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I look forward for when techies "get it." IRC and iChat are poor replacements for real human interaction. You can certainly work with them and even be success

I look forward for when techies "get it." IRC and iChat are poor replacements for real human interaction. You can certainly work with them and even be successful with them. But rarely do you approach the same team cohesion you get with in-person facetime. I think some mix is good. In the office 2-3 days a week and remote the rest of the time. You get a good social balance and then the freedom to work from home. Incidentally, everyone I've come across that refuses to meet that balance takes on a weird sense of entitlement, illustrating they'd probably be a poor fit anyway. I'm sure there are mitigating circumstances for that, but it is off-putting to the whole idea.

_delirium 15y ago
I've actually found IRC can be a helpful addition even when you're physically in the same place. Supports different kinds of discussions that can be useful, especially asynchronous ones, or ones where one or both people find it useful to refer to documentation while chatting.
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  Agreed. It's a great way to share reddit links.
  - defrost 15y ago
    I have to chuckle at this. I was an admin in a freenode channel at the time reddit (the one page lisp version) launched. It initially boomed as it was a great way to share IRC links . . .
  - _delirium 15y ago
    I find more the opposite; RL chat is used for fluffy taking-a-break type stuff (take off a few minutes to go the coffee machine and talk about your weekend), while real work starts once everyone gets back to their desk and puts on headphones, using IRC or IM as a unobtrusive backchannel to discuss the stuff we're working on. Works nicely with collaborative document writing in Google Docs as well. I've tried an "everyone in the same room" approach to collaborative document writing a few times, and that was a disaster for >2 people; online just works much better. Though IRL can sometimes work if it's exactly two people collaborating, who work well together, sharing one keyboard in the style of Extreme Programming (whether on code or prose).
mechanical_fish 15y ago
(I don't disagree with this, by the way. The perfect culture that supports the perfect balance of personal and remote interaction is a dream that one aspires to, not a goal one necessarily expects to attain in one's lifetime. ;)
dhh 15y ago
I think the balance really is important. What we've found is that just meeting up 3-5 times a year does the trick for us. We don't need every week.
phuff 15y ago
I have worked for several years on remote teams and have a couple years work experience on a completely local team. In terms of team cohesion I'd say that it has very little to do with colocation, all other things being equal. Maybe you just haven't worked with a cohesive fully remote team ever?
- akkartik 15y ago
  I certainly haven't. Isn't it incredibly rare?
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  I wouldn't want to rule that possibility out. But I've worked with people remotely for years and known very little about them. Because our communication is almost solely work-related. Whereas the people I work with locally I know very well. We go out for lunch or for drinks. We chat about random crap in the office. It's not really work, but from it I learn how to work with those people much better.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    I'm not doubting you, but can you provide actual examples of how this has resulted in a better work product? I don't doubt that working together physically has benefits for feeling closer to your coworkers. But I do wonder if that actually has solid bottom line results. And do those results outweigh the benefits of have more talented and productive teammates who are not in the office? When I'm stepping back to take an objective look at it, "team cohesion" is one of those things that could easily have more value ascribed to it than it actually provides.
    - nirvdrum 15y ago
      Software quality is a notoriously difficult thing to measure. Most studies are conducted over large codebases over several years (IBM & Microsoft have spent a lot of time on this). So, I can't actually prove it. I have spent a lot of time dealing with it and I know what I'm most comfortable with. And there are always exceptions. I've worked with some really talented remote people -- oddly, they usually end up relocating eventually anyway because they want to. I've also worked with some remote people that really think they're much better than they actually are. Professionally, the least satisfying jobs for me are the ones where people clock in and clock out. They may be very efficient, but I usually don't learn much from them and there's zero contact after we invariably go onto our next thing. That's a long-winded way of saying you might be right and objectively team cohesion is overrated -- I really don't know. Subjectively, I found I'm happier that way and I do my best work when satisfied. I do believe it's resulted in higher quality products usually, too. It's often the stuff you don't think about. Like overhearing a couple colleagues discussing something and being able to interject and save them a couple days of frustration. That stuff usually doesn't land in IRC, Basecamp, Skype, or whatever. But if you've managed to make it work, awesome. It's not my intention to combat the practice if it's working. I just don't like the attitude that anyone opposed to it is some sort of Luddite that sucks at business.
rbanffy 15y ago
The cohesiveness of a team has little to do with the number of hours they spend in the same room. It's much more related to the composition of the team and how much they share/agree on the purpose of what they are doing. If you have a bullshit product, no amount of duct tape will hold the team together. On the other hand, a great, world-changing idea is enough to drive the team, keep it cohesive and push its members to levels they wouldn't normally reach. DHH and his team have a world-changing idea to play with, one that has legs of its own.
- nirvdrum 15y ago
  If you work with shitty people on a shitty product, you'll have problems locally or remotely, for sure. I'm working on the assumption that people are competent in their job and working on a good product. I still don't buy that a Skype conversation is going to afford more camaraderie than grabbing a beer at lunch or playing a game of ping pong. It's that whole company culture thing. It's the difference between people I work with and those I kick ass with.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    You don't need camaraderie - you need a shared purpose and team play. They don't have to be friends - all they need is to respect and trust each other within the limits of their professional activities. Skype conversations have nothing to do with it except, perhaps, helping establish the mutual recognition more easily. Textual communications may become abrasive or be interpreted that way.
    - nirvdrum 15y ago
      I'm happy to agree to disagree. Maybe you're the most successful bastard on the Internet and you have a formula that always works. We're obviously looking for different things and drawing from different experiences. But as much as it sucks, it almost doesn't matter if you're right. The perception is you're arrogant enough to tell a company or a team how it should be run and if they don't meet your terms, they're doing it wrong and you're going to go do your own thing (this is the royal "you"). I'm exhibiting a mentality you wouldn't want to work for, you're exhibiting a mentality of someone I wouldn't want to work with. You don't have to agree with any of my rationale, but it may help you and other remoters to understand it. Perhaps it'd help to generate a more compromised view than the "you don't need" responses I usually see. And if it helps with context at all, I've experienced this as a remote employee, a local employee with remote colleagues, and an employer.
bodegajed 15y ago
I don't know about you but chatting through IRC and Skype is real human interaction to me. The experience is not certainly fake. With regards to team cohesion, there is no guarantee that you can have achieve that with in-person teams. But the bottom-line here is that do you want to have the best talents working for you or not?

_delirium 15y ago

I've actually found IRC can be a helpful addition even when you're physically in the same place. Supports different kinds of discussions that can be useful, especially asynchronous ones, or ones where one or both people find it useful to refer to documentation while chatting.

nirvdrum 15y ago
Agreed. It's a great way to share reddit links.
- defrost 15y ago
  I have to chuckle at this. I was an admin in a freenode channel at the time reddit (the one page lisp version) launched. It initially boomed as it was a great way to share IRC links . . .
- _delirium 15y ago
  I find more the opposite; RL chat is used for fluffy taking-a-break type stuff (take off a few minutes to go the coffee machine and talk about your weekend), while real work starts once everyone gets back to their desk and puts on headphones, using IRC or IM as a unobtrusive backchannel to discuss the stuff we're working on. Works nicely with collaborative document writing in Google Docs as well. I've tried an "everyone in the same room" approach to collaborative document writing a few times, and that was a disaster for >2 people; online just works much better. Though IRL can sometimes work if it's exactly two people collaborating, who work well together, sharing one keyboard in the style of Extreme Programming (whether on code or prose).

mechanical_fish 15y ago

(I don't disagree with this, by the way. The perfect culture that supports the perfect balance of personal and remote interaction is a dream that one aspires to, not a goal one necessarily expects to attain in one's lifetime. ;)

dhh 15y ago

I think the balance really is important. What we've found is that just meeting up 3-5 times a year does the trick for us. We don't need every week.

phuff 15y ago

I have worked for several years on remote teams and have a couple years work experience on a completely local team. In terms of team cohesion I'd say that it has very little to do with colocation, all other things being equal. Maybe you just haven't worked with a cohesive fully remote team ever?

akkartik 15y ago
I certainly haven't. Isn't it incredibly rare?
nirvdrum 15y ago
I wouldn't want to rule that possibility out. But I've worked with people remotely for years and known very little about them. Because our communication is almost solely work-related. Whereas the people I work with locally I know very well. We go out for lunch or for drinks. We chat about random crap in the office. It's not really work, but from it I learn how to work with those people much better.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  I'm not doubting you, but can you provide actual examples of how this has resulted in a better work product? I don't doubt that working together physically has benefits for feeling closer to your coworkers. But I do wonder if that actually has solid bottom line results. And do those results outweigh the benefits of have more talented and productive teammates who are not in the office? When I'm stepping back to take an objective look at it, "team cohesion" is one of those things that could easily have more value ascribed to it than it actually provides.
  - nirvdrum 15y ago
    Software quality is a notoriously difficult thing to measure. Most studies are conducted over large codebases over several years (IBM & Microsoft have spent a lot of time on this). So, I can't actually prove it. I have spent a lot of time dealing with it and I know what I'm most comfortable with. And there are always exceptions. I've worked with some really talented remote people -- oddly, they usually end up relocating eventually anyway because they want to. I've also worked with some remote people that really think they're much better than they actually are. Professionally, the least satisfying jobs for me are the ones where people clock in and clock out. They may be very efficient, but I usually don't learn much from them and there's zero contact after we invariably go onto our next thing. That's a long-winded way of saying you might be right and objectively team cohesion is overrated -- I really don't know. Subjectively, I found I'm happier that way and I do my best work when satisfied. I do believe it's resulted in higher quality products usually, too. It's often the stuff you don't think about. Like overhearing a couple colleagues discussing something and being able to interject and save them a couple days of frustration. That stuff usually doesn't land in IRC, Basecamp, Skype, or whatever. But if you've managed to make it work, awesome. It's not my intention to combat the practice if it's working. I just don't like the attitude that anyone opposed to it is some sort of Luddite that sucks at business.

rbanffy 15y ago

The cohesiveness of a team has little to do with the number of hours they spend in the same room. It's much more related to the composition of the team and how much they share/agree on the purpose of what they are doing. If you have a bullshit product, no amount of duct tape will hold the team together. On the other hand, a great, world-changing idea is enough to drive the team, keep it cohesive and push its members to levels they wouldn't normally reach. DHH and his team have a world-changing idea to play with, one that has legs of its own.

nirvdrum 15y ago
If you work with shitty people on a shitty product, you'll have problems locally or remotely, for sure. I'm working on the assumption that people are competent in their job and working on a good product. I still don't buy that a Skype conversation is going to afford more camaraderie than grabbing a beer at lunch or playing a game of ping pong. It's that whole company culture thing. It's the difference between people I work with and those I kick ass with.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  You don't need camaraderie - you need a shared purpose and team play. They don't have to be friends - all they need is to respect and trust each other within the limits of their professional activities. Skype conversations have nothing to do with it except, perhaps, helping establish the mutual recognition more easily. Textual communications may become abrasive or be interpreted that way.
  - nirvdrum 15y ago
    I'm happy to agree to disagree. Maybe you're the most successful bastard on the Internet and you have a formula that always works. We're obviously looking for different things and drawing from different experiences. But as much as it sucks, it almost doesn't matter if you're right. The perception is you're arrogant enough to tell a company or a team how it should be run and if they don't meet your terms, they're doing it wrong and you're going to go do your own thing (this is the royal "you"). I'm exhibiting a mentality you wouldn't want to work for, you're exhibiting a mentality of someone I wouldn't want to work with. You don't have to agree with any of my rationale, but it may help you and other remoters to understand it. Perhaps it'd help to generate a more compromised view than the "you don't need" responses I usually see. And if it helps with context at all, I've experienced this as a remote employee, a local employee with remote colleagues, and an employer.

bodegajed 15y ago

I don't know about you but chatting through IRC and Skype is real human interaction to me. The experience is not certainly fake. With regards to team cohesion, there is no guarantee that you can have achieve that with in-person teams. But the bottom-line here is that do you want to have the best talents working for you or not?