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The hardest part about working remotely is convincing the non-remote developers to stay engaged. When everyone is in the same office except for one or two peopl

The hardest part about working remotely is convincing the non-remote developers to stay engaged. When everyone is in the same office except for one or two people things can fall apart. Hallway chats happen over coffee, decisions get made offline and things start to happen without keeping the remote people in the loop. I like the idea of encouraging people in the office to, "work as if you're not here." The advantages will add up over time and not just for remote people: you'll have databases and logs of everything! Throw search engines on it, watch trends evolve and use it to be more productive!

cgh 13y ago
"I like the idea of encouraging people in the office to, "work as if you're not here." The advantages will add up over time and not just for remote people: you'll have databases and logs of everything! Throw search engines on it, watch trends evolve and use it to be more productive!" I've been working remotely since 2006. Probably 90% of the decisions I'm involved in happen over the phone, either one on one or in group conversations via Webex. So there are no logs.
- agentultra 13y ago
  I've only been doing it for a few years. Video chats still happen and phone-in meetings but a lot of things are captured somewhere: email, wikis, commit logs, trackers and the like.
  - cgh 13y ago
    Agreed, probably the biggest for us is IM logs actually. Usefully searching and organising email is an open problem - there is probably considerable scope here for improvement and I'm sure enterprises would pay lots for some kind of meaningful email discussion trend mapping.
- mrkurt 13y ago
  This is where the "async" bit comes in. Remoteness is a good excuse to work asynchronously, but people still have to think it's important to leave breadcrumbs.
rschmitty 13y ago
> When everyone is in the same office except for one or two people things can fall apart. Hallway chats happen over coffee, decisions get made offline and things start to happen without keeping the remote people in the loop. That is just bad practice even without remote workers. Chats are going to happen offline all the time, over coffee, over IM, or in the hallway. No matter what you should be reconnecting with the entire team about the choices. Whether that means a google hangout with your remote worker or talking to the guys you didn't go out to lunch with in the same office
felideon 13y ago
The last time I brought this up when we were expanding our pool to include remote, the response I got was: "Yeah, but then we lose all the face-to-face benefits." I wonder if I should challenge what these perceived benefits are.
- RHSeeger 13y ago
  There are definitely face to face benefits, so I wouldn't recommend pursuing the route of arguing that there isn't. Rather, arguing that working remotely also has benefits, that there are tradeoffs, and that the gains from remote working can outweigh the losses from no face to face time.
gutnor 13y ago
There is the flip side of it too. This networking effect of having developer hanging around the business people and sales is also the added value of those developers. As one of my manager put it, why would I hire a remote worker in the UK when we can just add more people to our office in Poland. ( Polish dev are just as good, well qualified and hard to find but they are cheaper ) To me "work as if you're not there" is just volunteering to prove your job can be outsourced.
- mrkurt 13y ago
  "Hanging around" works in any kind of shared setting. Our non-engineering discussions are really accessible in Hipchat, which is cool.
- lucaspiller 13y ago
  > This networking effect of having developer hanging around the business people and sales is also the added value of those developers. At my last on-site position (now I'm contracting remotely) the dev team was originally going to be in another city (London) from the rest of the company (minor EU capital), however because of this reason it was decided we should all be together. I rarely saw the advantages of this, or felt value from being around the business folks. Most decisions were made in hallway chats and we were kept out of the loop, except when something 'super urgent' needed to be changed and a PM walked over and grabbed someone. Disadvantages were apparent, as it was a lot harder to find decent Rails developers compared to London.
- mpermar 13y ago
  Flipping the flip side, actually your point is what I found most challenging from working remotely. You really need to probe each day that your work can't be outsourced that easily. I've constantly put myself over the last few years to ensure that I deliver value each day or each week at most. And that has proven incredibly productive for myself. If you have a hard working person that understands that very simple concept then he or she can work from anywhere as long as he or she stays really focused, only then will hardly be beaten by a local folk or folks working on an office and subject to all sort of distractions.
fhd2 13y ago
> The hardest part about working remotely is convincing the non-remote developers to stay engaged. Couldn't agree more. I could actually work one day per week from home at my last job, but interacting with everyone in the office was close to impossible, all communication was almost comically co-located. This isn't my style of working, even when in an office, so I realised I don't fit in and left. At my current company I'm working remote all the time. The boss is remoting as well, which is a pretty good guarantee that it's going to work out. There's only one dev in the office in fact, so he doesn't have any choice but to communicate properly :)

cgh 13y ago

"I like the idea of encouraging people in the office to, "work as if you're not here." The advantages will add up over time and not just for remote people: you'll have databases and logs of everything! Throw search engines on it, watch trends evolve and use it to be more productive!" I've been working remotely since 2006. Probably 90% of the decisions I'm involved in happen over the phone, either one on one or in group conversations via Webex. So there are no logs.

agentultra 13y ago
I've only been doing it for a few years. Video chats still happen and phone-in meetings but a lot of things are captured somewhere: email, wikis, commit logs, trackers and the like.
- cgh 13y ago
  Agreed, probably the biggest for us is IM logs actually. Usefully searching and organising email is an open problem - there is probably considerable scope here for improvement and I'm sure enterprises would pay lots for some kind of meaningful email discussion trend mapping.
mrkurt 13y ago
This is where the "async" bit comes in. Remoteness is a good excuse to work asynchronously, but people still have to think it's important to leave breadcrumbs.

rschmitty 13y ago

> When everyone is in the same office except for one or two people things can fall apart. Hallway chats happen over coffee, decisions get made offline and things start to happen without keeping the remote people in the loop. That is just bad practice even without remote workers. Chats are going to happen offline all the time, over coffee, over IM, or in the hallway. No matter what you should be reconnecting with the entire team about the choices. Whether that means a google hangout with your remote worker or talking to the guys you didn't go out to lunch with in the same office

felideon 13y ago

The last time I brought this up when we were expanding our pool to include remote, the response I got was: "Yeah, but then we lose all the face-to-face benefits." I wonder if I should challenge what these perceived benefits are.

RHSeeger 13y ago
There are definitely face to face benefits, so I wouldn't recommend pursuing the route of arguing that there isn't. Rather, arguing that working remotely also has benefits, that there are tradeoffs, and that the gains from remote working can outweigh the losses from no face to face time.

gutnor 13y ago

There is the flip side of it too. This networking effect of having developer hanging around the business people and sales is also the added value of those developers. As one of my manager put it, why would I hire a remote worker in the UK when we can just add more people to our office in Poland. ( Polish dev are just as good, well qualified and hard to find but they are cheaper ) To me "work as if you're not there" is just volunteering to prove your job can be outsourced.

mrkurt 13y ago
"Hanging around" works in any kind of shared setting. Our non-engineering discussions are really accessible in Hipchat, which is cool.
lucaspiller 13y ago
> This networking effect of having developer hanging around the business people and sales is also the added value of those developers. At my last on-site position (now I'm contracting remotely) the dev team was originally going to be in another city (London) from the rest of the company (minor EU capital), however because of this reason it was decided we should all be together. I rarely saw the advantages of this, or felt value from being around the business folks. Most decisions were made in hallway chats and we were kept out of the loop, except when something 'super urgent' needed to be changed and a PM walked over and grabbed someone. Disadvantages were apparent, as it was a lot harder to find decent Rails developers compared to London.
mpermar 13y ago
Flipping the flip side, actually your point is what I found most challenging from working remotely. You really need to probe each day that your work can't be outsourced that easily. I've constantly put myself over the last few years to ensure that I deliver value each day or each week at most. And that has proven incredibly productive for myself. If you have a hard working person that understands that very simple concept then he or she can work from anywhere as long as he or she stays really focused, only then will hardly be beaten by a local folk or folks working on an office and subject to all sort of distractions.

fhd2 13y ago

> The hardest part about working remotely is convincing the non-remote developers to stay engaged. Couldn't agree more. I could actually work one day per week from home at my last job, but interacting with everyone in the office was close to impossible, all communication was almost comically co-located. This isn't my style of working, even when in an office, so I realised I don't fit in and left. At my current company I'm working remote all the time. The boss is remoting as well, which is a pretty good guarantee that it's going to work out. There's only one dev in the office in fact, so he doesn't have any choice but to communicate properly :)