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As a manager, I strongly agree. There’s a huge difference between teams where people are happy to help each other out and teams where people have a “not my job,

As a manager, I strongly agree. There’s a huge difference between teams where people are happy to help each other out and teams where people have a “not my job, not my problem” attitude. My recent experience (past 5 years) had been with remote teams, where this problem is exaggerated even more. Some people see remote as an excuse to minimize their own workload so they can finish their tickets early and log off as quick as possible. It takes some mentoring to get employees, remote or otherwise, to understand that the team’s deliverables are what counts rather than just closing the tickets they claimed. As hard as we try, tickets will never account for 100% of the work that needs to be done, especially when it comes to things like sharing knowledge with newer team members and helping with loose ends. Someone who wants to isolate and avoid helping others can’t really be effective in a collaborative team environment.

ipaddr 5y ago
Email and slack work great for newbie questions. Wikis even better. A culture that documents in a central location would fix many of your environmental issues. Loose ends get lost and should be in a ticket. Team objectives sit with the team leader. Project objectives with the project owner.
chrsig 5y ago
Interesting. As my team has gotten more experience being remote, we actually work as a team much better. Where I've noticed more of a breakdown is between teams. Not necessarily in the form of "not my job", but rather a refusal to collaborate. So more "not your turf" fiefdoms. > It takes some mentoring to get employees, remote or otherwise, to understand that the team’s deliverables are what counts rather than just closing the tickets they claimed. As hard as we try, tickets will never account for 100% of the work that needs to be done, especially when it comes to things like sharing knowledge with newer team members and helping with loose ends. Someone who wants to isolate and avoid helping others can’t really be effective in a collaborative team environment. This scales out to the inter-team level as well. the organization's success is ultimately paramount. If the company goes out of business, everyone's out looking for a new job.
tikhonj 5y ago
My experience has been that systems where people's job is to "finish tickets" actively contributes to this attitude. Even if somebody agrees in principle that it's the team and business goals that matter, what's getting measured? What feels like it matters? If somebody isn't finishing their tickets quickly they will feel bad about it because it looks bad and the processes around it reinforce that it looks bad. Even if you tell people that it's actively better to help the team, any individual doing that is still going to feel bad going to some "ceremony" and needing to say "their" tickets are "behind schedule". I remember somebody explaining to me that culture isn't based on what an organization or manager says is rewarded—or even on what's "officially" evaluated—but on what people feel is rewarded and punished. If you're constantly tracking individual tickets, that's what people are going to perceive as important just because the organization's actions place such an emphasis on it. People aren't "using remote as an excuse", they're responding to the system as it's designed! Frankly, seeing the situation as people "making excuses" is fundamentally counterproductive as a manager—it sounds like you're blaming individual team members for the problem. Starting from that perspective, how can you meaningfully work with the team to improve the system and the culture?
Terry_Roll 5y ago
> My recent experience (past 5 years) had been with remote teams, where this problem is exaggerated even more. Some people see remote as an excuse to minimize their own workload so they can finish their tickets early and log off as quick as possible. Listen to yourself, you are viewing a way people want to work as a problem. The way they get the job done ?quickly? and then log off sounds ideal for a change of contract where a basic wage + performance pay could be used to incentivise parts of the workforce which in turn could improve customer satisfaction. So I wonder if you have spotted an opportunity for change whilst viewing it as a problem?

ipaddr 5y ago

Email and slack work great for newbie questions. Wikis even better. A culture that documents in a central location would fix many of your environmental issues. Loose ends get lost and should be in a ticket. Team objectives sit with the team leader. Project objectives with the project owner.

chrsig 5y ago

Interesting. As my team has gotten more experience being remote, we actually work as a team much better. Where I've noticed more of a breakdown is between teams. Not necessarily in the form of "not my job", but rather a refusal to collaborate. So more "not your turf" fiefdoms. > It takes some mentoring to get employees, remote or otherwise, to understand that the team’s deliverables are what counts rather than just closing the tickets they claimed. As hard as we try, tickets will never account for 100% of the work that needs to be done, especially when it comes to things like sharing knowledge with newer team members and helping with loose ends. Someone who wants to isolate and avoid helping others can’t really be effective in a collaborative team environment. This scales out to the inter-team level as well. the organization's success is ultimately paramount. If the company goes out of business, everyone's out looking for a new job.

tikhonj 5y ago

My experience has been that systems where people's job is to "finish tickets" actively contributes to this attitude. Even if somebody agrees in principle that it's the team and business goals that matter, what's getting measured? What feels like it matters? If somebody isn't finishing their tickets quickly they will feel bad about it because it looks bad and the processes around it reinforce that it looks bad. Even if you tell people that it's actively better to help the team, any individual doing that is still going to feel bad going to some "ceremony" and needing to say "their" tickets are "behind schedule". I remember somebody explaining to me that culture isn't based on what an organization or manager says is rewarded—or even on what's "officially" evaluated—but on what people feel is rewarded and punished. If you're constantly tracking individual tickets, that's what people are going to perceive as important just because the organization's actions place such an emphasis on it. People aren't "using remote as an excuse", they're responding to the system as it's designed! Frankly, seeing the situation as people "making excuses" is fundamentally counterproductive as a manager—it sounds like you're blaming individual team members for the problem. Starting from that perspective, how can you meaningfully work with the team to improve the system and the culture?

Terry_Roll 5y ago

> My recent experience (past 5 years) had been with remote teams, where this problem is exaggerated even more. Some people see remote as an excuse to minimize their own workload so they can finish their tickets early and log off as quick as possible. Listen to yourself, you are viewing a way people want to work as a problem. The way they get the job done ?quickly? and then log off sounds ideal for a change of contract where a basic wage + performance pay could be used to incentivise parts of the workforce which in turn could improve customer satisfaction. So I wonder if you have spotted an opportunity for change whilst viewing it as a problem?