Making a distributed working environment work well

We’re experiencing new innovation and disruption messaging constantly, and because of that, finding a job in tech has really been the employee’s market for the last several years. The internet is distributed, the technology we work on allows people to connect from across the globe. We understand the technology, but what about the people side of this? How do you build and lead a distributed team?

This discussion will cover how the fallacies of distributed computing are just as real when applied to people as they are with computers. Did a message get there? Was it garbled in transit? Is state properly synchronized? The network truly isn’t homogenous as different people have different work styles that need to be accommodated.

I’ll walk through communication expectations, performance management, interviewing, onboarding, career growth, communications, and how the things we take for granted like grabbing a cup of coffee in the morning are a whole new challenge. This talk is geared toward those who are on or want to build out distributed teams -- whether it’s due to costs in certain locations or just to cast the widest net on the talent pool.

Transcript

1. 1 Making a distributed working environment work well
 
 Michael Stahnke VP Platform @stahnma
2. @stahnma @stahnma
3. @stahnma
4. Fallacies of distributed computing The network is reliable Latency is zero Bandwidth is infinite The network is secure Topology doesn’t change There is one administrator Transport cost is zero The network is homogeneous
5. @stahnma
6. @stahnma
7. @stahnma
8. @stahnma
9. 9 The Company
10. No Islands @stahnma
11. @stahnma
12. @stahnma
13. 13 Management Tips
14. –Johnny Appleseed Say what do, do what you say @stahnma
15. Communication must be deliberate @stahnma
16. @stahnma provide context for the team. @stahnma
17. @stahnma
18. @stahnma Don’t have face to face meetings for broadcast
19. @stahnma Record output from meetings @stahnma
20. @stahnma Delegate with authority @stahnma
21. What do you do for work? Programming What do you do for fun?
 Programming What do you do when you’re not programming? Think about Programming @stahnma
22. @stahnma Working remotely once, means they can more easily do it again. @stahnma
23. @stahnma Working remotely once, means they can more easily do it again. @stahnma
24. 24 Employee Tips
25. @stahnma
26. 26 The Culture
27. –Johnny Appleseed Commit to the Culture @stahnma
28. @stahnma Team hangout @stahnma
29. @stahnma –Johnny Appleseed Picture of the life-size conference room @stahnma
30. @stahnma –Johnny Appleseed Drive the team with tech. @stahnma
31. @stahnma Remove private channels in slack/ hipchat @stahnma
32. Get picture of a dashboard setup here @stahnma
33. UTC date -d ‘2016–03–28 22:00 UTC’ @stahnma
34. @stahnma @stahnma
35. @stahnma @stahnma
36. 36 The Hard Problems
37. –Johnny Appleseed Community Involvement @stahnma
38. @stahnma Interviewing @stahnma
39. @stahnma Difficulty brining in distributed entry- level folks @stahnma
40. Fallacies of distributed human communication The network is reliable Latency is zero Bandwidth is infinite The network is secure Topology doesn’t change There is one administrator Transport cost is zero The network is homogeneous Communication is reliable Everybody is in the same timezone AV is a solved problem The network is secure Incentives for a human don’t vary Tribal knowledge works There is a travel budget Humans have the same work style @stahnma
41. @stahnma Thank you.
42. References https://medium.com/@stahnma/on-working-remotely-part-1-909e9968ecbb https://medium.com/@stahnma/remote-management-on-working-remotely-part-ii-9e938fe0ea75 https://medium.com/@stahnma/the-company-with-remote-employees-on-working-remotely-part- iii-6555e253d63f https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/velocity-2016-/9781491944653/video261531.html @stahnma