Working in Development: Leaving sounds like a great decision.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Working in Development: Leaving sounds like a great decision.

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speng31b: May 8, 2010

A team's ability to support remote workers is a litmus test for its in-office communication, full stop.

If you can't communicate with remote workers, it's a sign that your management style is ad-hoc and reactionary rather than planned and deliberate. This style of management is not scalable and always on the verge of breakdown. It can appear to be working if you have a handful of people constantly walking around and getting status updates from everyone throughout the day, but this is bad for the overall productivity of both the manager and the workers involved (presumably this manager has some personal responsibilities aside from walking around and checking with people at their desks constantly).

This isn't to say that everyone needs to hire remote workers - there are still great reasons to focus on having people onsite. But if the main/sole reason for not hiring them is that you're worried about communications, that's problematic.

speng31b fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Feb 11, 2018

# ? Feb 11, 2018 19:39

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# ? May 10, 2024 04:15

metztli: Mar 19, 2006; Which lead to the obvious photoshop, making me suspect that their ad agencies or creative types must be aware of what goes on at SA

In an ideal world, open offices are fine.

In a world with people they trend towards horrible because there are always those assholes who don�t know how to speak at anything less than a full shout and nobody wants to have to police them all the time.

I can deal with normal to loud workplace chatter no problem. I can�t deal with constantly feeling like poo poo is about to jump off because people are yelling at one another all loving day.

# ? Feb 11, 2018 19:42

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Yeah, if your management style can�t handle remote employees (and it�s not easy), that implies that your team would start falling apart as soon as people have to WFH a couple days or so. We made the internet, we can leverage it for proper communication, right?

# ? Feb 11, 2018 19:46

Nippashish: Nov 2, 2005; Let me see you dance!

We have an open plan office at work and I like it. I think the trick is having ways to move yourself or interactions out of the shared space on demand. We have lots of little meeting rooms you can grab if you want to have an extended conversation, and there is a quiet bullpen area where you can go and claim a spot temporarily if you want some solo quiet time.

# ? Feb 11, 2018 19:56

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

speng31b posted:

A team's ability to support remote workers is a litmus test for its in-office communication, full stop.

If you can't communicate with remote workers, it's a sign that your management style is ad-hoc and reactionary rather than planned and deliberate. This style of management is not scalable and always on the verge of breakdown. It can appear to be working if you have a handful of people constantly walking around and getting status updates from everyone throughout the day, but this is bad for the overall productivity of both the manager and the workers involved (presumably this manager has some personal responsibilities aside from walking around and checking with people at their desks constantly).

This isn't to say that everyone needs to hire remote workers - there are still great reasons to focus on having people onsite. But if the main/sole reason for not hiring them is that you're worried about communications, that's problematic.

You are 100% wrong. Team composition matters a lot as to whether a team can support full time remote workers. If I had a few more senior engineers I'd be much more comfortable with it but at the end of the day, for us, it's a maturity issue more than anything else.

# ? Feb 11, 2018 21:49

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Senior engineers can be immature and incapable of remote work too, though.

# ? Feb 11, 2018 21:52

xiw: Sep 25, 2011; i wake up at night
night action madness nightmares
maybe i am scum
Cpig Haiku contest 2020 winner

My psychic powers tell me that if open plan offices were more expensive real estate than private offices it'd instantly be offices all round as a standard.

# ? Feb 11, 2018 21:54

KoRMaK: Jul 31, 2012

Lol

xiw posted:

My psychic powers tell me that if open plan offices were more expensive real estate than private offices it'd instantly be offices all round as a standard.

Exploding Galaxy brain

# ? Feb 11, 2018 22:01

the talent deficit: Dec 20, 2003; self-deprecation is a very british trait, and problems can arise when the british attempt to do so with a foreign culture

Blinkz0rz posted:

You are 100% wrong. Team composition matters a lot as to whether a team can support full time remote workers. If I had a few more senior engineers I'd be much more comfortable with it but at the end of the day, for us, it's a maturity issue more than anything else.

how many remote teams have you been a part of? my experience is that remote works when teams are managed well and falls apart when managers expect remote workers to take on the burden of communication. every well managed team i've been on could handle remote people

# ? Feb 11, 2018 22:49

speng31b: May 8, 2010

Blinkz0rz posted:

You are 100% wrong. Team composition matters a lot as to whether a team can support full time remote workers. If I had a few more senior engineers I'd be much more comfortable with it but at the end of the day, for us, it's a maturity issue more than anything else.

speng31b posted:

This isn't to say that everyone needs to hire remote workers - there are still great reasons to focus on having people onsite. But if the main/sole reason for not hiring them is that you're worried about communications, that's problematic.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 00:03

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

the talent deficit posted:

how many remote teams have you been a part of? my experience is that remote works when teams are managed well and falls apart when managers expect remote workers to take on the burden of communication. every well managed team i've been on could handle remote people

I suspect our angry friend is getting cornholed on all sides for status updates and desperately wants any way to escape the pain. Or not? But it reads like passing the abuse downward.

It's not just the team that itself that needs that good communication, but also the next level up has to have metrics that aren't butts in seats.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 00:07

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Brain Candy posted:

It's not just the team that itself that needs that good communication, but also the next level up has to have metrics that aren't butts in seats.

Good fuckin' luck with that. Companies that aren't startups are still too couched in old-school management theory, and butts in seats is one of the most critical metrics to them.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 00:13

Xarn: Jun 26, 2015

How many companies have you worked for, again?

# ? Feb 12, 2018 08:46

metztli: Mar 19, 2006; Which lead to the obvious photoshop, making me suspect that their ad agencies or creative types must be aware of what goes on at SA

Xarn posted:

How many companies have you worked for, again?

It's kind of amazing though. Like, lots of people are inexperienced, but Pollyanna goes that extra mile to make "inexperienced" her brand and calling card.

Brain Candy posted:

It's not just the team that itself that needs that good communication, but also the next level up has to have metrics that aren't butts in seats.

Communication within the team is important, yes but communication from the team to that next level up is equally important. Keeping management well apprised of the contributions of remote workers - and naming the remote workers specifically and individually - can sometimes be an effective proxy for "butts in seats."

# ? Feb 12, 2018 09:54

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

Pollyanna posted:

Good fuckin' luck with that. Companies that aren't startups are still too couched in old-school management theory, and butts in seats is one of the most critical metrics to them.

This is simply not true lol.

Working in Development: Ignore Pollyanna.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 12:07

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

the talent deficit posted:

how many remote teams have you been a part of? my experience is that remote works when teams are managed well and falls apart when managers expect remote workers to take on the burden of communication. every well managed team i've been on could handle remote people

I've been on a 40/60 remote team and, at a previous job, worked about 30% remote. I know what's required both from an IC perspective as well as a management perspective because I've seen where it falls apart on both sides.

Personally, I would rather have my current team in its current state work out of the same office and would only hire remote if I was really crunched for labor or was hiring for an extremely specific set of skills.

I don't say this because I doubt my own management skills or feel like the company can't support remote workers. I say this because I don't think the team is mature enough, both in terms of process as well as individually, to make 100% remote work effectively. In the future I'm sure we could get there but I don't really see the point. It's not like we're short on talent or hurting to recruit.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 12:31

Maluco Marinero: Jan 18, 2001; Damn that's a
fine elephant.

Pollyanna posted:

Good fuckin' luck with that. Companies that aren't startups are still too couched in old-school management theory, and butts in seats is one of the most critical metrics to them.

Seriously, you gotta stop the whiplash you have between clearly learning on the job and making sense of companies and working practices, to strong absolute statements like this that are needlessly pessimistic to the point of unhelpful ness. This isn�t the tech bubble thread, this is the working in dev thread.

While there are aspects of the industry that are deeply flawed, this is not the universal experience and it pays to remember this otherwise you�ll be blind to the real McCoy when it comes along.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 13:44

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

Blinkz0rz posted:

Personally, I would rather have my current team in its current state work out of the same office and would only hire remote if I was really crunched for labor or was hiring for an extremely specific set of skills.

I don't say this because I doubt my own management skills or feel like the company can't support remote workers. I say this because I don't think the team is mature enough, both in terms of process as well as individually, to make 100% remote work effectively. In the future I'm sure we could get there but I don't really see the point. It's not like we're short on talent or hurting to recruit.

Are you at the management level? Your posts make a lot more sense if so. Micromanagement and over-involvement are common traits of relatively new managers, and I don't doubt your job seems easier with people co-located in an open plan office.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:16

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

Fine, I guess I'm being too presumptuous. I find it hard to trust that companies have their poo poo together, it's just something I'm naturally suspicious of.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:26

leper khan: Dec 28, 2010; Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

Pollyanna posted:

Fine, I guess I'm being too presumptuous. I find it hard to trust that companies have their poo poo together, it's just something I'm naturally suspicious of.

This is understandable given your history. :ohdear:

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:30

Pollyanna: Mar 5, 2005; Milk's on them.

At the same time, I recognize that my history is not everyone else's history.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:33

necrobobsledder: Mar 21, 2005; Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n roll; Nap Ghost

baquerd posted:

Are you at the management level? Your posts make a lot more sense if so. Micromanagement and over-involvement are common traits of relatively new managers, and I don't doubt your job seems easier with people co-located in an open plan office.

Funny, as a new manager at a previous position I basically got LESS involved with my reports in day-to-day work and was criticized by my superiors for not being more of a whip-cracker and pit boss, so to speak. They were more so into their 50s and 60s and I was like 30 but beyond generational differences I had a different set of problems than they had. I figured if I manage like them, then the results will resemble theirs (not good, that is). Results exceeded expectations primarily because I had been directly involved in hiring all of my team, I gave credit to them routinely, and trusted everyone to do their assigned work and to let me know if they need something from me or another team. The greatest barrier of all was that I simply couldn�t hire to the ability level necessary with the budget I had and job description / roles to not keep me from picking up the slack and working 80 hour weeks forever - all the downsides of a startup with none of the upsides of a big company. Those were my toughest sales ever because I was loving over people more like myself than some asshat douche with more money and privilege than sense, talent, or experience.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:40

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Brain Candy posted:

You don't use slack? Nobody ever says 'give me [5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1hr], I'm in the middle of something'? Everybody loves it when they are in the middle of collaborating and management swings by and you have to halt the world to talk about something else?

Brain Candy posted:

Wanting engaged people doesn't excuse you from forgetting what a calendar is. Schedule things, that's part of your loving job if you are in management.

Sure we do (Well Hipchat) but the example I gave of either 4 or 5 people that had to sync on the integration of a larger story and polling everyone on Hipchat/slack for "Now good?" <wait 5 minutes for them to notice the flashing icon> "No 5 more minutes." Next person. "Now good?" "Yes, I was about to start something but it can wait." "Now good?" "No need an hour" etc... or go to the calendar and schedule something for 2 hours out to give everyone a chance to look at their calendar vs turn your chairs around since everyone is sitting together in order to facilitate these types of discussion seems pretty insane.

We've done various experiments and for us the way we're working now where the people working on a user story together are having frequent checkins and open office pod discussions has increased our completion rate and decreased our re-work. Honestly it's one of the reasons why I'm down on remote dev right now since with my teams I see the benefits.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:52

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

Thread: shits on Pollyanna for assuming her lovely job experience is the universal experience

Also thread: it is literally impossible to have an open concept office without it being a raucous hellpit and there is no possible alternative

(except Colin, whose post was Good and Reasonable)

# ? Feb 12, 2018 14:54

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

ChickenWing posted:

Thread: shits on Pollyanna for assuming her lovely job experience is the universal experience

Also thread: it is literally impossible to have an open concept office without it being a raucous hellpit and there is no possible alternative

(except Colin, whose post was Good and Reasonable)

Also thread: "I don't have a problem with open office layouts, therefore no one should have a problem"

# ? Feb 12, 2018 16:05

ChickenWing: Jul 22, 2010

Upon further consideration, I propose this edit:

Entirety of SA: What is this middle ground you speak of :confused:

# ? Feb 12, 2018 16:57

Steve French: Sep 8, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

Yeah, if your management style can’t handle remote employees (and it’s not easy), that implies that your team would start falling apart as soon as people have to WFH a couple days or so. We made the internet, we can leverage it for proper communication, right?

It is absolutely possible, even likely, for a team to be able to manage occasional ad-hoc work remote / from home days just fine, and not be good at communicating with a full time remote employee, so this is wrong

# ? Feb 12, 2018 17:04

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

ChickenWing posted:

Entirety of SA: What is this middle ground you speak of

Day-to-day first-come, first-serve offices. After the offices are taken, there is only cafeteria-style open-plan bench seating for all remaining staff, from developers to sales to facilities and mail clerks.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 17:15

the talent deficit: Dec 20, 2003; self-deprecation is a very british trait, and problems can arise when the british attempt to do so with a foreign culture

Steve French posted:

It is absolutely possible, even likely, for a team to be able to manage occasional ad-hoc work remote / from home days just fine, and not be good at communicating with a full time remote employee, so this is wrong

yeah but the point is that if your team was competently managed there really shouldn't be any barrier to having full time remote team members. if you rely on in person discussion and face to face meetings to get poo poo done it means you're not adequately putting process and expectations in place and you're relying on oral tradition instead of documentation. that's lovely management, not immature team members

# ? Feb 12, 2018 17:22

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

the talent deficit posted:

yeah but the point is that if your team was competently managed there really shouldn't be any barrier to having full time remote team members. if you rely on in person discussion and face to face meetings to get poo poo done it means you're not adequately putting process and expectations in place and you're relying on oral tradition instead of documentation. that's lovely management, not immature team members

There's the ability to do a thing and then there's the desire. I just don't want to deal with a remote worker. Full stop.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 18:42

Volguus: Mar 3, 2009

Blinkz0rz posted:

There's the ability to do a thing and then there's the desire. I just don't want to deal with a remote worker. Full stop.

A.K.A.

the talent deficit posted:

that's lovely management

# ? Feb 12, 2018 19:16

csammis: Aug 26, 2003; Mental Institution

Without commenting on the pros or cons of an organization having a remote work policy, having it at all is 100% opt-in for said organization. How is it necessarily lovely management to not to implement such a thing?

# ? Feb 12, 2018 20:22

Skandranon: Sep 6, 2008; fucking stupid, dont listen to me

Just because software development is very amenable to remote work doesn't mean that remote work is unconditionally better, there are real some benefits to working in close proximity with other people, and it is reasonable to choose those in a trade off.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 20:25

Mniot: May 22, 2003; Not the one you know

csammis posted:

Without commenting on the pros or cons of an organization having a remote work policy, having it at all is 100% opt-in for said organization. How is it necessarily lovely management to not to implement such a thing?

It's not

code:

no remote work => lovely management

it's,

code:

lovely management => no remote work

# ? Feb 12, 2018 20:30

the talent deficit: Dec 20, 2003; self-deprecation is a very british trait, and problems can arise when the british attempt to do so with a foreign culture

csammis posted:

Without commenting on the pros or cons of an organization having a remote work policy, having it at all is 100% opt-in for said organization. How is it necessarily lovely management to not to implement such a thing?

there's lots of good reasons to ban remote work (managers are known to be lovely/overworked, hr doesn't have capacity to handle workers in other jurisdictions, legal/compliance reasons, concerns about disparities/jealousy between on site and remote workers, probably more i'm forgetting) but if you can't articulate a reason that's more than 'employees just aren't mature enough' or 'remote work just doesn't work' it's almost guaranteed to be because you are a dysfunctional organization

# ? Feb 12, 2018 20:41

Carbon dioxide: Oct 9, 2012

TFW you're pair programming with someone and they have to go for a bit and they let you continue on their computer but they got all keyboard shortcuts set to their Special preferences

# ? Feb 12, 2018 20:42

Dr. Arbitrary: Mar 15, 2006; Bleak Gremlin

Carbon dioxide posted:

TFW you're pair programming with someone and they have to go for a bit and they let you continue on their computer but they got all keyboard shortcuts set to their Special preferences

I've got a coworker who remapped the function keys around to be better for EMACS.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 21:11

Mniot: May 22, 2003; Not the one you know

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

I've got a coworker who remapped the function keys around to be better for EMACS.

I hope you wrote it that way because your coworker remapped capslock and you got used to it.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 21:58

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

Mniot posted:

It's not

code:

no remote work => lovely management

it's,

code:

lovely management => no remote work

Lol there are so many reasons a team may not want remote workers. Attributing it to lovely management is lazy as hell and makes you look completely out of touch.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 23:17

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# ? May 10, 2024 04:15

Volguus: Mar 3, 2009

Blinkz0rz posted:

Lol there are so many reasons a team may not want remote workers. Attributing it to lovely management is lazy as hell and makes you look completely out of touch.

There are indeed many reasons. the talent deficit listed a few. There is only one valid reason though: legal/compliance. Even that one can probably be taken care of if there's a will, but usually is probably not worth the effort. The rest are easily dismissed without a second thought.

# ? Feb 12, 2018 23:26

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