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I believe telecommuting can and does work well, but I can also see the other side of things. Many times developers on their own spend excess time on issues that

I believe telecommuting can and does work well, but I can also see the other side of things. Many times developers on their own spend excess time on issues that could be done quickly just with a little collaboration. I understand that there are many project/team collaboration tools out there, but developers seem to thrive better in a whiteboard environment. I also work in an extremely fast paced shop so I may end up working on 3 or 4 different projects in one day while pulling in different people to discuss business requirements. For a stable shop with a lot of structure, I believe telecommuting can excel but for smaller shops that are constantly fighting fires and releasing new functionality on multiple projects on almost a weekly basis, telecommuting becomes difficult. The largest problem is the loss of mentor-ship. Since it is difficult to hire experienced developers right now, we are having to hire more level one developers and have them become men-tees. I have a hard time believing that a telecommuting mentor-ship would be possible.

kls 15y ago
I understand that there are many project/team collaboration tools out there, but developers seem to thrive better in a whiteboard environment I used to think the same way, that the organic nature of the team could not be fostered in a distributed environment. That was until I did several remote projects and started finding ways to replace the whiteboard with electronic equivalents. Once we figured out how to replace that with an electronic alternative we saw the teams grow and bear fruit. I have many coworkers now that I have never meet face to face that I know as well as many of my long time coworkers from physical environments. I was skeptical at first but I have changed my stance. It takes effort by one person on the team to foster the community but once it starts it seems to run on autopilot.

kls 15y ago

I understand that there are many project/team collaboration tools out there, but developers seem to thrive better in a whiteboard environment I used to think the same way, that the organic nature of the team could not be fostered in a distributed environment. That was until I did several remote projects and started finding ways to replace the whiteboard with electronic equivalents. Once we figured out how to replace that with an electronic alternative we saw the teams grow and bear fruit. I have many coworkers now that I have never meet face to face that I know as well as many of my long time coworkers from physical environments. I was skeptical at first but I have changed my stance. It takes effort by one person on the team to foster the community but once it starts it seems to run on autopilot.