective. Communicating online is not a natural skill and should be deliberately practiced. I packaged all my learnings into a free mini-course: https://deliber.at/chat/ https://deliber.at/chat/

eikenberry 6y ago

You get good at communicating via other means. Free software developers have been doing this for years and have pretty well established patterns that work.

artpi 6y ago

I work for Automattic and done fair bit of these collaborative meetings. We settled on something like this: - Write a memo asking for obvious requirements - Get feedback - Ask more questions - Get feedback - Schedule a call, launch into chatting in detail - Write a memo - Get feedback - Prototype - Schedule a call... There is nothing really you can do live that you cannot do online. You don't get progress thanks to some fantastic insight while "brainstorming". You get progress by chipping away at the idea and having space to think. Having a weekly cycle of memos and Zoom Calls will handle this. Face-to-face really shines when you have to sync up on priorities and goals. It's a great way to get everybody feeling they communicated and are part of the same group. I don't mean this in a derogatory way - people need this feelings to work and overlooking that part of communication is causing the breakdowns. But after you get all your human rapport building out of the way, async is really effective. Communicating online is not a natural skill and should be deliberately practiced. I packaged all my learnings into a free mini-course: https://deliber.at/chat/ https://deliber.at/chat/