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Remote ok!.. Or not?

Asynchronous and remote working in software development

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About us!

Juergen Eger

Front End Team Lead at Ebury

but also very happy with full stack

Fully remote since February 2021
Passionate about wellbeing of people

Nico Riedmann

Team Lead at Dynatrace

should not be allowed near frontends

Back in the office 3-4 days a week
Passionate about fostering collaboration

About Us

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Pros/Cons for the company

Pros

Cost saving
Pool of talent
Reduction in absenteeism

Cons

Contract nightmare
Harder to foster good company culture

About Remote Work

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Pros/cons for the employee

Pros

Cost saving
Time saving
Location independence
Peace and quiet
Work/life balance
Comfortable environment

Cons

Always connected
No face-to-face interaction
Work/life balance
Easy to get disconnected from other teams/build silos
Fewer chances for social interactions with colleagues

About Remote Work

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Remote working at Ebury

Our technology team is 100% remote since 2020

Tactical decision done early on in the pandemic

Hiring still focused around development hubs (Malaga, London and lately Sao Paulo)
Adding talents from GMT -4 to GMT +2 also outside of hubs as external contractors
Get together on annual basis in one of the development hubs
Remote conversation via slack, mail, google meetup

Networking via slack bot introducing “donut” talks
Regular 1:1 exchange between team members
Regular team social sessions

About Remote Work

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Hybrid working at Dynatrace

🦠 occasional remote days -> 100% remote in home-country
Already used to distributed work

R&D offices in Austria, Poland, Spain & US

Still fully remote, but office is open
Currently ~30-40% in-office each day in Graz
Long term: hybrid work
Office as space to foster collaboration/communication in person

About Remote Work

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Making Remote Work work

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(Home)Office set up

Quiet 🤫
Comfortable 💺
Distraction less 🙈🙉🙊
Multiple monitors 🖥️🖥️🖥️
Video chat equipment 🎧📸🎙️

Making Remote Work work

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My current office set up

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Management focus

Clear Vision 🚀
Build upon motivation 💪
Measure success/failure 📈
Asynchronous Processes ⚙️

Making Remote Work work

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Management focus

Clear Vision 🚀

Big Picture
Objectives

Build upon motivation
Measure success/failure
Asynchronous Processes

Making Remote Work work

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Management focus

Clear Vision
Build upon motivation 💪

Intrinsic (Inside Out)
Extrinsic (Outside In)

Measure success/failure
Asynchronous Processes

Making Remote Work work

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Management focus

Clear Vision
Build upon motivation
Measure success/failure 📈

Outcome (What)
Output (How much)

Asynchronous Processes

Making Remote Work work

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Management focus

Clear Vision
Build upon motivation
Measure success/failure
Asynchronous Processes ⚙️

Timezone independent
Flexible working time friendly

Making Remote Work work

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Synchronous interaction

Regular 1:1 sessions 👥
Short, prepared meetings 🗓️
Staying connected 🔗
Social interaction 🐧

Making Remote Work work

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Synchronous interaction

Regular 1:1 sessions 👥

Fixed schedule
Jump hierarchy
No fixed agenda
Connected teams

Short, prepared meetings
Staying connected
Social interaction

Making Remote Work work

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Synchronous interaction

Regular 1:1 sessions
Short, prepared meetings 🗓️

30 - 45 Minutes
Agenda
Desired outcome
Meeting notes

Staying connected
Social interaction

Making Remote Work work

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Synchronous interaction

Regular 1:1 sessions
Short, prepared meetings
Staying connected 🔗

Chat
Pair programming
Pair review

Social interaction

Making Remote Work work

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Synchronous interaction

Regular 1:1 sessions
Short, prepared meetings
Staying connected
Social interaction 🐧

Common interests
Random coffee talks
Random silly questions
Be creative!

Making Remote Work work

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Pitfalls in remote working

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Always Online

💻

Risk to expect yourself and others to be "always online"
Way "back into the office" is a lot shorter

Common Pitfalls

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Lost in Time

and Space

⌚

Potential synchronous time reduces
Be aware of differences - don’t expect someone to wake up at 4 AM

Common Pitfalls

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Excessive Workations

🏖️

Set up usually not 100% productive
Timezone might be different
Not really a vacation either

Common Pitfalls

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Hybrid Work

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What is Hybrid Work?

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Why Hybrid Teams?

🚀

Mix the good parts, alleviate the bad parts
Social and face-to-face interactions in person
Focused and asynchronous work anywhere
High degree of flexibility

Why Hybrid Work?

So why would you want to do hybrid work?

A hybrid work mode allows us to mix the good parts of remote and office work, and consciously use them to work around the bad parts.

Social and face-to-face interactions can happen in person - in the office, or as I'm proving right now in another location of your company.

Collaborative and creative work also benefits from meeting in person, rather than in front of a screen.

On the other hand focus and work that does not have to happen synchronously can happen anywhere.

If you're digging into a tricky bug, you don't need to sit in the office, you could sit at home or on a tropical island as long as you can focus there.

And if you need your colleagues they're just a slack message, huddle or zoom meeting away anyway.

So all in all it simply allows for a high degree of flexibility in how a team and an individual works.

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Making Hybrid Work work

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Think

"Remote First"

🌐

Keep important communication written

remote folks can't hear what you discuss over coffee
can't join that unplanned meeting in your office
use public channels
write meeting notes
move online!

Making Hybrid work

First off, think remote first!

The biggest pitfall of hybrid work is acting like everyone's in the office.

If you do that, people who aren't will miss out on vital information.

�So keep the important stuff written.

Remote folks can't hear what you've discussed over a coffee.

And they can't join that discussion that started in the office when you realized that new feature can't actually be implemented as you had planned.

Now here's what we try to do:

To give people the chance to "overhear" interesting discussions just like in the office, we try to keep our communication on slack public, rather than in DMs.

Now that doesn't mean we only talk on slack if we're sitting next to each other - if we discussed something others might need to know, write it down, just like meeting notes.

And if there's a bigger topic that needs synchronous discussion or pair programming - do it via zoom and post a link so other know and could join.

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Think

"Remote First"

🌐

Set the same stage for everyone

easier to get speaking time in person
let remote participants speak first
or join from your desk even in the office

Making Hybrid work

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Use your Time well

🕑

Consciously use synchronous and in-person time

team office days

not for meetings
for things that work better in person (retros, 1:1s, coffee, ...)

asynchronous processes and focused meetings - no matter where

Making Hybrid work

On our office day we do our standup in person.

And we've agreed on an office day to ensure we make the most of being able to spend time in person.

And to spend that time well.

That means that we do not fill our office day (or days) with meetings,

but things that benefit from happening in person.

Like team retrospectives, 1on1s or just grabbing coffee, chatting and collaborating in person.

On the other hand no matter if some, all or none of us are in the same place, we do everything that can be done that way, in async or written form and we strive to keep meetings short and focused.

One example of that which we actually kept from when we had Jay working from Detroit, is that before we meet for backlog refinements we share a list of stories and expect everyone to read and form an estimate beforehand. �That ensures when we get together everyone is prepared with thoughts and questions and we can sometimes even skip discussion of stories that are already clear to everyone.

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Wrapping up

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Quote

I keep hearing CEOs say they need workers back in the office for "productivity."

What's going to motivate to work harder: a ping-pong table at the office or the chance to avoid 2 hours in rush-hour traffic? A pizza party or getting to see your pets/loved ones during the day? Small talk in the office kitchen or the chance to chill and recharge on your couch?

Dan Price - Founder/CEO Gravity Payments

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6828380737906061312/

Wrapping up

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Verdict

Remote working is great if you have proper home set up and the organization is build upon it
Social interaction must be a essential part of the company culture
Focus on measuring and adapting is key
Most best-practices of full-remote work, apply just as much for hybrid or full-office

Wrapping up

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Questions & Discussion

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Random chat questions

“Would you rather be covered in fur 🐻 or covered in scales 🐟”

“If the fingers on one of your hands ✋ were condiment dispensers and you could only have those condiments for the rest of your life, what would you choose?”