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6/7/18 SFELCT Building Distributed Teams (notes)
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| Jason : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcwarner/ | |
| Dave : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-camp-2184182/ | |
| Dana : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dglawson/ | |
| Wade : https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster/ | |
| Tim : https://www.linkedin.com/in/timols/ | |
| * Jason | |
| * “Remote is the future” => “Remote is the present” | |
| * Key Factors | |
| * Hiring | |
| * Culture | |
| * Get on phone/video more than you think | |
| * Good Communication Skills : Writing things down, Asking questions, not assuming | |
| * Trust that org is doing what’s supposed to be; failure comes in lack of trust => tribes form | |
| * On leadership to determine measures of productivity, output of systems | |
| * Solid managers; connect with ICs | |
| * remote | |
| * “pros far outweigh the cons” (10yrs as a remote executive) | |
| * cons are numerous but can be found in dysfunctional non-remote orgs too | |
| * biggest challenge to remote : Venture Capital | |
| * industry is lacking in leadership | |
| * primary benefit : hiring talented people not in same Geo (families, mortgages : challenging in SF) | |
| * do it early, harder to do later | |
| * Questions | |
| * What are signs of miscommunications in remote team? | |
| * model : Hub-and-spoke e.g. Core and Features | |
| * miscommunication : drift, no processes, tighten feedback loops; planning Monday, demo Friday | |
| * wording : “I thought we talked about this…” | |
| * How to turn individuals into a team? | |
| * Team understands the context and is aligned on the objective/mission | |
| * ICs/MGRs have 1:1s, team meetings, personal connection (spouses, families, pets, etc.) | |
| * “Worst time to introduce yourself to your neighbor is when your house is burning” | |
| * How often to your bring your teams together? | |
| * X-Y times per year (depending on factors, run-rate, etc. : 1X/Quarter) | |
| * Paying down a remote tax via travel in order to be aligned | |
| * Managers to travel 4 times per year, onsites for teams (prioritize HQ) | |
| * get overlap in upside; face-time with folks | |
| * How do you managing leveling for remote teams? | |
| * read body language over video | |
| * ask questions, hopefully answer truthfully | |
| * “What I heard was ..” | |
| * What do you substitute for “management-by-walking-around”? | |
| * that tends to be lazy management | |
| * want management to be more intentional | |
| * Biggest challenge IC faces being distributed? | |
| * not knowing the other people | |
| * pics tell a terrible story; directory doesn’t show | |
| * being able to quickly figure out who a person is | |
| * What about spontaneous conversations happening in HQ that remote teams don’t have access? | |
| * more people local, tends to happen more | |
| * local people need to be mindful to pull in remote | |
| * write down the decision in a tool (wiki) | |
| * get local people to work remotely at home in order to increase empathy (1d/week) | |
| * How to keep remote teams modulated? | |
| * do surveys to see how employees are feeling (locals were less satisfied than remotes) | |
| * give them challenges, praise when successful, help when not | |
| * people tend to get snarky on text, not on video | |
| * Performance & Comp Reviews in person? | |
| * wherever the person is | |
| * Remote : one-size-fits-all? | |
| * lots of tools | |
| * To start : better to have remote manager or be a manger of remote ICs? | |
| * better footing if everyone is distributed | |
| * Panel | |
| * panelists | |
| * Dave (1200K ppl; 6 offices, 14 countries) | |
| * Dana (100% remote; 650+ppl) | |
| * Wade (100% remote; 160ppl total, 2/3 US) | |
| * Tim (1000ppl, 40 offices; 250 prod dev) | |
| * topics | |
| * What are you doing to stay on top of objectives? | |
| * Tim : blog, weekly updates, strategy papers, semi-annual get-togethers, lots of video chats/Slack junkies | |
| * Wade : repeats self ad-naseum, pump metrics into all channels, different people learn differently | |
| * Dana : ESL; all Slack, no email; all email, no Slack | |
| * Wade : 2X/year get-together, weekly all-hands, team checkins, Slack/IRC, email lists | |
| * When did you open distributed teams? forcing factors? | |
| * Tim : personal circumstances of key people, integration of acquisitions | |
| * Wade : buy-in from stakeholders? company started as side-project; YC 2012, CEO moved to Montana, old colleagues hired in Chicago, Missouri | |
| * Dave : anti-patterns? 1) being a jerk because it’s text 2) rumors mills | |
| * Dana : assuming the best | |
| * Guiding principles explicitly applied? | |
| * Tim : assume good intent, missed context over text; video first and foremost, 10% verbal, don’t wait to check something out; pair programming (on everything; always two ppl) | |
| * Wade : hiring for values, default actions; smart decisions without hand-holding; default transparency, teams need to know what problems are | |
| * Dave : comes from starting as OSS; write stuff down | |
| * Dana : establish written culture; Design Thinking for all problems | |
| * How do you do pair-programming, understanding requirements? | |
| * Wade : team owns charter, roadmap, specs; course correct with quick checkins | |
| * What are some ways you’ve connected on a human level? | |
| * Dave : 30 min mtg no agenda no work topic : 2-3yrs | |
| * Tim : remote happy hours, dial in 15 mins early for mtgs | |
| * Wade : rituals to build bonds, Friday updates, pair buddies, rando bot; 30 min Zoom call on non-work stuff, dance party GIF in Slack channel | |
| * Remote : will it last? | |
| * Dave : definitely, tools getting better | |
| * Tim : on-the-fence | |
| * Wade : definitely | |
| * Dana : definitely (harder and harder to find engineers, designers, etc.; talented people in lots of locales) | |
| * What Time-zone difference is too big? | |
| * Dave : difficulty comes when there’s no overlap | |
| * Tim : 12 hrs, the exact opposite; go for no more than 3-4 hr time difference | |
| * Wade : core team should have overlap | |
| * Dana : follow Eastern hours (Portland) | |
| * What skill level do you look for to hire? | |
| * Wade : tend to get more Senior people | |
| * Tim : more junior people tend to start near office | |
| * Dave : junior people come into HQ | |
| * Dana : “it depends” on the work; interns, task driven work; amp up checkins with junior ppl; look for humble people, “onboarding buddies” | |
| * Communication skills : better for remote or onsite? | |
| * Dave : remote work amplifies problems | |
| * How to recruit unknown quantities? | |
| * Tim : handful of remote Product Managers; they pair | |
| * Wade : hire from user base which is technical (search “Guide to Remote Work” by Zapier) | |
| * Dana : made a movie; remote meetups e.g. Toronto, hiring event; need to self-promote, blog | |
| * How do you deal with payroll/work auth issues? | |
| * Wade : need good lawyers, accountants; compliance challenges are toughest; good HR team; pay in local currency; JustWorks, Trinet (PPOs?) | |
| * Dave : hire from the community; avoid if possible | |
| * Tim : there are companies that solve this problem | |
| * Jason : diligence (Github); advice - stay in same country (North America) then move to another country | |
| * How do you handle salaries? | |
| * Wade : two schools of thought; make a choice | |
| * Tim : local vs remote; regional average | |
| * Dana : blended, (equal) pay bands, divide location market rate within band | |
| * How do you interview for remote people? | |
| * Dave : communication skills | |
| * Creating trust between teams? | |
| * Tim : write things down, Trust, make it clear; remote work charter (inspired by FogBugz remote work policy) | |
| * make easier to track | |
| * two people not working well together work together until they work together well | |
| * Colocation for product component? | |
| * Dave : team has to have a home base; can’t have sub teams | |
| * Tools for design work collaboration? | |
| * Dana : Freehand, DB; Dropbox, Zapier | |
| * Wade : Mural, screen share on Zoom | |
| * Dave : Slack/IRC, wikis, Bugzilla, Github, Invision, Google docs | |
| * Tim : Trello, Jira, Google Docs, Screenhero (now not so good) | |
| On behalf of Pipefy, the operations excellence platform : https://www.pipefy.com |
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