3 ms·

> I know a lot of that acculturation used to happen by osmosis and people working next to each other. I used to think this too, but I think we need to be cauti

> I know a lot of that acculturation used to happen by osmosis and people working next to each other. I used to think this too, but I think we need to be cautious of magical mechanisms for knowledge transference. I think the real mechanisms are code reviews, discussions of issues+code+project, consults / shared problem solving, design reviews. Just sitting next to someone doesn't work, there needs to be a shared task or problem for knowledge transfer to happen. I think all of these shared tasks happen with remote workers just as effectively, as long as you have good team comm hygiene.

majormajor 4y ago
The biggest difference between remote and in-person is that many of those things can happen more easily without being scheduled. The organizational management skill bar you need to hit as a team is lower when the communication friction is much lower. Talking to your teammate who sits nearby in person is both lower friction and higher bandwidth than sending them a chat method. "Adhoc conversations" don't magically lead to knowledge transfer, the probability of any adhoc convo being long-term-meaningful is low, but they greatly increase the cumulative probability.