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Having had teams that were half-remote before, and all remote now, doing lots of hangouts seems to fill the remote-feels-weird niche pretty well. Just having l

Having had teams that were half-remote before, and all remote now, doing lots of hangouts seems to fill the remote-feels-weird niche pretty well. Just having long conversations in chat tends to not be productive, but you need chat. Something like Slack is a good choice if you can't get everyone on IRC. Somewhat still wanting for better "whiteboard simulator" type options. Ultimately not having an office not only saves the commute, but it saves a lot of thought-cancelling interruptions. People say this is "collaboration", but usually it's just someone being noisy in another department talking about a football game, or someone repeating the required meme / pop-culture reference to hearing a word. The advantage of having a great home office and being able to play your own music (or not to HAVE to play your own music into headphones) is pretty much priceless. It does require hiring the right kind of folks and being able to communicate very clearly what you want. It's especially valuable as I really believe being able to work on what you work on shouldn't be constrained based on where you live, because that's unfair to a lot of smart folks with reasons to not want to live in the half-dozen or so major tech centers. (Or someone gets bored working for the only major software company in town).

stevenklein 12y ago
Yeah video chatting is great. I totally see where you're coming from around office interruptions as well. My hope is that we can mitigate those while still having the ability to pair together when we want to. I also think we might not be the best personality types for remote working but who knows. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
gtaylor 12y ago
At my current company, we worked together on-site for about a year and a half. The last three and a half years, I moved off and worked remotely. While I can agree that there are benefits, I think the company would have been better served to have me local. This is all anecdotal, of course, but I think younger, smaller companies should consider the tradeoffs carefully before having remote co-founders/management. A mostly remote team can and has worked, but it's not going to be the right fit for every company. Even if you really want it to work out, and give it your best shot. Yes, you do the Video calls and you've got HipChat and email. But there's something about being there down in the muck with the rest of the team that builds cohesion, camaraderie, and enthusiasm. I say this as someone who doesn't like crowds or lots of noise. It's also really easy to lose the pulse of the group being remote. I can't easily tell how morale is, what the team's general perception of our future is, and I can't head off issues that would have been obvious in person from 180 miles away. Perhaps some of this is exacerbated by being a remote Co-founder, but I wouldn't do it again if I had the choice. I wouldn't hesitate to hire the right remote developer, but they probably wouldn't ever enter management or be a partner. You really need to be around each other because of all of those side conversations that happen outside of the meetings. That's where the best brainstorming, dreaming, and bonding happens.
- otakucode 12y ago
  It sounds to me like you expected managing remotely to be exactly the same as managing locally. You expected to be able to gauge the morale of the team, to know what people though of the groups future, etc without having to actually DO anything. When working with people locally, you at least get the impression that you understand these things from general interactions. You are wrong, of course, as your intuition is just as terrible as everyone elses, but you at least get the feeling that you know the situation. Of course managing remotely is different from managing locally. Coding, and actually being a productive knowledge worker, however, really isn't. Luckily, managers already make a large multiple more than most others in the organization, so asking them to adapt and work harder to accomplish their responsibilities should be less of a big deal than dumping that kind of thing on lower level employees who area already generating far more value for the company than they're being paid for. edit: Oh, and brainstorming is a terrible waste of everyones time and is worse than a total lack of it. Multiple studies have been done and show that brainstorming results in groups taking far worse actions than if they use other methods of coming up with solutions.
  - mc32 12y ago
    Would you have any links or references elaborating on brainstorming being a hindrance toward finding ideas or solutions? I'm interested in learning about this.
    - gtaylor 12y ago
      It's funny, because "brainstorming" means different things to different people/companies in different contexts. For us, it's sitting with a coffee and talking about a problem and possible solutions randomly. It's not even a formal process. This kind of thing just naturally happens when you are on-site. This guy is just looking to be contrarian to be contrarian. I'm not sure you're going to want to take his reply as potentially useful.
  - gtaylor 12y ago
    > It sounds to me like you expected managing remotely to be exactly the same as managing locally. You expected to be able to gauge the morale of the team, to know what people though of the groups future, etc without having to actually DO anything. No, I think this is pretty far off. I knew it'd be different being remote, and I knew I'd have to work harder to be in touch and involved. Being remote ended up working OK, it just wasn't as optimal as being on-site. I missed being there on-site, and felt like I could have been more effective had I been. It wasn't for any lack of desire or effort, it's just a sub-optimal arrangement for us in particular. The rest of your reply seemed to assume that I thought there'd be no difference in remote vs on-site (which is incorrect), so I won't respond to the rest.
sgrove 12y ago
I'm not a huge fan of remote teams for a number of reasons, but I've had some success with https://precursorapp.com/ https://precursorapp.com/ as a quick collaborative whiteboard. I'd like to be able to use it inside Google Hangouts and have the whole session/artifacts recorded, which would cover a lot of the knowledge-spreading I miss. It doesn't do anything for the camaraderie/happiness/emotional aspects mentioned in the article though.
senko 12y ago
If I can shamelessly plug my project: we're trying to solve the "whiteboard simulator" part of the picture by focusing on the essentials and getting out of your way. If you'd like to give it a spin: https://awwapp.com/ https://awwapp.com/ All feedback welcome!
- wbachnik 12y ago
  Thanks for this very useful tool! It became an essential part of online meetings with my team -- it's been working great for us. We love the simplicity. For me it's missing only a single feature: ability to draw basic shapes like lines, rectangles or squares. Thanks again!
- kazuyan 12y ago
  Awesome. I will try this for the next team meeting!
wlesieutre 12y ago
For having a remote whiteboard, shared OneNote notebooks on a Surface Pro 3 is fantastic. It's not 100% realtime sync, but it's close. Except that nobody else has a Surface Pro, so the only time I've tried it was with a friend with a Bamboo on the other end. Maybe someday.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  One can get a decent drawing tablet for about $50 these days. Pretty minimal investment.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    Yeah, but it doesn't really compare to drawing on a screen. And there's much more of a learning curve on those for people who haven't used one before.
    - tonyarkles 12y ago
      Before I got the tablet I mentioned in the sibling comment, I used a stylus with an iPad for a while. It was pretty decent, but whatever software I was using had pretty mediocre palm detection (it'd freak out a bit if I rested my hand on the screen while drawing). I'd also definitely recommend getting a more expensive stylus... the cheap ones I tried generally didn't work well at all.
  - tonyarkles 12y ago
    I haven't used it as a remote whiteboard yet, but I've got a Wacom "Intuos Pen". It's about $80 and it has served as a scrap-piece-of-paper replacement over and over. For sketching out architecture diagrams, web page "mock ups", etc, I have completely fallen in love with it. https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CTL480/ https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CTL480/
saiki 12y ago
Seems that StatusPage.io is not either using anything worth to mention for "whiteboard simulator". So here is my shameless plug of the project that I work with. Our solution for "whiteboard simulator" part is http://sketchboard.io http://sketchboard.io that lets team sketch structural diagrams together in real-time. It is not the same thing as working on a same room locally and use whiteboard since locally you can communicate a lot with your body language as well. But good remote team tools can give you something back. edit: direct link to the app is https://sketchboard.me https://sketchboard.me.

stevenklein 12y ago

Yeah video chatting is great. I totally see where you're coming from around office interruptions as well. My hope is that we can mitigate those while still having the ability to pair together when we want to. I also think we might not be the best personality types for remote working but who knows. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

gtaylor 12y ago

At my current company, we worked together on-site for about a year and a half. The last three and a half years, I moved off and worked remotely. While I can agree that there are benefits, I think the company would have been better served to have me local. This is all anecdotal, of course, but I think younger, smaller companies should consider the tradeoffs carefully before having remote co-founders/management. A mostly remote team can and has worked, but it's not going to be the right fit for every company. Even if you really want it to work out, and give it your best shot. Yes, you do the Video calls and you've got HipChat and email. But there's something about being there down in the muck with the rest of the team that builds cohesion, camaraderie, and enthusiasm. I say this as someone who doesn't like crowds or lots of noise. It's also really easy to lose the pulse of the group being remote. I can't easily tell how morale is, what the team's general perception of our future is, and I can't head off issues that would have been obvious in person from 180 miles away. Perhaps some of this is exacerbated by being a remote Co-founder, but I wouldn't do it again if I had the choice. I wouldn't hesitate to hire the right remote developer, but they probably wouldn't ever enter management or be a partner. You really need to be around each other because of all of those side conversations that happen outside of the meetings. That's where the best brainstorming, dreaming, and bonding happens.

otakucode 12y ago
It sounds to me like you expected managing remotely to be exactly the same as managing locally. You expected to be able to gauge the morale of the team, to know what people though of the groups future, etc without having to actually DO anything. When working with people locally, you at least get the impression that you understand these things from general interactions. You are wrong, of course, as your intuition is just as terrible as everyone elses, but you at least get the feeling that you know the situation. Of course managing remotely is different from managing locally. Coding, and actually being a productive knowledge worker, however, really isn't. Luckily, managers already make a large multiple more than most others in the organization, so asking them to adapt and work harder to accomplish their responsibilities should be less of a big deal than dumping that kind of thing on lower level employees who area already generating far more value for the company than they're being paid for. edit: Oh, and brainstorming is a terrible waste of everyones time and is worse than a total lack of it. Multiple studies have been done and show that brainstorming results in groups taking far worse actions than if they use other methods of coming up with solutions.
- mc32 12y ago
  Would you have any links or references elaborating on brainstorming being a hindrance toward finding ideas or solutions? I'm interested in learning about this.
  - gtaylor 12y ago
    It's funny, because "brainstorming" means different things to different people/companies in different contexts. For us, it's sitting with a coffee and talking about a problem and possible solutions randomly. It's not even a formal process. This kind of thing just naturally happens when you are on-site. This guy is just looking to be contrarian to be contrarian. I'm not sure you're going to want to take his reply as potentially useful.
- gtaylor 12y ago
  > It sounds to me like you expected managing remotely to be exactly the same as managing locally. You expected to be able to gauge the morale of the team, to know what people though of the groups future, etc without having to actually DO anything. No, I think this is pretty far off. I knew it'd be different being remote, and I knew I'd have to work harder to be in touch and involved. Being remote ended up working OK, it just wasn't as optimal as being on-site. I missed being there on-site, and felt like I could have been more effective had I been. It wasn't for any lack of desire or effort, it's just a sub-optimal arrangement for us in particular. The rest of your reply seemed to assume that I thought there'd be no difference in remote vs on-site (which is incorrect), so I won't respond to the rest.

sgrove 12y ago

I'm not a huge fan of remote teams for a number of reasons, but I've had some success with https://precursorapp.com/ https://precursorapp.com/ as a quick collaborative whiteboard. I'd like to be able to use it inside Google Hangouts and have the whole session/artifacts recorded, which would cover a lot of the knowledge-spreading I miss. It doesn't do anything for the camaraderie/happiness/emotional aspects mentioned in the article though.

senko 12y ago

If I can shamelessly plug my project: we're trying to solve the "whiteboard simulator" part of the picture by focusing on the essentials and getting out of your way. If you'd like to give it a spin: https://awwapp.com/ https://awwapp.com/ All feedback welcome!

wbachnik 12y ago
Thanks for this very useful tool! It became an essential part of online meetings with my team -- it's been working great for us. We love the simplicity. For me it's missing only a single feature: ability to draw basic shapes like lines, rectangles or squares. Thanks again!
kazuyan 12y ago
Awesome. I will try this for the next team meeting!

wlesieutre 12y ago

For having a remote whiteboard, shared OneNote notebooks on a Surface Pro 3 is fantastic. It's not 100% realtime sync, but it's close. Except that nobody else has a Surface Pro, so the only time I've tried it was with a friend with a Bamboo on the other end. Maybe someday.

s73v3r 12y ago
One can get a decent drawing tablet for about $50 these days. Pretty minimal investment.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  Yeah, but it doesn't really compare to drawing on a screen. And there's much more of a learning curve on those for people who haven't used one before.
  - tonyarkles 12y ago
    Before I got the tablet I mentioned in the sibling comment, I used a stylus with an iPad for a while. It was pretty decent, but whatever software I was using had pretty mediocre palm detection (it'd freak out a bit if I rested my hand on the screen while drawing). I'd also definitely recommend getting a more expensive stylus... the cheap ones I tried generally didn't work well at all.
- tonyarkles 12y ago
  I haven't used it as a remote whiteboard yet, but I've got a Wacom "Intuos Pen". It's about $80 and it has served as a scrap-piece-of-paper replacement over and over. For sketching out architecture diagrams, web page "mock ups", etc, I have completely fallen in love with it. https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CTL480/ https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CTL480/

saiki 12y ago

Seems that StatusPage.io is not either using anything worth to mention for "whiteboard simulator". So here is my shameless plug of the project that I work with. Our solution for "whiteboard simulator" part is http://sketchboard.io http://sketchboard.io that lets team sketch structural diagrams together in real-time. It is not the same thing as working on a same room locally and use whiteboard since locally you can communicate a lot with your body language as well. But good remote team tools can give you something back. edit: direct link to the app is https://sketchboard.me https://sketchboard.me.