Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Building and scaling effective distributed teams
Search
Lindsay Holmwood
November 27, 2017
Education
4
220
Building and scaling effective distributed teams
Lindsay Holmwood
November 27, 2017
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Lindsay Holmwood
See All by Lindsay Holmwood
Your API ain't as secure as you think
auxesis
0
130
Footguns and factorisation: how to make users of your cryptographic library successful
auxesis
0
1.4k
Levelling up database security by thinking in APIs
auxesis
0
130
How to thwart your devops transformation with counterinsurgency doctrine
auxesis
1
82
Microservices are an antipattern
auxesis
0
210
Mirrors, networks, and boundaries
auxesis
0
110
Managing remotely, while remotely managing
auxesis
13
4.4k
Testing Conway’s Law in open source communities
auxesis
6
640
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
auxesis
2
280
Other Decks in Education
See All in Education
Gesture-based Interaction - Lecture 6 - Next Generation User Interfaces (4018166FNR)
signer
PRO
0
1.6k
【お子さま向け】Amazon ECS サービスディスカバリーって知ってる?【楽しい読み聞かせ】
tubone24
8
850
CV_1_Introduction
hachama
0
200
Monaca Education 活用事例セミナー:「年間通してMonaca Educationを活用する授業実践のご報告」
asial_edu
0
250
教員向け生成AI講座 ~基礎から応用まで~
luiyoshida
0
500
OpenRobomaster 中国のロボットコンテスト 日本連携の可能性
takasumasakazu
0
380
Поступай в ТОГУ 2025
pnuslide
0
37k
Virtual and Augmented Reality - Lecture 8 - Next Generation User Interfaces (4018166FNR)
signer
PRO
0
1.6k
新人研修の課題と未来を考える
natsukokanda1225
0
1.7k
OpenAI Education Forum 資料「教育と生成AI ~事例から見えるこれからの活用~」
luiyoshida
1
630
SkimaTalk Tutorial for Corporate Customers
skimatalk
0
240
あきた地域課題解決インターンMarch2025
toyodome
0
400
Featured
See All Featured
Faster Mobile Websites
deanohume
306
31k
Building a Modern Day E-commerce SEO Strategy
aleyda
40
7.2k
Designing Dashboards & Data Visualisations in Web Apps
destraynor
231
53k
Why Our Code Smells
bkeepers
PRO
336
57k
The Illustrated Children's Guide to Kubernetes
chrisshort
48
49k
The Myth of the Modular Monolith - Day 2 Keynote - Rails World 2024
eileencodes
23
2.6k
Thoughts on Productivity
jonyablonski
69
4.6k
Code Reviewing Like a Champion
maltzj
522
40k
Exploring the Power of Turbo Streams & Action Cable | RailsConf2023
kevinliebholz
32
5.4k
Learning to Love Humans: Emotional Interface Design
aarron
273
40k
ピンチをチャンスに:未来をつくるプロダクトロードマップ #pmconf2020
aki_iinuma
119
51k
Facilitating Awesome Meetings
lara
54
6.3k
Transcript
Building and scaling effective distributed teams Lindsay Holmwood
About me Worked in and lead distributed software engineering teams
for 7 years
About me Lead teams with follow-the-sun coverage
About me Currently at Envato leading distributed team of 15
The journey 0. Fundamentals 1. Starting out 2. Growing the
team 3. Scaling to the whole org
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
No management buy in? Don’t even bother.
Starting out
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
Regular face to face catchups. Ideal: once a quarter
Regular face to face catchups. Likely: once a year
Establish rituals
Multiple internet connections Dongle with lots of data
Multiple internet connections Don’t skimp on quality (fast upload a
must)
Multiple internet connections Move to areas with NBN
Multiple internet connections Have backup equipment
Instant messaging Non-negotiable, primary comms method
Instant messaging Your lifeline to your team.
Instant messaging Scheduled do not disturb time
Instant messaging Announce start/stop
Ceremonies: Daily standup Rotate the facilitation responsibility
Ceremonies: Retrospectives Discuss and refactor practices
Leadership participation Show endorsement. Build empathy.
Growing the team
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
The basics Even more important!
The basics Bring in coaches to observe and facilitate.
Hack: Greet everyone to check
Hack: Ask questions in the negative “Does anyone disagree?” not
“Do we all agree?”
Team design: Time zone coverage How many time zones? How
much time zone overlap?
Team design: Time zone coverage Add people in new time
zones in pairs.
Team design: Time zone coverage Beginning & end of day
standups.
Team design: Time zone coverage Record crucial meetings.
Team design: Antipattern: Forcing everyone to work at exactly the
same time
Team design: Antipattern: Communication in physical spaces that excludes remoters
Team design: Antipattern: Activities that exclude remoters (use of whiteboards)
(in-person icebreakers)
Google Quick Draw
Team design: Defining question How would this decision make me
feel if I was working from home?
Leadership participation Show endorsement. Build empathy.
Scaling to the whole org
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
What does it take to make distributed teams a first
class citizen in the organisation?
The executive and management working remotely at least 2 days
a week.
Guilds Share lessons learnt with other teams
Feedback loops Keep refactoring your ways of working.
Feedback loops “What got us here won’t get us there."
Thank you! (and questions?)