Wide Teams

Episode #81: Interview with J Sherwani and Vishal Kapur of Screenhero

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:00:56 +0000

In this episode, J Sherwani and Vishal Kapur talk about Screenhero: a new and convenient collaborative screen sharing application.

Show Notes:

J Sherwani (twitter linkedin)

Vishal Kapur (twitter github linkedin)

01:01 – J Sherwani Introduction

PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon
iTeleport
Screenhero

01:35 – Vishal Kapur Introduction

B.A. in Computer Science from MIT
Both live in the San Francisco Bay Area

02:43 – Presentation Tools vs Collaboration Tools

Mouse Cursor
Speed

05:10 – Proxying

05:54 – Inventing Screenhero

08:15 – The Screenhero Team

Collocated at the moment

09:48 – Use Cases

Developers
Designers
Families

12:49 – Proxying Desktop Audio

Soundflower

13:41 – Feature Requests

Voice Chat Integration
Multi-Party Collaboration
Cross-Platform Support
Web Client

15:34 – In The Works/Improving Screenhero

Quality and Performance Updates
Speed Updates
Inspired by Dropbox
International Keyboard Support

18:33 – Using Screenhero while Collocated

20:31 – Mobile to Mobile App

Episode #80: Interview with Ernie Miller of LivingSocial

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:00:18 +0000

In this episode, Ernie Miller of LivingSocial, talks about his transition into managing a dispersed team, “Optimizing for Happiness”, and dealing with distraction.

Show Notes:

Ernie Miller (twitter github blog)

00:41 – Ernie Miller Introduction

Louisville, Kentucky
Lead Software Engineer for Email Tools Team at LivingSocial

01:07 – Transition to leading a dispersed team

Being available
Campfire

02:25 – Remote Working Days

Wide Teams Episode #42: Chad Fowler of LivingSocial

03:31 – “Optimizing for Happiness”

The Most Important Optimization: Happiness by Ernie Miller [Ruby Midwest 2013 Talk]
Why I Love Being a Programmer in Louisville (or, Why I Won’t Relocate to Work for Your Startup by Ernie Miller [Blog Post]

06:52 – Dealing with Recruiters

09:26 – Considering Remote Work

Productivity

12:02 – Dealing with Distraction

Conditioning your coworkers

15:25 – Remote Meetings

Eliminating distraction

16:51 – Ernie’s Remote Team

Pods (3 other people)
Google+ Hangouts

Episode #79: Interview with Nick Adams of Hudl and remotejobs.co

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:00:54 +0000

In this episode, Nick Adams of Hudl and remotejobs.co, talks about living and working in Rochester, New York, and starting a remote jobs board for companies dedicated to specifically hiring remote workers and people specifically looking to be them.

Show Notes:

Nick Adams (twitter github blog)

00:37 – Nick Adams Introduction

Product Designer at Hudl
Located in Rochester, New York

01:35 – Hudl as a Distributed Team

02:02 – Nick’s history with remote work

Web design and consulting

04:29 – Tools

07:46 – Challenges of working remotely

09:08 – Making Hudl a dispersed team

Talent

09:42 – Living in Rochester, New York

13:21 – remotejobs.co

“No bait and switching”

19:39 – Advice for companies looking to hire remote workers

“Here’s how we work”

Episode #78: Interview with Jonathan Mason of VersaPay

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:00:03 +0000

In this episode, Jonathan Mason, of VersaPay, talks about life living in Victoria, British Columbia, and the importance of documentation and visibility to others while working on a distributed team.

Show Notes:

Jonathan Mason (twitter github)

01:28 – Introduction

Senior Software Developer at VersaPay
Masters in Computer Science
Victoria, British Columbia

02:45 – Life in Victoria

05:55 – VersaPay and it’s distributed team

Dev Team = 4

07:32 – Team Work Process

Standup
Skype
HipChat
Trello

10:22 – Challenges of working on a remote team

Documentation & Visibility

15:01 – In-person Team Interaction

Episode #77: Interview with Elliot Rodriguez

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:00:25 +0000

In this episode, Elliot Rodriguez talks about his experiences on a distributed team, overcoming isolation, and being able to work remotely for as long as possible.

Show Notes:

Elliot Rodriguez (linkedin)

00:54 – Elliot Rodriguez Introduction

Software Engineer for 15 years
Lives in North Carolina
Works for a national cloud services and telecommunications provider based in Atlanta, GA
Distributed worker for 7 years

02:04 – Wanting to work from home

Beating the commute
Pitched the idea to his superior
Convenience

05:54 – Working with a distributed team

Timezone coordination
Facetime
Personality

12:25 – Video Conferencing

13:15 – Overcoming Isolation

14:23 – Ideal Work Environment

16:05 – Sticking with the remote working lifestyle

Recruiter/hiring manager attitudes about remote work

Episode #76: Interview with Zee Spencer

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:00:01 +0000

In this episode, Zee Spencer dives deeply into the remote pair programming aspect of working remotely, covering topics such as pairing pitfalls, remote work station setups, and ways that the process could be improved.

Show Notes:

Zee Spencer (twitter github blog Growing Developers Podcast)

00:57 – Zee Spencer Introduction

Dev Bootcamp
Freelance Consultant

01:41 – History with Remote Work

Traveled in Taiwan
Ability to set your own hours and schedule

05:04 – Pair Programming

Signals
Mine-Yours Protocol
Sam Livingston-Gray gSchool talk: Tools for Pair Programming (remote or otherwise)

11:08 – Pairing Pitfalls

Four Common Pairing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them: Four Antipatterns of Pair Programming: Zee Spencer
Mismatch of Personality
Motive Mismatches

13:28 – Remote Pairing Setup

20:23 – The State of the Art in Pair Programming

Multiple Keyboard Cursors
Debugging Visual Stuff
showoff.io (Forward)

22:56 – Dev Bootcamp

Episode #75: Interview with Javier Gonel

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:00:48 +0000

In this episode, software engineer Javier Gonel, talks about living and working remotely from Greece and why he enjoys commuting and having the freedom to work from interesting places.

Show Notes:

01:11 – Javier Gonel Introduction

Software Engineer from Spain living in Greece
Developing an e-learning system for a company in Switzerland
Another team is located in Spain

03:37 – Working Remotely

Taking the Plunge
Communication

07:19 – Benefits of Working Remotely

Flexibility
Change of Scenery

08:46 – Enjoying Commuting

09:42 – Working from Interesting Places

Living in Greece

13:34 – Advice for people thinking about moving to remote work

It’s something you need to try
Work when inspiration strikes

Episode #74: James Costa and Matt Herron of The Phuse

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:00:37 +0000

In this episode, James Costa and Matt Herron of The Phuse, discuss task management, overlap meetings, and the concept of code audits.

Show Notes:

01:04 – James Costa (twitter blog) Introduction

Founder & Creative Director of The Phuse
Toronto, Canada

01:20 – Matt Herron (twitter)

Project Manager at The Phuse
Austin, Texas

01:31 – The Phuse (site twitter blog dribbble)

Dispersed over The United States, Canada and the UK

02:43 – History of being a remote company

“Following the Sun”

05:54 – Task Management

Communication

09:00 – Overlap Meetings

11:00 – In-person Meetings

International Space Apps Challenge

12:48 – Benefits of having a distributed team

16:27 – Code Audits

18:33 – Distributed working challenges

Hiring process
Communication blips

Episode #73: Eric Farkas of TalentSoup

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:00:27 +0000

In this episode, Eric Farkas of TalentSoup, talks dealing with timezone disparities, overcoming cultural differences, and sharing values with others for successful remote work.

Show Notes:

00:37 – Eric Farkas (twitter blog) Introduction

Long Island, New York
Lead Ruby Developer for TalentSoup

00:59 – Working Remotely

02:31 – Dealing with Timezone Disparities

03:36 – Cultural Differences

Translation
Screen sharing

05:29 – Working for TalentSoup Remotely

09:40 – Day to Day Life & Communication

Family

13:11 – Yahoo says no to telecommuting

15:02 – Advice for people seeking remote work

Clear expectations
Values

Episode #72: Matt Groves of Telligent

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:00:27 +0000

In this episode, Matt Groves of Telligent talks about choosing to work remotely and prior hesitations, fantasy remote tools, and gives us a preview of his soon-to-be published book, Aspect-Oriented Programming in .NET.

Show Notes:

00:36 – Matt Groves Introduction

Cross Cutting Concerns Blog
Writing a book on Aspect-Oriented Programming in .NET
Remote Developer at Telligent

02:15 – Choosing Remote Work

03:16 – Daily Life and Tools

Standups and Meetings
Skype
WebEx
GoToMeeting
JoinMe

04:41 – Pair Programming

06:03 – Pros and of Working Remotely

06:58 – Challenges of Working Remotely

07:42 – Fostering a Distributed Working Community

09:19 – Fantasy Remote Tools

11:25 – Sticking w/ remote work or going back to office life

12:35 – Work Schedule

14:48 – Upcoming book: Aspect-Oriented Programming in .NET

Episode #71: Tomasz Szymanski of SoftwareMill

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:00:57 +0000

In this episode, CEO Tomasz Szymanski of SoftwareMill, talks about running a remote company from Warsaw, Poland and how he and his team interact using different methods of communication and interesting tools.

Show Notes:

00:38 – Tom Szymanski Introduction

CEO of SoftwareMill
Warsaw, Poland
Remote consulting company from the beginning

01:50 – History and Growth

04:23 – Working Together

SCRUM meetings
4th Question – general leisure question

08:49 – Tools

12:47 – Flexibility

14:39 – Social Interaction

15:08 – Advice for other remote teams

Retrospectives

Episode #70: Sophia Le and Matthew Kirk of Modulus 7

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:00:53 +0000

In this episode, Sophia Le and Matthew Kirk of Modulus 7, talk about being a husband and wife consulting team, remote challenges and benefits, and the importance of separating your home life from your work life.

Show Notes:

Sophia Le (twitter)
Matthew Kirk (twitter)

00:39 – Introductions

Consulting Team of Modulus 7
Matt = the software guy
Sophia = the people person

02:04 – On-site and remote work

04:09 – Remote Work Challenges

Communication
Trust

06:59 – Benefits of working remotely

No commute
Flexibility
Excitement to attend Meetups

09:14 – Government Telecommuting Jobs

13:15 – Communication with Clients

Skype
Google+ Hangouts
Phone Calls
Meeting in person
Google Docs
Email

17:32 – Quality of Life

18:47 – Advice for Remote Consultants (especially a husband & wife team)

Separate home life from work life
Pomodoro Technique

Episode #69: Adam Ochonicki, James Welle and Rachel Donovan of Articulate

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:00:10 +0000

In this episode, Adam Ochonicki, James Welle and Rachel Donovan of Articulate, tell us what it’s like to work remotely from their perspectives, share some handy tools of the trade, and discuss various working anxieties and concerns.

Show Notes:

Adam Ochonicki (twitter github blog)
James Welle (twitter, github)
Rachel Donovan (twitter github)
Articulate

00:51 – Rachel Donovan Introduction

Boston, MA
Web Engineering Team

01:04 – James Welle Introduction

Boulder, CO
Product Lead on the Studio Team

01:29 – Adam Ochonicki Introduction

Lansdale, PA
Operations Team

01:52 – Articulate

E-Learning Software
60 Remote Employees
East-West Coast USA

03:18 – Screenr

Online Web Recording Software

04:02 – Daily Life

Daily Standups
HipChat
Skype
Trello
GoToMeeting
Google+ Hangouts
Pair Programming
join.me

08:13 – Studio

09:34 – Working Hours

12:06 – Becoming Remote Workers

Personality
“I Could Never Do That”

20:00 – Water Cooler Chat

21:14 – Challenges of Working Remotely

Disconnect
Communication

23:29 – Second-guessing your work ethic

Results Only Work Environment (ROWE)

26:37 – Getting Hired at Articulate

articulate.com/careers

Episode #68: David Worth of Big Nerd Ranch

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:00:42 +0000

In this episode, David Worth of Big Nerd Ranch (formerly Highgroove), talks about working as a dispersed company, overcoming lonliness, and the practical value of remote pairing.

Show Notes:

David Worth (twitter github Big Nerd Ranch)

00:40 – David Worth introduction

Worked remotely -> not remotely -> remotely
Highgroove/Big Nerd Ranch
Knoxville, TN

01:50 – Highgroove -> Big Nerd Ranch

Podcast #41: Jonathan Wallace of Highgroove Studios
Became more dispersed
ROWE (Results Only Work Environment)

04:25 – Challenges of working with a dispersed team

Opening satellite offices

06:20 – Lifestyle as a remote worker

08:44 – Overcoming lonliness

10:24 – Tools

13:43 – Pairing

Value
Getting people to pair

24:23 – Big Nerd Ranch

Episode #67: Joel Glovier of appendTo

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:00:16 +0000

In this episode, I talk to Joel Glovier. Joel is a user experience designer and front end developer currently working full time for appendTo, where he was recently part of the TIME.com responsive redesign and Zumba.com redesign, among other cool projects. He also does lots of other fun side projects like remotejobs.io, devte.es, and userbase.io. He has been working remotely in some form or fashion since 2007.

Show Notes:

Joel Glovier (twitter blog dribbble jag.is)

00:39 – Introduction

01:27 – Working Remotely

Mechanicsburg, PA

04:23 – appendTo

Skype Chat Rooms
Google Hangouts

08:53 – Transitioning into Remote Work

Schedule Management

10:39 – Time Structure

It’s not what you read, it’s what you ignore – Video of Scott Hanselman’s Personal Productivity Tips

12:35 – Joel’s Side Projects

14:18 – Remote Jobs

appendTo Jobs

17:17 – Advice for Future Remote Workers

Trial Basis

Episode #66: Nick Gauthier

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:00:48 +0000

In this episode, Nick Gauthier, a freelance consultant, talks about transitioning into freelancing, his unique hardware and office setup, and demo screencasts being a useful tool in business.

Show Notes:

Nick Gauthier (twitter github blog)

00:38 – Introduction

Independent Consultant
Baltimore, MD

01:31 – Working Remotely as a Freelance Consultant

Being “there” for people

05:11 – Working from Home

Figure 53

06:46 – Transitioning into Freelancing

08:05 – Hardware/Office Setup

Linux
Laptops vs Desktops

12:35 – Demo Screencasts

16:37 – Software Compatibility Issues

18:40 – Advice and Tips for Wannabe Remote Consultants

Can you work isolated?
Reputation

21:45 – Nick’s Book Projects

Episode #65: PhishMe

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:00:11 +0000

In this episode, Stephen Ball, Jon Druse, Eileen Carpenter, and Shaun Ambrose of PhishMe, talk about company growth, team gelling, and working flexibly.

Show Notes:

Stephen Ball (twitter github blog)
Jon Druse (twitter github screeninator)
Eileen Carpenter (twitter github blog)
Shaun Ambrose (blog)

00:36 – Introductions

01:42 – PhishMe

Est. 2006

03:06 – Organization of the Company

Completely remote company

04:36 – A Day in the Life

3x/week Dev Meetings
Jira
Skype

07:10 – Pair Programming

07:57 – Company Growth

09:16 – Hiring Process

Code Samples
Conference Interview

10:27 – Gelling Remotely

In-Person Meetings
Attending Conferences

13:57 – Flexibility

18:54 – Working Set Hours

Episode #64: Ryan Bigg of Spree Commerce

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 14:00:52 +0000

In this episode, Ryan Bigg of Spree Commerce, talks about what it’s like to be a remote worker from Melbourne, Australia.

Ryan Bigg (twitter github blog)
Spree Commerce

00:55 – Ryan Bigg Introduction & Background

Melbourne, Austrailia
Community Manager at Spree Commerce

01:29 – Spree Commerce

Me Undies

02:03 – Spree as a Distributed Team

04:14- Daily Interchange

Campfire

05:55 – Timezone Difference/Communication

06:50 – Remote Work & Isolation

08:22 – Transitioning into a Distributed Team

Communication

09:24 – Flexibility

Episode #63: Ryan King of Sharpsaw

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Ryan King of Sharpsaw, talks about some cool tools and tricks of the trade for remote pairing, security measures to take, and overcoming resistance to the practice.

Ryan King (twitter github rking on Freenode)
Sharpsaw
Sharpsaw on Github

00:59 – Ryan King Background & History

Started development in 1999
Took a break to serve in the Army
Off and on remote development for commercial and open-source projects
Works for a company located in Kansas

02:16 – Pairing Remotely

04:18 – tmux

Command to run a shared tmux (replaces the `weemux` program, which is
overcomplicated, in my opinion):

Start with:
tmux -S /tmp/pair
chmod 777 /tmp/pair # only needed the first time

Pair does:
tmux -S /tmp/pair a

08:05 – Mosh, the Mobile Shell

11:52 – Open-Source Pairing

Ekiga
VoIP

15:31 – Pair Programming

Resistance
Feedback
Yak shaving period

19:22 – Pairing Security

20:52 – Yak Shaving

22:12 – Benefits of Pairing

Episode #62: K3 Integrations with Gary Benton, James Pellow, Dallas Reedy and John Ash

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:00:46 +0000

In this episode, Gary Benton, James Pellow, Dallas Reedy, and John Ash, of K3 Integrations, talk about experiences working outside the country, communication tools, and keys to getting hired if you want to work remotely.

Show Notes:

Gary Benton
James Pellow
Dallas Reedy
John Ash

K3 Integrations

00:47 – James Pellow Introduction

President of K3 Integrations
Consulting for 12 years Started K3 about 4-5 years ago
Walla Walla, Washington

01:42 – John Ash Introduction

With K3 about 5 years
Project Management and Development

02:56 – Dallas Reedy Introduction

With K3 about 9 months
Started career as a graphic designer

03:35 – Gary Benton Introduction

Background in electronics technology and engineering technology
Project Management, Customer Support and Recruiting

04:20 – K3 Integrations

Primarily focused on Rails web development
Works with nonprofit organizations

05:05 – Location

Walla Walla, Washington
Fallbrook, California
Boise, Idaho

05:33 – Becoming a distributed team

Office experiment

07:41 – Company size

6 individuals

08:21 – Company Individual Interaction

09:25 – Gary working outside the country

5 months in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama

10:56 – Communication Tools

13:47 – Daily team interaction

Pairing

15:37 – Intentional Communication

20:00 – Freedom and Flexibility

John worked from Hong Kong

21:14 – Overcoming Distractions

Setting boundaries

24:50 – Recruiting New Hires

25:48 – Getting Hired to Work Remotely

Effort
Offer good code
Thank You Emails

Episode #61: Tom Santero and Reid Draper of Basho

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:00:23 +0000

In this episode, Tom Santero and Reid Draper of Basho, talk about hiring where the talent is, doing what you think is best for the company, and the wonderful benefits of having work flexibility.

Show Notes:

Tom Santero (twitter github)
Reid Draper (twitter github blog)
Basho (twitter site)
Riak (github)

00:53 – Background & Introduction

Basho: commercial backers of an open-source distributed database called Riak
Cambridge, Massachusettes
100 employees strong
5 offices worldwide
Riak CS
Engineering team is completely distributed

02:50 – Employee distribution

Hire where the talent is

03:44 – Looking for and hiring developers

Open-source contributors
Meetup groups
Conference circuit

05:08 – Strategy to grow a distributed team

Organic

06:35 – Organization appearance

Valve model: Valve Handbook For New Employees
Do what you think is best for the company
Teams of 1-4 or 5

08:09 – Team interaction

12:26 – Remote pair programming

14:21 – Standups and phone Q&As

15:51 – Distributed team challenges

Growing pains
Onboarding

18:31 – Personalities best suited for remote working

19:34 – Flexibility

22:13 – Advice for dispersed teams

Hiring the right people is crucial
Have an open mind

Episode #60: Derek Haynes and Andre Lewis of Scout App

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:00:09 +0000

In this episode, Derek Haynes and Andre Lewis of Scout, talk about meeting and getting to know each other before working together, coworking spaces, and distributed teams unique to big companies versus small companies.

Show Notes:

Scout

00:59 – Derek Haynes

Met Andre at a Ruby Group in San Francisco in 2006
Lives in Fort Collins, CO

01:51 – Andre Lewis

Still lives in San Francisco
Working with Ruby since 2005

02:36 – Scout

Server and application monitoring “simplified”
Built for developers by developers

03:25 – Working apart remotely

Building habits and trust
Miscommunication
Google Voice Chat
Campfire

09:33 – Work environments

Coworking spaces

12:08 – Previous experience working remotely

13:53 – Mistakes people make with remote work

Big company vs small company
Knowing people before you start working with them
Personality overlap

16:08 – Advice for remote workers

Having a prior relationship
Weekly voice chats
In-person visits

17:38 – Distributing work

Episode #59: Daniel Yoon of Sleepy Giant

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:00:26 +0000

In this episode, Daniel Yoon of Sleepy Giant, talks about his experience as being “the new guy” on a team located on the other side of the world, knowing whether you’re responsible enough to effectively hold a remote position, and shares a resourceful list of companies who are known to hire remote workers.

Show Notes:

Daniel Yoon (twitter / github)
Sleepy Giant

01:00 – Introduction & Background

.NET background
Currently works in Ruby
Located in Beijing, China

01:40 – Working for a U.S. company while located in China

04:01 – Identifying companies that allow you to work remotely

05:43 – Interview Process

Skype
Dressing up

07:29 – Headsets

09:50 – Interview Process (cont’d)

Programming Quizzes

10:53 – Advantages of working remotely

13:58 – Home office connection

Security concerns
HipChat
Time zone overlap
JIRA

17:36 – Getting introduced/introducing yourself as a new team member

Who’s that guy?
Getting lost in translation
Feeling anonymous

31:12 – Advice for remote reworkers

Can you handle it?
Responsibility
Have a backup source of Internet

Episode #58: Bob McWhirter of Red Hat

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:00:24 +0000

In this episode, Bob McWrirter of Red Hat, talks about communication as in artifacts created by tooling, remote workers as black sheep, and gaining notoriety via open-source.

Show Notes:

Bob McWhirter (twitter / blog / Red Hat / Project Odd)

00:47- Introduction & Background

Has worked at Red Hat for the past 6 years
Has been in the remote industry for 15
Lives in rural Virginia

01:40 – History with remote work

02:46 – Red Hat

03:58 – Daily life

05:13 – Open-source experience & team management

Communication: artifacts created by tooling
Team memory

07:58 – Commit messages

09:26 – Email/mailing lists

10:04 – Dividing work

11:48 – Poor remote work experiences

Remote Worker, Distributed Team: Bob McWhirter
Remote workers = black sheep

15:21 – Reasons to work remotely

Flexibility
Hours
Measuring production

17:42 – Building notoriety via open-source

Episode #57: Ezekiel Templin of Paper Cavalier

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:00:39 +0000

In this episode, Ezekiel Templin, of Paper Cavalier, talks about schedule stretching to accomodate time zones, choosing where you work from, and the importance of hanging out and meeting with co-workers to achieve the best remote working experiences possible.

Show Notes:

Ezekiel Templin (twitter / github)
Paper Cavalier
papercavalier/dotfiles

00:52 – Ezekiel’s background and introduction

Located in Meadville, PA
Works on large-scale Ruby Projects that interact with all forms of APIs that have to do with dealing books online
Paper Cavalier has offices in Brooklyn, NY and London

02:02 – Traveled as a new employee to offices to meet people in person

02:26 – Tools

03:55 – Pairing

Ubuntu

04:34 – Working remotely

Previously worked remotely minus pairing
VIM
TMUX

05:27 – Corsair Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset

Long-term use
USB extender
Charge while you use

10:56 – Google+ Hangouts

Phenomenal free service
Use on phone
Presentations over screensharing

13:40 – Schedule stretching to accommodate time zones

16:08 – Choosing where you work from

Cost of living

17:42 – Paper Cavalier

19:01 – Getting hired

Get involved in open-source projects
Have an active Github account

20:35 – Advice for remote workers

Patience with technology
Patience with the people you work with
Get enough sleep
Hang out with co-workers in real life if possible
Make eye contact

Episode #56: Evan Light

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Evan Light, a freelance software developer and mentor, talks about working with an apprentice, remote mentoring, and the power of reflection and education through suffering.

Show Notes:

Evan Light (twitter / blog / Ruby DCamp / Triple Dog Dare)

00:52 – Evan Light Introduction

Freelance Software Developer
Developer Mentor

01:03 – History with remote work

Wife’s health
Frustration Driven Development: Evan’s WindyCityRails Talk 2012
Former government contractor

02:36 – Adjusting to working from home

Allowed him to focus more
Easy at first, but harder the longer he has been doing it
Needy cats

06:28 – Day to day work process

Maintain 2 clients at a time
Remote pairing

07:32 – Pairing with clients

08:20 – Working with an apprentice

Working in person
Pairing locally

10:07 – Remote mentoring

Startups whose code is a mess
People who want to learn techniques or learn from a problem

12:40 – Pomodoroing

13:54 – Working with larger distributed teams

The people who perform well aren’t the people you expect to perform well and vice versa
Work ethic tends to be different in the office than for people who work at home

17:09 – Regular Agile Retrospectives

Defining iteration length
Describing what things went well and what made people happy and what didn’t work well and made people unhappy

20:54 – Reflection

Education through suffering
Frustration Driven Development
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by Stephen R. Covey

28:00 – Do what you love and share it with other people and it pays you back

Episode #55: Troy Davis and Eric Lindvall of Papertrail

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:00:53 +0000

In this episode, Troy Davis and Eric Lindvall, of Papertrail, talk about seeking out and choosing the right teammates, team overlap, and organic growth.

Show Notes

Troy Davis (twitter / github / blog)
Eric Lindvall (twitter / github / blog)
Papertrail (website / twitter)

00:57 – How their distributed team evolved

01:43 – Finding the right teammate(s)

04:10 – Living situations

Eric: Stays just North of Seattle, WA
Troy: Travels: Seattle to Portland to Sol,South Korea to Bangkok to San Francisco to NYC

04:48 – Airbnb

05:42 – Troy’s travelling

07:02 – Team interaction and dividing work

Based on customer feedback
Campfire
Github issues tracking system

08:42 – Avoiding using predictions and promises

10:18 – Work tactics

Rare standups
Dealing with timezones

11:15 – Team overlap

You are responsible for how you should spend your own time

13:27 – Maintaining continuity & company values

Growing organically
Github as an example

15:54 – Advice for distributed teams

There are no shortcuts
Transparency

17:26 – Arguing

20:43 – Papertrail: Hosted log management by and for engineers

Episode #54: Steven R. Baker

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:00:07 +0000

In this episode, Steven R. Baker, shares his experiences facilitating a remote team in Canada, his philosophies that led to working remotely,

Show Notes:

Steven R. Baker (twitter / blog)

01:10 – Steven Introduction & Background

Writing software between 10-20 years
Focus on testing and developing high quality software
For the last 8-10 years, working from home

02:01 – Working from the road

03:07 – VersaPay: Bank transfers in Canada

5 developers and a designer
Coordinate work with office in Toronto
Don’t know where team members are working from on a given day and don’t care

05:16 – Coordinating

Optional daily standup
HipChat
Mailing lists

06:34 – Managing the distribution of work

Pivotal Tracker
Take the next story at the top of the backlog
Rotate through the team every two weeks to have a new Q&A/support person

08:03 – Avoiding knowledge silos

10:15 – Looping others into a project

11:33 – Philosophy that led to working remotely

15:04 – Finding business

Twitter
Conferences
Develop personal connections

17:23 – Facilitating/encouraging a remote team

Maintain a culture of openness and trust
Standup format: “What are you working on right now?”
Utilizing tools

25:41 – Team building offsite days

Episode #53: Josh Ballanco

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:00:26 +0000

In this episode, Josh Ballanco of ELC Technologies, talks about working remotely from Ankara, Turkey, the trials and tribulations of sorting through remote work job postings, pairing, and yak shaving days.

Show Notes

Josh Ballanco (twitter / github)
ELC Technologies

01:00 – Josh Ballanco Introduction & Backgroud

Software engineer with ELC Technologies – a consulting group based out of Portland, OR
Works out of Ankara, Turkey
Currently working on SOA (service-oriented architecture) and libraries to support clients

02:48 – Why Ankara?

03:24 – Distribution of ELC Technologies

Tech lead of 4-6 people
All remote except for some dev ops guys in Portland

06:22 – Remote work job postings and securing a job

09:13 – Turkey

Unique but similar to the U.S.
Giant melting pot
Youth-oriented
Turkey is the place to be for startups

12:38 – Coordinating & leading a dispersed team

Micromanagement
Letting people know if they are available for pairing daily

14:50 – Pairing

Flexibility
Skype for voice
Join.me
Navigator/Driver setup
Google+ Hangouts

18:16 – Yak Shaving Days

Once per sprint
Giant problem that gets a days worth of help from the entire team

19:32 – Communication outside of pairing

HipChat
Email = important but tricky
Wiki

22:15 – Communication is key

Non-verbal means of communication
Humor is tremendously nonverbal
Emoticons
Shared context
Patience

Episode #52: Gabe Hollombe

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:00:40 +0000

In this episode, Gabe Hollombe, talks about his adventures traveling throughout Southeast Asia while working for a company based in Australia. He discusses staying connected to the Internet and home-based coworkers, traveling with coworkers, and essential equipment for the vagabond programmer.

Show Notes:

Gabe Hollombe (twitter / github / blog)
Tutoring Australasia
Pairkit.com

00:37 – Gabe Hollombe Introduction & Background

Los Angeles native
Moved to NYC
Has an English degree as opposed to Computer Science
Currently calls Sydney, Australia home for the past 6 years

01:48 – Traveling

Has traveled to and worked remotely from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, and Spain in the past 8 months
Took two teammates and co workers from Sydney with him
Earning Australian dollars; spending in Southeast Asia
Devotes time to working half and half between company and his own other projects

04:20 – Staying connected to the Internet while traveling

Ubiquitous free wifi in Southeast Asia
Thailand = most wired out of all above-mentioned

05:35 – Staying connected to the team back in Australia

Morning (daily) stand ups
Time change between Southeast Asia and Australia works well
Google Hangouts
Fall back on Skype

06:30 – Nha Trang, Vietnam

08:03 – Traveling with coworkers

Easier to work
Keep each other focused and motivated
Feel less isolated

08:42 – Adjustment for “home team” to have coworkers working away

Flew the team to Vietnam about halfway through the trip

10:28 – Tutoring Australasia

Connects students to tutors online, 24/7
Intelligent matching system
Real-time sharing
Schools/public libraries can pay for a subscription

12:11 – Lessons learned from making the change to working on-site to off-site

Communication
Having conversations be captured in a place where everyone can see them
6 month sweet-spot

14:18 – Start smaller (traveling)

Do a trial run with coworkers

16:08 – Equipment for the vagabond programmer

Universal general power adapter
Universal power board
iPad
Unlocked GSM phone
Camera
MacBook Air

19:55 – Key advice for people working remotely

If you’re thinking about doing a trip like this, do it
Saving more while working half as much
It’s easier than you’d think

22:45 – Pairkit.com

Gabe’s FREE! Beta pet project
Makes SSH reverse tunneling easy

Episode #51: Lonocloud

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:00:16 +0000

In this episode, Aaron Brooks, Chris Houser, and Alan Dipert, of Lonocloud, share their distributed team’s hiring strategy, topic-oriented versus individual-oriented meetings, and yours/mine protocol while pairing.

Show Notes:

Lonocloud
Aaron Brooks (twitter github blog)
Chris Houser (twitter github blog)
Alan Dipert (twitter github blog)

00:47 – Introduction & background

Aaron Brooks: Engineer #2 at Lonocloud
Chris Howser: Working remotely for 2 jobs; at Lonocloud for 1 year,
Alan Dipert: Programmer at Lonocloud, no prior distributed team experience

02:27 – Location

Every time zone in the US is represented
Development team is fully distributed
10-15 range

03:41 – History of distributed team

Hired remotely to be able to access different people
Lonocloud builds next generation multi-cloud federating infrastructure platforms
Emphasis on dynamic information policies
Distributed team working on distributed applications

06:40 – Hiring developers

Some people worked together previously and became available at the same time
Closure language community

08:16 – Difference between remote work and fully distributed work

Effort between teams with a central office/being fully distributed
Separate cliques between in-office and out-of-office groups
Fully distributed teams are all working towards the same goal
Shared pain of being fully remote
Unify around benefits of working from home

12:08 – A day in the life of Lonocloud

Daily developer call
Central server to log in remotely
Own development environment on their own screen; but can step in to see others work
Ad hoc pairing and splitting
More minds usefully contributing more quickly to a problem
Pairing, tripling as needed

17:22 – Topic-oriented meetings versus individual-oriented

People can chime in with input if they want, but don’t have to
Google Doc for daily agenda
Not ticket-driven

19:34 – Tools

HipChat
SIP service phones
Video sharing while pairing

26:05 – Yours/Mine protocol while pairing

Context
Vocalized

28:38 – Splitting up work

Obvious fits
Dynamic
See what makes sense
Key person help sessions
People normally step up without obligation

Episode #50: Shaun Eutsey of Terenine Technology Solutions

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:00:06 +0000

In this episode, Shaun Eutsey, of Terenine Technology Solutions, talks about kids being a big reason to transition into the work-from-home-community, cool remote tools distributed teams can use, and having the opportunity to never stop learning while working.

Show Notes:

shauneutsey.com
@shauneutsey

00:45 – Shaun Eutsey introduction & background

Shaun is in Pittsburgh, PA
Terenine Technology Solutions is based in Chattanooga, TN
Dispersed team in Chattanooga, Texas, Florida, Utah
First position working remotely

02:16 – Why Shaun is working remotely

Pittsburgh commutes are terrible
Losing time
Wanted to work from home to be with his kids

04:00 – Interviewed with Terenine twice before getting his current job
09:30 – Distribution of Terenine

Corporate office in Chattanooga, TN

12:20 – Day-to-day work experience

Work closely with teammates
Daily standup via GoToMeeting.com
Pairing Programming on Skype

15:10 – Tools

20:35 – Learning

Pulling knowledge without sitting in the same room
Always have channels of communication open

22:58 – Drawbacks of working remotely

Missing human interraction
Hard transition into remote work (.NET)

25:30 – Pair programming

Why aren’t more companies doing this?
Keeps teams focused & engaged
Helps teams put out better software
6 out of 8 hours spent pairing per day
Popcorn Pairing

30:20 – Tips for remote workers

Transition from working in an office to being remote is hard
Retraining how you’re working
Learning to stay focused without someone looking over your shoulder
Train your family when you are working

Episode #49: Wade Minter and Andrew Berkowitz of TeamSnap

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:00:37 +0000

Wade Minter and Andrew Berkowitz, of Teamsnap, chat about their company’s need for not so many formalized meetings, why all distributed workers and teams should dabble in improvisation, and being the right candidate to gain remote work.

Show Notes:

Teamsnap.com
andrewberkowitz.com
@andrewberkowitz
@minter

00:45 – Wade Minter and Andrew Berkowitz Introduction

Andrew Berkowitz: Vice President of Product Management at TeamSnap and one of the original four founders of the company
Wade Minter: Director of Engineering, manages technical operations, contractor with TeamSnap since the beginning

01:51 – What is TeamSnap?

Mobile application on Android and iOS
Manages recreational youth or competitive sports teams
Roster, schedule, messaging

02:17 – Location

Based in Boulder, CO
Andrew is in Portland, OR
Wade is in Raleigh, NC
Rest of team in Austin, TX, Baltimore, MD, Washington, D.C., etc.

02:52 – History of TeamSnap

Doorway to leave the web design world
Half the team is design and development
Half is non-technical, i.e. customer support

05:13 – A day in the life

Campfire is the primary communication tool
Github is used on the technical side

06:46 – Meetings

1 scheduled company meeting per week
1 scheduled developers-only meeting per week
Development style is very “montessorial”
If people need help, they ask
Don’t need a ton of formalized stand up meetings
Ad hoc conversations

10:00 – Challenges

Building a sense of community
Preventing people from overworking

11:54 – Identifying people who work well remotely

Improvisational backgrounds

13:30 – Improv

Skills help with interpersonal communication
Intellectual component
Listening skills
Be opinionated and have a voice
Big ideas & tiny ego
Building on prospective

23:46 – Flexibility in work/life balance

Knowing when to unplug
Preferred schedules
Multiple time zones
Dev at their desk for 18-20 hours/day
Product coverage

26:02 – How to find remote work and be the right candidate

Personal connections
Job boards
Local tech meetups
Coworking facilities
Don’t look for job postings, reach out to the company you want to work for
Listen to Wide Teams podcasts

Episode #48: Kevin Old of DicomGrid

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 13:00:16 +0000

Kevin Old, of DicomGrid, talks about the concept of “think time,” his theories on people solving problems subconsciously, and the importance of trusting other team members and talking things out as a group.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @kevinold
kevinold.com

00:44 – Kevin Old Introduction & Background

Software engineer of 16 years
Self-taught in Perl
Graduated to JavaScript & Ruby
Family situations led him to try working remotely
Has worked remotely now for 5 years

02:15 – Benefits of remote work

Freedom
Work/life balance
Ability to walk away from a problem
“Think Time”
Ability to slow down
Ability to work at your own leisure

07:20 – A typical day

Things happen in the morning that you react to in the afternoon
Solving problems subconsciously
Working at times that you are at your best

11:40 – Working remotely for DicomGrid

Familiar faces + new folks
Based in Phoenix, AZ
Health Care industry

14:00 – Communication setup

Trello
Asynchronous culture
Skype
Lessons learned from previous companies

17:30 – Collaboration

Customer-driven requests
Idea board
Bugs
List of features

20:00 – Remote culture

Cutting ties when things aren’t working out
Talking things out as a group
Trusting the team

24:30 – Building trust

Navigation of tough situations
There are no magic team-building activities

27:18 – Bringing someone on board a remote team

Mentorship
Going through “seasons”

33:30 – Advice for distributed teams

If you’re stuck on a problem, revisit it later

Episode #47: Will Farrington & Mike Skalnik of Github

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:00:47 +0000

Will Farrington and Mike Skalnik, of Github, talk about being a part of one of the most widely distributed companies out there, coordinating work between teams, and give advice about successfully securing a remote working position.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @wfarr
willfarrington.com
Github

Twitter: @skalnik
mikeskalnik.com
Github

00:35 – Introduction

Will Farrington: System Operations @ Github
Mike Skalnik: Rails Developer @ Github
Calling in together at Github Summit in San Francisco

01:40 – Github is widely distributed all over: Korea, Australia, New Zealand, England, USA

⅔ of company works remotely, full-time
Company paid office setups
Traveling is a huge part of being a part of the company

04:48 – Github Summit

Semi-annual week-long get-together
Meeting people in person

05:40 – Coordinating work

Everything is asynchronous
Loosely organized teams
Weekly live streaming fireside chats in Campfire

09:15 – Keeping people on the same page and adding employees

Put on notification blinders
People hired have specific focuses

11:00 – Flow of incoming information

Danger Room: everything non-work related
Internal Twitter: keep up to date on higher level things
Mass emails
Using team & individual mentions

15:14 – Planning

Pull requests
Unofficial policies
Rolling things out internally, staff-only first

18:09 – HUBOT

Deploys the site
Automates tasks
A source of fun within the company

23:50 – Frustrations working distributively

HR software

25:40 – FaceTime

Mostly during summits & conferences
Trust
Constructive criticism

30:30 – Getting into remote work

Seeking out companies that trust remote workers
User groups & conferences
Getting involved within the community
Being passionate about what you’re working on
Ask your favorite companies, “What would it take to work for you?”

34:30 – Advice for distributed teams

Make it reasonable for everyone to be able to participate
Communicate

Episode #46: Katie Cunningham of Cox Media Group

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:00:41 +0000

Katie Cunningham, of Cox Media Group, talks about implementing the Pomodoro time management technique, silly, but effective ways of getting people’s attention in IRC channels, and making yourself attractive to prospective remote employers.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @kcunning
TheRealKatie.net

00:38 – Katie Cunningham introduction & background

Django and Python developer with Cox Media Group of Atlanta
Author of forthcoming Accessibility Handbook: Making 508 Websites
Based in Washington, DC
Previously worked for NASA
Pursued by a recruiter to work at Cox

03:53 – Cox actively looks for people who can work remotely

Have remote days
All remotes on one team
All conversations must happen in IRC

06:05 – A day in the life

Work right away to get off earlier
Pomodoro method: get up and walk somewhere else every 25 minutes
Check email, IRC channels
Exercise is important
Work on books during lunch
Code reviews
Admin work

12:30 – Advantages of working from home

Relaxed
Flexible with kids
No office: kids are behind her and she can keep an eye on them

16:20 – Isolation working from home

Up time is other peoples’ down time
Limited interruptions and distractions
Having kids/husband around is fun

18:50 – Transitioning to working from home

Thought she’d be lonlier
Thought she’d miss getting out of the house

20:12 – Problems working from home

Fatigue
Training the family
Getting help for work/asking questions/getting people’s attention in IRC

26:20 – Communication strategies

Always have an ally
Calling your manager or office admin and asking who’s around
Silly code words in IRC

29:55 – Exercise

Constantly moving within an office
Go for walks
Concentrating while standing
Wii Fit/Kinect

33:42 – Where can people find remote work?

Talk to good recruiters
Good remote positions don’t advertise they’re looking for employees

36:31 – Making yourself attractive prospective employers

Present yourself well
Network like crazy
Go to conferences–even if paying out of pocket
Organize your own day
Exceptional writing skills

38:38 – Most important pieces of advice for remote workers

Learn how to communicate early
Learn who to communicate with
Make your presence felt on the team
Network with social media: stay involved

Episode #45: Mike Smith of Blitz.io

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:00:14 +0000

Mike Smith, of Blitz.io, talks about being a part of a distributed team while being based in Austin, TX, why notifications and knowing your app is being used are good for team morale and self-esteem, and different strategies that promote communication between working regions.

Show Notes:

Blitz.io
Twitter: @evilmike

00:33 – Mike Smith Introductory

Tech Lead at Blitz.io
Based in Austin, Texas
Team is based mostly in California with 2 others in Brazil

01:25 – History of being distributed

Worked with the others in CA before moving to TX
Brazilian team are contractors by refferal
6 team members total

02:50 – Working together

Keeping in touch on a daily basis
Campfire & Pivotal Tracker

03:47 – Automation around Campfire

New user registration
Plan purchases
Exception reporting & errors

07:00 – Energy of knowing your app is being used

Sales get a notification
Everybody likes to hear the bell ring

08:30 – Strategies to promote communication between regions

Weekly call
Live internal demos

10:30 – Challenges of distance

Communication bandwidth
Whiteboard
Lucidchart
Gesturing

14:35 – Advice for teams starting to work remotely

Work with people you’ve worked with before if possible
Shared sense of humor

18:43 – Facetime with team members

Episode #44: Rob Park

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 13:00:25 +0000

In this episode, Rob Park, an independent software consultant and Agile coach talks about all aspects of remote pair programming, different ways distributed teams choose to communicate, and the art of participating in daily standups.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @robpark

00:30 – Rob Park introduction & history

Independent software consultant & Agile coach
Teams trying to hang on to good talent
Based in Colorado

02:22 – Remote pairing

Extreme programming background
Finding the right setup
Great way to get ideas
Fun to work that way

06:20 – Pairing etiquette

Visual cues
Asking permission

07:51 – Communication is everything

You can tell the health of an Agile team by the buzz in the room
The keyboard is not the bottleneck

09:13 – Ways teams choose to communicate

Open chat rooms and IRC channels
Open Skype room
Chatrooms will die if people do not participate
IM tools
Email in some rare instances

11:24 – Standups via phone

Freedom to be wherever you want to be
Headsets required even when co-located
Enforce contact

13:44 – Kanbanpad

Whiteboards
Webcams set up on all the whiteboards

18:22 – Standing up while doing standups

Easy to lose focus in front of a screen

20:40 – Joining a distributed team in the future

Going stir-crazy in the house
Pairing in public

23:05 – Problems getting synced during a pairing session

Promiscuous pairing
Timezone issues
Be flexible and patient

26:56 – Encouraging pairing

30:55 – Tips and tricks

Enabling remote workers
Privilege to work at home

Episode #43: Greg Bell of Reverb Software

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:00:39 +0000

In this episode, Greg Bell, of Reverb Software, talks about mistakes he made during the early stages of managing a distributed team and what he’s done to combat those mistakes, and the ideal people that make up a widely distributed team.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @gregbell
REVERB Software
Greg Bell Design + Development
github/gregbell
Ruby Open Source Challenge

00:44 – Greg Bell Introduction and Background

Based in Vancouver, Canada
Reverb has 6 staff members distributed around the world: France and Vancouver
Shared office space that can be utilized

02:05 – Type of software worked on

Rails applications in medical and pharmaceutical enterprise spaces

03:00 – History with distributed teams

First experiences weren’t so good
Inherited distributed developers

05:20 – What went wrong at first?

Good technology wasn’t in place to allowl continuous communication
No IRC or Hip Chat
No daily standups
Language barrier
Time zone alignment

08:30 – Plans to avoid future mistakes while managing a distributed team

Try to get people in the same room as much as possible
Face time
Keep the team connected
Having the right people

09:45 – Ideal people

Enjoy writing down what they are doing
Documenting thoughts
Making it obvious what they are up to
Detail tickets

11:20 – A day in the life

Daily standup over Google Hangouts
Additional conversations between teams
HipChat all day

13:14 – HipChat

Easy to use
Integrated one-on-one video chat
More private than Skype

15:10 – Division of work between people in Vancouver and people in France

Everyone works on projects together
Meeting with clients is harder for those located in France
Iteration planning

18:42 – Being stalled during work due to others being unavailable

Always have multiple independent tasks you could be working on
Changing how you orient standups

23:00 – Connecting with clients

Tracking conversations
Taking meeting notes
Side conversations with clients can give a lot of context

25:08 – Dealing with young members of teams

Training/programs for young developers out of college
Remote pair programming

29:05 – Number one piece of advice for someone getting into distributed work

Show progress

Episode #42: Chad Fowler of LivingSocial

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:00:30 +0000

Chad Fowler, of LivingSocial, talks about his background working in and managing widely distributed teams, why people should be allowed to work from home, and the best ways for people who want to work remotely to get into the business.

Show Notes:

ChadFowler.com
Twitter: @chadfowler
LivingSocial.com
LivingSocial.com/jobs

01:18 – Chad Fowler Introduction & Background

Author of the Passionate Programmer and Rails Recipes
Organizer of RubyConf and RailsConf
SVP of Technology at LivingSocial

01:50 – Experience with remote work

Off-shore team setups
Off-shore insourcing arrangement
Consulting arrangements
Widely distributed teams at LivingSocial

03:55 – Off-shore experiences

Extreme programming
Turnover
Confirming something is actually done & finished

12:05 – Psychological aspect of being a developer

Isolation from other developers

13:20 – LivingSocial

Wasn’t widely distributed before
Goal: to create a culture open to distributed teams

15:15 – Challenges in creating a distributed environment

Large teams and large companies typically are not good to work for
Overhead
Multiple personalities
Making a large team still feel like a small one
Create a collection of small teams: “start-up within a start-up”

18:44 – Every team operates differently

Team gelling/team dynamics
Bonding while collaborating
Creating comradery

22:10 – Team choices

No two people working on the same thing within one office

26:00 – Forming a distributed team

Sharing information
Technology is important
If possible, don’t have a room with multiple people in it
Mind timezones
Work from home regularly; force people to not come into the office

33:40 – Why let people work from home?

You don’t want to be limited to one area in terms of “types” of employees
The lifestyle of those working from home is generally healthy
Offices restrict you schedule-wise
A happier, more productive “me”

38:25 – Some people just can’t work from home

Staying focused can be an issue
Presence
Staying passionate

43:45 – How can somebody find remote work?

Create a presence
Become a part of the online/tech scene
References
Networking
Writing books/blogs
Speaking at conferences
Organizing conferences
Be an online extrovert
Helping others

49:20 – Remote pair programming

Open-source code
An avenue for becoming known

Podcast #41: Jonathan Wallace of Highgroove Studios

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:00:10 +0000

Jonathan Wallace, of Highgroove Studios, talks about the team’s management philosophy, ROWE, and why it works, and how the concepts of overcommunication and summarization are extremely important practices when working within a distributed team.

Show Notes:

Highgroove Studios
blog.jonathanrwallace.com
Twitter: @jonathanwallace
@highgroove

00:52 – Jonathan Wallace Introduction

Developer and Technologist at Highgroove Studios
Independent IOS and Rails Consultant
Open-Source Developer
Runner of code retreats

01:14 – Distributed Team

Highgroove: 20 or so members
Management Philosophy: ROWE–Results Only Work Environment
Results are what matter no matter where you are

01:58 – Becoming Distributed

Consultant work out of coffee shops/home
Permalancers
Freedom/empowerment
Working vacations
Can work from office or home based on how they feel

07:43 – Being “there” versus getting things done: Results Only (ROWE)

Measuring results, not hours worked
Client happiness rules
Being proactive and responsible in managing expectations
Figure out what works for you

11:50 – Work Flow while Working from Home

Communicate via Campfire
Pivotal Tracker

14:42 – Challenges of Remote Work

Discipline of sitting down and getting work done
Getting away from the computer and work
Getting to know new employees

18:00 – “Overcommunicating”

Seeking advice from others
Sharing experience
Not making assumptions that everyone knows everything
Broadcasting thoughts

20:30 – Summarizing

Reducing the “bus” factor
Someone else can pick a project back up in someone else’s absence

23:44 – Advice for Remote Teams

Overcommunicate
Establish good social bonds

Podcast #40: Mike Leone of Panoptic Development

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:00:03 +0000

In this episode, Mike Leone of Panoptic Development, talks about transitioning into remote work, working with people who are not local, and integrating someone new into a dispersed team.

Show Notes:

Panoptic Development
Twitter: @panopticdev

01:28 – Mike’s background and history

One of the founders of Panoptic Development
Does software engineering with open source development
Mobile application development
Systems integration work
4 full-time partners: 2 in Providence, RI, 2 in San Francisco and a network of 5 consultants throughout the country

02:38 – How the company came to be

3 partners worked at a startup in Providence and branched off

03:59 – Changes made when going remote

Get better at the things they were already doing
Think about business development
Tool selection

05:14 – Working with people who were not local

Networking

05:56 – Integrating someone new into a distributed team

Transition from small tasks to larger ones
People who express more interest in becoming more active within the company

07:10 – A day in the life working together remotely

IRC meeting
Client work/business development

13:35 – Challenges of going remote

Picking better projects to people to integrate them into working remotely
Being consistent

14:57 – Physically getting together as a team

At least once a year the partners get together

16:55 – Advice for remote workers

Having good tools makes a difference
Be flexible in your process: everyone works differently

Podcast #39: Luke Stokes and Brett Florio of Foxycart

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:00:05 +0000

Luke Stokes and Brett Florio talk about what it’s like to be partners and co-founders of Foxycart, an eCommerce platform focusing on the cart and the checkout flow. They also talk about bringing team members onboard an already dispersed team, using different modes of communication, and overcoming hurdles in building a team that works.

Show Notes:

Foxycart.com
Twitter:
@lukestokes
@brettflorio

01:06 – Background and History

Remote from the beginning
Don’t know how else they would work
9 team members
Like the flexibility of remote work

04:43 – Finding team members

No need to stay local
Django job board = more targeted than other job boards
Networking within the community
Local connections

08:55 – Bringing team members onboard outside an office sit-down interview

Emails
Skype/video interview
Campfire chat room = virtual office
People hired have had a history where Luke and Brett seen what they have done and what know they are capable of doing

14:30 – Business of Foxycart

Foxycart is an eCommerce platform focusing on the cart and the checkout flow
Built to integrate
Flexible

17:30 – Team Member Handbook

As the team grew, there were things that needed clarified
Security
Tool-training
Expectations

24:04 – Modes of communication

Google+ Hangout
HeyTell – push to talk
iMessage

28:00 – Culture

Similarities in age, marital status, family, passions, etc.
Personal relationships outside of just work

31:33 – Overcoming hurdles in developing a dispersed team

Team members disappearing
Developing a hiring process
Org charts
Distributing work to different members based on skills and what they want to do

37:35 – A day in the life with Foxycart

Wake up, check email
Read through Campfire logs
Read through forum posts
Read through support tickets
Jump into your individual focus
Work in blocks

44:05 – Advice for dispersed teams

Value communication
Founder/partner relationship building is critical

Podcast #38: Vassilis Rizopoulos of Zühlke

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:00:02 +0000

Vassilis Rizopoulos, of Zühlke, talks about what it is like to handle equipment that can be remotely operated, working within a company’s IT limitations, and the importance of setting boundaries when working from home.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @arcandros
Google+
EuRuKo
Zühlke

01:20 – Vassilis’ history and background

Working remotely for 8 years
Works for Zühlke, an engineering company that provides services for clients that want to create projects

05:30 – Embedded hardware development

Works with equipment that can be remotely operated

08:49 – Structure of Vasillis’ remote teams

Many branches located in many places

11:17 – Iteration meetings

Collaboration tools

14:36 – Daily stand-ups

15:24 – Interaction with co-workers

If something breaks or there is a problem
If everything is ok, contact is minimal to once or twice a day
Travels to other offices

18:30 – Information radiators

A tool that brings information back to the developer as quickly as possible
Needs updated regularly
Needs to be visible to the team

22:41 – Working with IT limitations

26:00 – Advice for working remotely

Get a room with a door
Boundaries need to be clear to be productive

27:00 – Positives and negatives of working remotely

Working from home

Podcast #37: Justin Searls of Test Double

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:00:26 +0000

In this episode, Justin Searls of Test Double, shares his experiences - both good and bad, in working with distributed teams, how to turn the tides when things are going noticably sour within a project, and the importance of forming habits that stick.

Show Notes:

Test Double
Twitter: @searls
Beautiful Front End Code Conference

01:14 – Justin’s history and background with remote work

Consulting for 6 years

01:53 – Bad experiences with distributed teams

Satellite offices trash talking each other
Communication constraints
Passive agressiveness

05:30 – Turning the tide

Get of the project
Everyone’s doing their best

07:50 – Good experiences with distributed teams

When coaching isn’t necessary
Coming from a common foundation and similar levels of experience

11:25 – Normalization

Improving communication
Team mindset
Handshake Problem
Every opinion matters

13:33 – Communication cost is significantly higher within distributed teams

16:06 – Warning signs that the cost of communication is becoming too expensive

Remote people getting left out
People get lost and become uncomfortable about where things in the project are
Forming habits that stick
Value asynchronous communication

19:50 – Advice for dispersed teams

Recognize what kind of organization style you have
Don’t prejudge

Podcast #36: Ben Johnson of Merrill Corporation

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:00:07 +0000

In this episode, Ben Johnson of Merrill Corporation talks about evolving into remote work, why working in an office is bad for focus and productivity, and why putting your face out on the Internet is a good thing.

Show Notes:

Twitter: @deafgreatdane
Merrill Corporation
Merrill DataSite
Pragmatic Geek

01:10 – Ben’s introductory and background

Software architect who leads teams in software development efforts in Minnesota
Internal style development

01:37 – Merrill Corporation

Printing company that has evolved into a communications service company
Focused on legal services and financial world (printing and distributing documents)

02:20 – Evolving into remote work

Company wanted to have Ben work remotely rather than not at all

03:12 – Tools

Instant messaging
Conference calling
Wikis & Issue trackers
Email

05:19 – Day to day operation

Formal SCRUM to 15-20 minute daily standups
Reach out to others as needed

07:11 – Advantages of working remotely

Ability to focus
A lot of other venues for knowledge sharing rather than interoffice face to face communication
Introverts vs extroverts

10:41 – Remaining in touch with your team

Trust
Frequent check-ins
Team leads

12:45 – Helpful management techniques

Code reviews
XP techniques
Continual communication

13:53 – Standardized tools are important

16:45 – Advice for others working remotely

More use of real faces on avatars
Starting off with face to face meetings is important

Podcast #35: Harvey Losin

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:00:52 +0000

Wide Teams field correspondent Keith Bennett interviews Harvey Losin, talking about outsourcing and the challenges that come with it; working with people in different time zones and cultures; and why knowing business is more valuable than any technical tool you can offer.

Show Notes:

02:30 – Harvey’s background and information

Harvey Losin managing partner of Ideowave Technology Corporation in Cebu, Philippines
Company is set up on a partnership
Freelance Web Developer

04:40 – Working with time zones

People from different time zones have different tasks to do

05:22 – Communication issues

Accents

07:00 – Assignments

Graphic design
Logo
Layout changes
Web development support
Coding
Graphic conversion
Technical support

09:35 – Working with time zones

Emergency meetings
Provide two points of contact

11:00 – Tools

12:30 – Providers should adjust to their clients

13:15 – Outsourcing challenges

Insufficient/incomplete instructions
Filling in gaps

15:41 – How Harvey got his start

Never stop learning

19:35 – Keep a balance of local and overseas clients

20:43 – Never be complacent with technology

25:40 – Studying business

Reaching your clients better
Understanding issues and problems and how you can solve them

27:25 – Dealing with clients from a different culture

Budget/Haggling
Western clients are more objective and know what they want
Know psychology of all types of culture
Good to know how to allocate resources

35:00 – Advice

Don’t make technical things your primary tool
Communicate and be able to talk business

Podcast #34: Ron Evans of The Hybrid Group

Avdi Grimm — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:00:06 +0000

In this episode, Ron Evans of The Hybrid Group talks about being a part of a consultancy and the importance of reputation, balancing family and distributed work, and a wonderful project aimed at our youth to introduce them to coding at a young age and keep the Ruby community alive and thriving!

Show Notes:

Twitter: @deadprogram
The Hybrid Group
Kanban Pad
The Kids Ruby Project
Clutch

00:51 – Introduction

Ron Evans of the Hybrid Group a software consultancy with a dispersed team

01:50 – Interview begins

02:05 – Ron’s background

Ring leader of The Hybrid Group: a development company based in L.A.
Has developers in 5 countries, 4 different time zones, speaking in 4 different languages

04:05 – Sustainable development

Works on client programs already in progress
Takes over an existing code base

04:38 – Communication practices

Uses real-time communication
Has Skype chat room for each client and encourages client participation
Transparency is essential

06:00 – Being extreme

Times when distractions need to be eliminated
Times when you need to be collaborative

06:40 – Tools

Skype
Email
Ticketmaster
Clutch: universal feed that allows you to track projects
Kanban
Kanban Pad

11:45 – Consultancies

Reputation is key
Caring gives you a competitive edge
Treat client how you wish to be treated
How can we make things better and improve as a provider of service

14:10 – Building a remote culture

Geographic centers where you can cowork
Silly customs can help build the culture of a dispersed team
PBEOD: Production by end of day
Deploy Master: rotating person in charge each day

23:40 – History of The Hybrid Group

Meet tons of like-minded people, especially at conferences
Evolution of Ron’s previous consultancy

29:35 – Pair programming and when to do it

Pairing is done to solve a problem and to have people looking at code collaborativly
Screen-share-style pairing
Pairing with a client
Solving a particularly difficult problem
Do anything all the time is not a good approach to solving problems

36:48 – Does agile development work?

38:30 – Family and distributed work

Avoid commute times
Choose your own environment for productivity
Having control over your own destiny
Investing in people rather than infrastructure

41:50 – The Kids Ruby Project

Fantastic developers started programming very young
Computer education in schools is decreasing for programming type jobs

50:55 – Advice for future dispersed teams

Cultivate an attitude of transparency
Share information
Truth will set you free
Be ethical

Podcast #33: Keith Casey of Blue Parabola

Avdi Grimm — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:00:57 +0000

In this episode, Keith Casey of Blue Parabola talks about managing a successful PHP company with a 100% distributed team, being a buffer zone between corporate and open-source worlds, and what mainstream companies look for in hiring remote workers.

Show Notes:

PHP Architect
Web2Project
CaseySoftware
Twilio

02:06 – Keith Casey introduction and background

Software developer based in Austin Texas
Primary focus is PHP community
Blue Parabola 100% distributed

03:12 – History of Blue Parabola as a distributed team

Natural progression

04:20 – Blue Parabola

One of the more active, unheard of, PHP companies
Runs PHP Architect Magazine
Runs PHP Tech, a conference in Chicago
Contracting, consulting, training
Works with companies of people trying to understand the PHP community
Buffer zone between corporate world and open-source world

06:30 – A day in the life with Keith

Varied work schedule/time zones
Chat channel/status calls
Twice a week daily stand-ups

08:22 – Useful tools

09:05 – Web 2 Project

Lead developer
Web-based formal project management

13:45 – Ups and downs of working from home

No commute time is nice
Stopping at the end of the day is difficult

14:38 – Communicating in person as a team

Try for once a quarter
Conferences

16:45 – PHP Community

Mainstream companies doing big things who hire people wherever they are located
Hiring experienced people

19:20 – Advice for future dispersed teams

Open up channels for communication and get used to communicating there

Podcast #32: Louis Font of Zyncro

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:22 +0000

In this episode I talk to Louis Font of Zyncro. We talk about his internationally distributed team and how they, as a company, seek to be available to customers 24/7 no matter what time zone they are located in, solving communication gaps between businesses and social networks, and how important physical communication is in the world of remote work.

Show Notes:

ZyncroBlog
Twitter: @zyncro
Facebook

00:40 – Introduction

Louis Font of Zyncro, an enterprise social network
Employees around the world: Spain, France, Argentina, USA
Develop local relationship with customers no matter what time zones customers are in

02:22 - Louis’ background

Entrepreneur out of Barcelona that creates, grows and sells companies for profit

04:20 – Distributed team structure and background

09:08 – Challenges working distributed

You have to meet other team members that you’re working with to establish fluent relationships

10:30 – Cultural differences between team members

Human interaction is important no matter where you are

12:00 – Zyncro as a company

Trying to solve communication gaps between businesses and social networks
Enhances software using collaboration tools

16:22 – Advice for distributed teams

Communication minimum two times per day

17:20 – Future of distributed teams

Will become more common

Podcast #31: Joseph Moore of Pivotal Labs

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:00:01 +0000

In this episode I talk to Joseph Moore of Pivotal Labs. We talk about the challenges of moving from a collocated team to being a “satellite team member” thousands of miles away. What’s especially interesting about Joseph’s story is that he still pair-programs all day, every day with other members of his team despite being remote.

Show Notes:

00:55 - Introduce Joe

Software Developer
Moved from San Francisco to Atlanta and continued working for Pivotal remotely

01:41 – Interview begins

01:58 – Joe’s background

Pivotal Labs is a consulting company specializing in web apps, web development, and mobile development
Worked on site for Pivotal and continues working remotely from new location in Atlanta

04:50 – Pair Programming

Two developers sitting side by side at one computer, working on the same problem together
Slower, but teams produce code that is higher quality, fewer defects, better design, etc.
Quickly & easily make changes

06:55 – Pair Programming 100% of the time while remote

Same standard equipment (iMac)

09:10 – Patience and Social Skills while Pairing

Be a good listener
Not let ego and opinions take too much precedence
Have an open mind
Arrive at solutions together
Patience with finicky technology
Video face time is important
Being disciplined with distractions
Take breaks (naturally)

13:55 – Keyboard back & forth sharing

100% access vs watching and critiquing
Etiquette and cues
Latency
Free up CPU by using multiple machines

23:08 – Daily Pair Swapping

Change who you’re working with
Make sure everybody is aware of everyone involved in a project
People are introduced to many other ideas and opinions

25:09 – Going from co located to remote (Joe’s experience)

27:18 – Daily Standups

Discuss standing up versus sitting down
Avoiding distraction during daily standups
Look at what has been done and what goals are for that day

32:01 – Daily check-ins with clients

Ensures everything is moving smoothly, have priorities changed, and verify work that has been done

33:56 - Social impact of going from co located to remote

If you can make occasional physical visits, do it

36:40 - Advice for remote workers

Discipline
Patience with technology and others

38:17 – Type of person who can be successful at remote work

50% patience
50% skill

39:40 – How much of a “normal” work environment can be replicated with distributed teams?

40:35 – Aspects that are superior to remote versus co located work

42:00 – Remote pair programming and coworking

43:38 – Wrap Up

Anyone interested in agile project tools should check out Pivotal Tracker
Free software: Pivotal Tracker
Pivotal Labs is a consulting company located in San Francisco, New York, Boulder, CO, and Joe in Atlanta
Twitter @joem
Blog: 40withegg

Podcast #30: Dan Menard of Macadamian

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 05:34:30 +0000

A discussion with Dan Menard of Macadamian, covering the importance of taking the time to build personal relationships; the advantages of having a team that’s split across time zones, the practice of distributed code review, and much more!

Announcements:

I’m looking for a sponsor so I can do the podcast on a more regular schedule! Contact me if you’re interested.
Get your free copy of the Dispersed Team Kick-Start Guide by signing up to the Wide Teams mailing list.

Show notes:

Dan blogs at dan-menard.com and is @dan_menard on Twitter.
Macadamian
How to work with someone 12 hours away
Yammer
Smartboard
The Wine project

03:15 – Dan’s background

Macadamian Technologies based out of Ottowa, Canada, with offices in Romania and Armenia
Product creation company that helps other companies bring products to life
Software development
User research
User experience and visual design
Quality assurance

04:02 – History with oversea startup

Helped to work more effectively with clients in different timezones

06:00 – Schedule Flexibility

Adjusted schedule
Work from home or office

07:28 – Importance of relationships

Personal connection
Avoid “Us” versus “Them” mentality
Skype is useful
Personal presence at all offices

09:50 – Advantages of working with teams across time zones

Working in teams across time zones expands a regular work day
Instead of fitting 8 hours into a work day, you can get around 16
Get projects done in half the time
Overlap shifts slightly to sync up with SCRUM meetings, etc.

12:00 – Tools

Skype
Confluence (Wiki)
Email
Internal mailing lists and news groups
Yammer

14:40 – Smartboard

Whiteboard with a projector hooked up to it
Touchscreen
Interactive

17:06 – Code Review

Patch-a-day
Do things in small batches
Develops good patterns and catches bugs earlier
Responsibility

19:00 – Adjustment to working with distributed teams

20:52 – Future of working with distributed teams

21:24 – Advice to distributed groups

Do whatever works for your individual team

Podcast #29: John Hawkins of 9Seeds LLC

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:25:33 +0000

In this episode, an interview with John Hawkins, one of the founders of 9Seeds, a company that specializes in custom WordPress development. The 9Seeds team is fully dispersed, with every team member working from home. We talked about how 9Seeds came to be a distributed company, and why John intends never to set foot in a brick-and-mortar office again.

Show notes:

John Hawkins is @vegasgeek on Twitter
9Seeds LLC
The Event Ticketing and Affiliate Manager WordPress plugins
9Seeds sponsors WordCamp conferences

Podcast #28: Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode I talk to Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter, a fully dispersed software consultancy. We talked about recruiting the right kinds of people for a distributed team, and how to stay connected as friends as well as coworkers.

Show notes:

Shane Pearlman is @justlikeair on Twitter
Shane & Peter
Check out the Shane & Peter Lifeblog
Redmine
Adium
Coworking
Freelance Camp

Podcast #27: Susan Tenby & Jessica Dally of TechSoup

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:00:21 +0000

This podcast is a departure from the dispersed software development teams I usually cover. I interviewed Susan Tenby and Jessica Dally of TechSoup, a nonprofit focused on providing other nonprofits with the technology they need to better accomplish their missions. One way they assist nonprofits is in helping them to use Second Life, a massive on-line “virtual world”, to collaborate and build community online.

I talked to Susan and Jessica about why TechSoup is a distributed organization, and why organizations are using Second Life to meet, network, and do their work. For someone who spends a lot of time doing remote collaboration, it was eye-opening for me to discover this whole new frontier of online interaction. After listening to this interview you may just be inspired to add a virtual world meeting space to your own remote collaboration tool box.

Show Notes:

Susan Tenby is @suzboop on Twitter
Jessica Dally is @jessicadally
TechSoup is @techsoup on Twitter
Nonprofit Commons is @npsl on Twitter.
A video about NPSL’s work in Second Life
Second Life
Hypergrid Business, a blog devoted to “enterprise users of virtual worlds”
Community Voice Mail
5PM project management tool
Evernote
HootSuite
BaseCamp

Podcast #26: Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:00:21 +0000

In this episode I talked to Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com, a web-based collaboration tool for distributed teams. This is another episode recovered from near-disastrous technical malfunction, and as a result all of my audio has been re-dubbed. Thankfully, Sahil’s insights into he advantages of a dispersed team have been fully preserved.

Show notes:

Sahil Parikh is @sahilparikh on Twitter.
Check out DeskAway at DeskAway.com / @deskaway

Podcast #25: Jared Goralnick of AwayFind.com

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:48:34 +0000

The conventional wisdom says that while some distributed teams might work, it’s not possible to have a geographically dispersed software startup. With AwayFind.com, Jared Goralnick is challenging that wisdom. I talked to him about time management, establishing rapport in a distributed teams, and the advantages of remote workers for a startup.

Show notes:

Jared is @technotheory on Twitter, and blogs at Technotheory.
AwayFind.com is a great service for avoiding email overload.

Podcast #24: Derek Wade

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:00:38 +0000

In this episode, a conversation with Derek Wade, a collaboration expert and Team Coach at Kumido Adaptive Systems. We talk about building “high-gravity” distributed teams, work-scapes, and the benefits of simple, free-form tools for collaboration.

This episode is “back from the dead” — all of the audio from my side of the interview was lost, but I reconstructed and re-dubbed my questions so that I could share this interview.

Show notes:

Derek can be found at derekwwade.net, and is @derekwwade on Twitter.
Slides for the presentation “High Gravity Distributed Teams“
The #lrnchat hashtag on Twitter
I did a video demo of the Cardmeeting tool.

Podcast #23: Interview with Rob Dempsey of LifeOfTheFreelancer.com (Part 2 of 2)

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:00:27 +0000

Part two of a conversation between Rob Dempsey of LifeOfTheFreelancer.com and myself. In this part we dig into the intersection of freelancing and distributed teams: the phenomenon of ad-hoc teams composed of independent consultants who come together to work on a specific project. If you’re a freelancer trying to figure out how you can take on bigger jobs, you need to check out this episode.

Show notes:

Rob’s site is lifeofthefreelancer.com, @lifeofthefree on Twitter.
Since this podcast was recorded, he also launched The Itinerant Entrepreneur.
Shane & Peter is a web development consultancy that organizes teams of independent consultants to take on larger projects.
We discussed using Campfire from 37Signals for team chat.

Podcast #22: Rob Dempsey of LifeOfTheFreelancer.com (Part 1 of 2)

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:00:09 +0000

Show notes:

Rob’s site is lifeofthefreelancer.com, @lifeofthefree on Twitter.
Since this podcast was recorded, he also launched The Itinerant Entrepreneur.

Transcript:

Avdi: Hey, this is Avdi Grimm with WideTeams.com. And I’m talking today with Rob Dempsey of the LifeOfTheFreelancer. Rob?

Rob: Hey, Avdi. How’s it going, man?

Avdi: It’s going great. How are you?

Rob: Good. We overcame the technical difficulties, so we are all about it this morning. Yay Monday! (laughs and woots)

So well, let’s just start this conversation off because this will be – at least for the folks at LifeOfTheFreelancer- this will be a bit of a different kind of thing. Not our traditional interview where…we have some definite commonalities in terms of we’ve both been doing software, we’re both working with distributed teams or another way of putting that is working with other folks self-employed, or otherwise that are all over the damn place. Alright?

Avdi: Right.

Rob: And for me at LifeOfTheFreelancer, it’s very important to team up with other freelancers. Huge! Especially nowadays. So you’ve been doing that, I’ve been doing that. So we can totally have a conversation around that. So let’s start off too…I think by you giving some more of your background.

Avdi: Alright well, so like you said, I’m a software developer. I’ve been doing that for I guess, over ten years. And I started out sort of in the best military industrial complex and I eventually moved into…more into web development. And in the process, I’ve done a lot of working with distributed teams scattered usually across North America.

And at some point, I realized that I really wanted to spend more time at home…as much of my time as I could at home with my family. And so I decided that I wanted to really get good at working with dispersed teams and so sort of enabling that to happen for myself and for more people to be able to choose where they work from independently of who they work for.

And so since –I guess- June, I’ve been interviewing a lot of people who are working on dispersed teams about how they make that work, how they do typically software development. Although I’m going to be talking to some other people that are in different types of organizations about how they manage a dispersed team, what are the challenges and how they overcome those, and the tools they use, and all that kind of thing.

And of course anybody who is listening to this on WideTeams.com knows all these already. But yeah, that’s definitely…I am a freelancer now so Rob’s thing is all about freelancing. I’ve learned a lot of stuff from his site. And, from your site I should say……and, I have been a freelancer for a while now.

Rob: Yeah, and I was reading your bio. And so again, like you said, you were working in that vast military industrial complex. It sounds like, basically, ‘The Man’, right?

((crosstalk))

Rob: I saw the Ratheon cup.

Avdi: Yeah, my military industrial complex mug here.

Rob: You can say I’ve been there and got the mug, right?

Avdi: Yeah.

Rob: So now, when did you go freelance?

Avdi: Let’s see, that would be, I think spring of this year? Yeah.

Rob: Right on. So not an enormous amount of time.

Avdi: No.

Rob: But you made that league though.

Avdi: Yep.

Rob: And you have four kids, you said, right?

Avdi: Yep. Mm-hm.

Rob: Right, now did your wife freak out or went out when you were talking about going off on your own?

Avdi: Not really. I mean, she keeps track of the kids in the home and I pretty much figure out how to bring money in and so we keep things pretty well divided that way.

Rob: That’s good. And did you create a financial safety net having been working full-time for quite a while before you made the jump?

Avdi: I wish I could say yes. The truth is I had been planning on making the jump to freelance at some point, but I had it kind of come to me faster than I had planned.

So basically what happened was I was working for a company called Devver, which the Ruby on Rails programmers that are listening may remember, which was the start-up which was really cool but unfortunately didn’t succeed.

So when that went away, that sort of launched me earlier than I had intended into my freelance career rather abruptly. So no, I didn’t really have a safety net.

((crosstalk))

Avdi: I mean, I had the best safety net you can get which is just having good friends and knowing people that were able to find…you know, to refer me to work.

Rob: Right on. And that’s a huge point, having that network there. So a few listeners who give a bit of background on me I mean, my background too is software development, even before that IT.

So before I got into Ruby on Rails, blank. I think it was maybe six years ago, now I don’t know, I mean I remember messing with Rails before I was 1.0 but I didn’t actually start building a business doing Rails development until a little after 1.0 was out.

So my background was IT, I did Microsoft stuff. So I have like that MCSE and I was A+…. So basically,….. And the first time I had my business, I just up and quit my job and I’m like, “I can do it better than this guy” and…he was doing some stuff that I didn’t…well he said something that I didn’t fully agree with.

And so, I up and quit my job and that didn’t turn out so well. So luckily though, the second generation of my business which was doing software development, the way that I set it up was completely to be able to do it literally from anywhere that I was working. And so that I could work with people that were anywhere because I had…well I didn’t have a physical location when I was doing IT, I was running around – I was up in DC all the time – so literally driving all over DC, Maryland, and Virginia which will take a minimum of forty five minutes to get literally anywhere.

So yeah, you go to one place, you’re up there for an hour or two, you drive forty five minutes to an hour to get to the next place blah, blah, blah basically, half your time is spent just driving around from place to place. So that really reduces the amount of billable time, so I’m like, alright, I need to do something that’s tech that I don’t have to drive anywhere. And so that’s really how I got—well, I ended up doing a computer science degree.

And that actually let me do getting into Ruby on Rails and software development, and agile development which is a…well you know about it, I’m sure your listeners know about it, but it’s basically a method well it’s principles that manifest themselves as a set of methodologies for developing software that really, it talks about being very customer focused, a lot of communication.

And so when you talk about agile distributed software development or really working with people all over the place regardless, it really comes down to this. It’s really important to focus on the communication aspects of the project.

And so you’re talking about, using tools like Skype like we’re using, you can have face to face conversations or talk in project management tools, you’re talking, even at the development environment itself, really giving you you’re feedback and telling you what’s going on….OK does your software suck, are your test breaking? Do you even have test in the first place?

It’s like all this kind of thing and so, when…a lot of the same practices though, whether you’re doing software development, whether you’re doing really anything where you have people and multiple locations working on the same project, the same principles, the same practices I think, absolutely come into play.

And so I’ve been able to use agile practices on non-software development projects and it’s been really wicked cool.

Avdi: Right. That’s interesting. So agile on things beyond software.

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And so because again, agile itself is a set of principles that then manifest themselves as different practices whether it’s scrum certification and there’s been a whole shitstorm over there and that and that community. I’m glad to kind be away from that. You have scrum or extreme programming, you have all these things but basically we work together for the benefit of the customer.

And so, I remember going to these conferences where people go like, ‘Oh, they’re not sitting side by side, they’re not doing agile and blah blah blah’ and I’d like to punch these people in the face. I mean, that’s like, ‘Who are you to tell me I’m not doing agile because I’m not sitting beside the person I’m working with?’

And I think the future of work further is that we will be…we will have these distributed teams because you’re working at your house and I’m working at mine, and the overhead of that is a hell of a lot lower than if we have to come into some office. And what’s the point? I mean, you and I can work together. Where you’re up in…where, like Maryland you say?

Avdi: Pennsylvania.

Rob: Yeah, ok. That’s off completely. So, my fault.

Avdi: Well, not really because I’m really just across the line from Maryland, it’s forty five minutes to for me to ride to Baltimore.

Rob: Right on, right? So you can be on in Pennsylvania, and I can be…I’m currently in Minnesota, I’m gonna be at Highland probably in a month. But, you know the point. And I’ve worked with folks in the Philippines, I’ve worked with some of my previous employees in Florida, right? My customers are all over the place, I’m sure yours are too. I remember when I was building Atlantic Dominion Solutions which is my web development business. And I had never met any…a majority of my customers? I’ve never even met them in real life for years.
And so my wife and daughter and I took a road trip and sort of driving around and meeting these folks. So I think this is just an ever increasing trend and especially when you’re talking self-employed people like you and I, teaming up working together, all of this becomes even more important for…okay, well how do we work well?

Avdi: Right.
Rob: With you in Pennsylvania, me in Minnesota or Thailand or wherever, totally for the benefit, again, of the customer. And how do we bring them into the picture? And so we’re all over the place scattered about, how do we really make this work well?

Avdi: Right.

Rob: So my question to you is what are you doing that’s really helping you to do to make that happen?

Avdi: My biggest project right now is just the process of sort of trying to bring together the people that are doing this and get the conversation going more because what I found is that…I mean, you’re absolutely right, I think this is sort of the trend. You’re seeing more and more of it, especially in web development.

There are some things that you can do that you really require at least part of the team to be on one site. But when it comes to web development, you’re absolutely right, you can be anywhere. And there all these groups that are doing it, and they’re using different techniques, they’re using different tools, and I’m trying to sort of assemble that into one place and get people…sort of collect some of that wisdom that’s out there…

Rob: Okay, so for instance, what are you hearing then? When you’re out there interviewing people about stuff, what are you hearing that are some of the things that are working pretty well for folks so far?

Avdi: Well, I think the general experience seems to me that it’s not as big a change and it’s not as big a problem as a lot of people imagine it‘s going to be. And I think it’s interesting you talked about sort of a debate. There is that debate over ‘ can you be doing agile work distributed?’

But the truth is it’s kind of a moot question because it’s being done…just like you said. People are doing it everywhere and I hear a lot of things, I hear things like…I mean, obviously communication is key but it’s all about sort of the pace of the communication and how you keep it going. I mean, the big thing that I hear a lot is the importance –even if you’re gonna be distributed- of meeting up in person from time to time.

I pretty much hear that from everyone. If you’re going to work with somebody as a dispersed team, that’s fine. But try to make it happen that If possible, at the beginning of the project, you all get together and just sort of get to know each other a little bit in person. It completely changes the character of every interaction that you’ll have after that because you’ll have that sense of them in person and so, when they email you or when you talk to them on Campfire or something like that, you’re gonna see them as a person seeing it rather than just that jerk in the other end of the internet. And so, that’s something I hear over and over again. Pretty much everyone’s doing some kind of daily meeting usually on Skype or something like that.

I hear a lot about having well-defined expectations. So it doesn’t work as well when it’s kind of up in the air what to do next on the project…It works better when there is some clear and well defined goals for the iteration or whatever. And I think the thing that the biggest thing that I’ve taken away from everyone I’ve talked to and from my own experience is that working as a dispersed team really requires you to be intentional about it.

I mean, you can’t just…I think the people that have the biggest problems or the worst experiences are the ones who just sort of expected it to work, just sort of to happen. And the truth is that as good as the technology gets, everything is still going to be a little bit more of an effort. You and I even had some technical difficulties getting Skype connected this morning. And if you’re going to say, ‘Oh, screw it, I’m just not going to do the Skype call this morning.’ and you’re working as a team, that doesn’t work out.

And so, you have to accept the fact that everything’s going to be a little bit more effort than it would be if the other people on your team are sitting across the table from you. And as long as everybody realizes that and is intentional about making it work, it will work.

Rob: Right on, so really what you’re talking about then is relationship building between the people within the team. And so less about the project, and more about how do you and I work together to make this thing happen? So you’re talking people skills, and not necessarily technology skills at that point.

Avdi: Yeah, yeah it’s really just about making an effort, and making sure that the connections happen even if there is a technological barrier, or a time barrier, or whatever it is. Just making sure….it’s easier to remember to maintain that communication when you see someone around. But as long as you just make the effort, then it’ll happen.

Rob: Right on. Yeah, I mean ‘cause to me, I think as you said, people doing in the software space, agile development distributed is a moot point because it is happening. I’ve seen companies where they have all their business analysts and all the “businessey” people inside, like internal. But then they completely outsource all the developments.

Where that really falls down is just as you said, no expectations had been discussed. No one even talks about that. Okay, who’s going to do what, what do we expect of you, what do we want to see on both sides? It’s kind of the…not the plan of action per se, but the… what are the rules of engagement, if you will, right? So you don’t have that, you’re not even laying down the foundation for this whole thing to work.

Avdi: I have a friend, Chris Strum, who talks about working agreements and the importance of working agreements when you have a dispersed team. And that’s basically just having an actual short written list of things like ‘we will report status in a daily meeting every day’, or there are tools that are sort of like internal Twitter for reporting your status to each other and keeping up to date with each other, and working agreement could be, ‘I will update our yammer tool or our presently tool, or whatever you’re using at least once an hour’ or something like that. Just these working agreements that these groups come up with that help them remember to keep those lines of communication open.

Rob: Yeah, right on. So that forms the kind of foundation, everyone has their expectations. The thing when you’re working inside of a company, you have that company culture. Hopefully there’s company culture that kind of dictates how people will be working together. You get maybe that training when you first come into the business. But when we’re forming these ad hoc teams out there, … whereas we weren’t before….then we have to make sure that we have a basis in place for how we are going to work together.

Avdi: Right.

Rob: Then it’s a… I think then the tools and everything else are pretty straightforward. I mean so to me this stuff seems…maybe because I have been doing it for a number of years.

Avdi: Right.

Rob: Seems pretty straight forward. It’s like, ‘Okay, we got to talk, we got to know what we’re doing, and we got to know when we’re gonna talk with the customer, who’s gonna say what so we don’t step on each other’s toes’ and all that kind of thing.

So yeah, that idea of a working agreement is fantastic, just having that right off the bat. You could probably come up with some boiler plate and say look if we’re gonna work together, this is how it’s gonna be then that is that, because this is what I found to be successful.

Avdi: Yeah, but you got to be flexible too. One of the big insights of agile is that you constantly improve by evaluation pretty frequently, evaluating the things, the tools, and the techniques that you’re using. And then you suggest improvements, and then you test, you see if the improvements have helped. And I think that’s another thing that’s really important especially for dispersed teams. Because dispersed teams really are more reliant on tools and practices to keep those lines of communication open.

You really have to have retrospectives or something like retrospectives every couple of weeks, or at the most, every month in your project and just talk about what’s working and what the annoyances are and then possibly come up with…so you may add a new working agreement, or you might modify one or you might decide, ‘we’re gonna try a different tool for our meetings’ or something like that. You really have to keep stay flexible on that and stay on top of that stuff. If something’s not working right, you can’t just let it fester.

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. So for anyone in the non-software listening to this, a retrospective is where…like Avdi and I will sit down and say like, ‘okay, how are things going? What’s been working well? What’s not working well?’ So taking those “what’s not working so well” and then figuring out how do you make that better. And then implementing that like say, over the next two weeks or a month but personally, I think one month is too long for anything. I’m on internet time here buddy. So every two weeks you say ok well let’s try this out for about a week or two, see how it goes on the project, and then if we need to change yet again, then we change yet again. So yes, always trying to optimize your process whether that’s how you’re developing software, how you’re designing something, how you’re communicating internally. You got to look if what the hell you’re doing isn’t working. And if it’s not, then freaking change that stuff right away. Because I’ve seen project get derailed extremely quickly because basically no one does address the issues. So you got to address the issues.

Wide Teams Podcast #21: Interview with Tony Amoyal

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:00:44 +0000

Can you work remotely from a snowboarding vacation in Montana? Software developer Tony Amoyal says “why not?”. In this episode, he and I discuss the tradeoffs involved in being part of a software team while staying mobile.

Did you enjoy this podcast? Subscribe in iTunes or in your favorite podcatcher to get new episodes delivered to you once a week!

Show notes:

Tony blogs about Ruby on Rails and other development topics at tonyamoyal.com, and Tweets as @tonyamoyal.
Better Human Race
Gig and Tell
Your Daily Song Fix
Gym Shuffle

Wide Teams Podcast #20: Interview with Thomaz Leite

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 09:00:04 +0000

In this episode, a discussion with software developer Thomaz Leite, who lives in Missouri and collaborate with team members in Michigan, Portugal, and Brazli. He introduced me to an new Open Source VoiP tool that competes with Skype, and talked about doing pair programming with remote team members.

Did you enjoy this podcast? Subscribe in iTunes or in your favorite podcatcher to get new episodes delivered to you once a week!

Show Notes:

Thomaz’ home page (not much there right now). He is @thmzlt on Twitter.
Ruby Skills
HealPay
It’s not in the recording, but after the interview Thomaz brought up how handy he finds his Nokia N900 running Maemo for communicating with his team on the go.
Mumble, an “open source, low-latency, high quality voice chat software”.
Assembla

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 19: Interview with Steven Willmott

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:45:26 +0000

In this episode of the Wide Teams podcast, I interview Steven Willmott of 3Scale. We talk about supporting clients in multiple timezones, what you do when one of your developers who lives on a mountainside and generates his own power gets hit with a snowstorm, and much more!

Did you enjoy this podcast? Subscribe in iTunes or in your favorite podcatcher to get new episodes delivered to you once a week!

Show notes:

Steven Willmott is @njyx on Twitter, and blogs at Inopia.
The 3Scale home page and Twitter account.
Yammer
Assembla
TechHub London

Wide Teams Podcast #18: Ruby DCamp 2010 Part 3

Avdi Grimm — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:28:10 +0000

The third and final part of a series. This is a recording of a round-table discussion on distributed software teams held at the Ruby DCamp 2010 unconference in northern Virginia.

Be sure too listen to Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already.

Show notes:

The Ruby DCamp website
Trevor Lalish-Menagh is @trevmex on Twitter and blogs at http://trevmex.com/
Nick Gauthier of SmartLogic Solutions is @ngauthier on Twitter
Chris Strom is @eee_c on Twitter and blogs at http://japhr.blogspot.com/
Camille Bell doesn’t have a Twitter account that I could find, but perhaps she will correct me.
Jim Gay of Saturn Flyer is @saturnflyer on Twitter
Brian Glusman of ENJYN is @bglusman on Twitter
Apologies to the other participants whose info I wasn’t able to hunt down – please comment or email me and I’ll update this post!

Wide Teams Podcast #17: Ruby DCamp 2010 Part 2

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:00:09 +0000

Part 2 of a three-part series. This is a recording of a round-table discussion on distributed software teams held at the Ruby DCamp 2010 unconference in northern Virginia.

Be sure too listen to Part 1 if you haven’t already.

Show notes:

The Ruby DCamp website
Trevor Lalish-Menagh is @trevmex on Twitter and blogs at http://trevmex.com/
Nick Gauthier of SmartLogic Solutions is @ngauthier on Twitter
Chris Strom is @eee_c on Twitter and blogs at http://japhr.blogspot.com/
Camille Bell doesn’t have a Twitter account that I could find, but perhaps she will correct me.
Jim Gay of Saturn Flyer is @saturnflyer on Twitter
Brian Glusman of ENJYN is @bglusman on Twitter
Apologies to the other participants whose info I wasn’t able to hunt down – please comment or email me and I’ll update this post!

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 16: Ruby DCamp 2010 Part 1

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:33:52 +0000

This episode is part 1 in a three-part series capturing a roundtable discussion of dispersed team issues held at the Ruby DCamp 2010 unconference in northern Virginia.

Show notes:

The Ruby DCamp website
Trevor Lalish-Menagh is @trevmex on Twitter and blogs at http://trevmex.com/
Nick Gauthier of SmartLogic Solutions is @ngauthier on Twitter
Chris Strom is @eee_c on Twitter and blogs at http://japhr.blogspot.com/
Camille Bell doesn’t have a Twitter account that I could find, but perhaps she will correct me.
Jim Gay of Saturn Flyer is @saturnflyer on Twitter
Brian Glusman of ENJYN is @bglusman on Twitter
Apologies to any other participants whose info I wasn’t able to hunt down – please comment or email me and I’ll update this post!

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 15: Intridea

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:39 +0000

Intridea is one of the largest fully dispersed software companies that I’m aware of, and they are still growing fast. I’ve talked to them before – back in episode 9, I spoke with Michael Bleigh. When I visited the Ruby Hoedown in Nashville a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to a whole passel of Intrideans. We talked about why Intridea chose to build a distributed team, how they manage software teams that are spread across the world, and the tools they have used and built to facilitate communication.

Show notes:

Wide Teams Podcast Episode #14: Interview with Jim Weirich

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:00:10 +0000

In this episode I talk to Jim Weirich of EdgeCase. Jim is a prominent Ruby programmer and one of my programming heros. In this interview, he talks about using Skype and screensharing for remote pair programming, and the importance of having a video connection with remote coworkers.

Show notes:

Jim Weirich’s blog, “One Step Back”
Jim on Twitter
EdgeCase
GNU Screen

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 13: Interviews with Jody Alkema and Peter van Hardenburg

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 04:05:02 +0000

Two final interviews from RailsConf 2010 this week. The first is with Jody Alkema, a web developer with Domain 7 who spoke to me about his experience augmenting his Agile software team with some remote help. The second is with Peter van Hardenburg, a developer at Heroku who is transitioning back to a collocated team after a couple years of working remotely.

Show notes:

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 12: Interview with David Rogers

Avdi Grimm — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:35 +0000

In this episode I talk to Ruby on Rails software developer David Rogers of Beacon Interactive Systems about his experiences working collocated, fully remote, and as a part of a mixed collocated/remote team.

Show Notes:

Beacon Interactive Systems
Like the show? Become a fan on Facebook!

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 11: Interview with John McCaffrey

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:57:50 +0000

In this episode I talk to John McCaffrey, a software consultant who specializes in ironing out performance problems in Ruby on Rails applications. In the course of his consulting he works with dispersed teams, and in this interview he delivers a detailed rundown of the tools and workflow involved in doing Agile software development in a distributed team.

Show notes:

Monday’s Podcast Delayed

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:50:43 +0000

This week’s podcast has been delayed. Another great interview is coming up, though, so stay tuned!

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 10: Interview with Aslak Hellesøy

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:16:13 +0000

In this episode: an interview with Aslak Hellesøy, who talks about the contrasts between coordinating a large Open-Source project and a small dispersed team; the importance of constantly re-evaluating your tools and practices; and more. Also: theme music!

Show notes:

New theme music is by Giles Bowkett
My guest post “The 7 Hats of a Successful Remote Team Worker” at WebWorkerDaily
Like Wide Teams on Facebook
Aslak on Twitter
Aslak on Github
Cucumber
Agile Zen

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 9: Interview with Michael Bleigh

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:20:01 +0000

In this episode: some thoughts on the Google Wave shutdown announcement, and talking to Michael Bleugh of Intridea about being part of a 50-person geographically distributed company.

Show notes:

Google Wave
Google announces shutdown of Google Wave
Presently

Wide Teams Podcast, Episode 8: Interview with Loren Johnson

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:04:57 +0000

Today’s interview is with Loren Johnson, a Ruby on Rails developer and a remote worker for most of his career. I talked to Loren at RailsConf 2010 about some of the tradeoffs involved when choosing to live and work in a geographically isolated area, and the challenges of being the sole remote worker on a team.

Show notes:

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 7: BohConf Roundtable Part 2

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:57:22 +0000

This episode features the conclusion of a roundtable about dispersed teams held at BohConf, an unconference held within RailsConf 2010. In this part, the participants talk about video conferencing, balancing team collaboration time with solo work, optimizing virtual meetings, meeting deadlines, finding talent for their teams, and much more.

Wide Teams Podcast #6: BohConf Roundtable Part 1

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:39:22 +0000

Today on the podcast, a recording of a roundtable discussion held at the BohConf unconference inside of RailsConf 2010. Topcs covered include teleconferencing practices, why instant messaging can be an antipattern, and different strategies for estimating work.

Show Notes:

04:40 – Teleconferencing Practices

Call in to the same conversation
Don’t want to leave anyone out
Engage everyone

07:05 – Instant Messaging as an antipattern

Always leaves somebody out

11:45 – Different strategies for estimating work

Number of hours
Level of difficulty
Different problems at the same speed
Planning Poker
Hard deadlines

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 5: Interviews with Hashrocket and Rhomobile

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:22:07 +0000

Two interviews in this episode. I talk to Jim Remsick and Paul Elliot of Hashrocket about why Hashrocket chooses to avoid remote work. And then, I talk to Brian Moore of Rhomobile about their globally dispersed team.

Show Notes:

02:14 – Introduce Jim Remsick and Paul Elliot: developers at Hashrocket

Limited experience with remote work
At Hashrocket, policy is to be co-located on one site and paired all the time

04:06 – Stressing co-located work

Everyone together
Culture and doing things outside of work

05:40 – Advice to future groups considering remote work

Don’t skimp on equipment
Overcommunicate

07:14 – Distributed teams need to be improved

08:42 – Introduce Brian Moore of Rhomobile

Mobile framework company in Campbell, CA

09:16 – History with distributed work

International
Daily standup meetings for communication
Skype, messaging, email contact
Coordinating timezones

11:05 – Challenges of working remotely

Communications barrier (language)

11:45 – Benefits of having a distributed team

Experience of different people in different cultures

12:35 – Tools

Skype
Pivotal Tracker
Need something that provides voice, email communication all-in-one

13:05 – Advice for future remote workers

Maintaining communication is key

13:35 – Wrap up

14:17 – End

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 4: Interview with Mike Zazaian, Part 2

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 09:32:10 +0000

In this episode of the podcast, listen to the conclusion of my interview with Mike Zazaian at RailsConf 2010. In it we talk about the importance of getting to know your remote team members as people, and we discuss the state of remote collaboration tools, among other topics.

Show Notes:

00:40 – Challenges of remote work

Time management
Losing momentum on a project
Being cognizant of the hearts and minds of people in a project

04:25 – Importance of developing personal relationships with people

Importance of working with people you like
Leave an IRC channel open
Team chemistry

07:50 – Useful tools in remote work

Skype
IRC
G-Chat for one-on-one communication
Pivotal Tracker

11:18 – Tool wishlist

Dislike for Campfire
Something that would consolidate group and interpersonal communication
Something that would consolidate the workflow of Cucumber, Pivotal, and GitHub
Recording and tracking Skype calls

17:20 – Advice for future remote workers

Get to know people
Establish trust

22:48 – Wrap up

26:06 – End

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 3: Interview with Mike Zazaian, Part 1

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:42:09 +0000

In part 1, Mike talks about how he got into remote work, SCRUM iterations versus Kanban, why it’s important to assume nothing when communicating with remote coworkers – and much, much more.

Show Notes:

01:00 – Mike Zazaian introduction, history & background

Remote worker for 4 years
PHP work, project management in L.A., C-Sharp, Java, .NET

02:02 – Key to remote work

Rigorous communication and organization
Better to be sure than miss something
Structuring thoughtful emails
State of the project emails
Interpersonal communication
Teamwide communication

05:30 – Importance of daily state of the project emails

Look at every day as nobody knows anything
Item by item completion
Flexible milestones
Doesn’t assume arbitrary temporal segments of work to be done
What is today, may not be the same tomorrow

08:20 – Mike and remote work

Values freedom
Background in English and Film Studies
Rails as an art form
Environments are crucial
Everybody has business value
Perceptible value of happiness

14:40 – Making remote work successful

Convey the quality of work as a developer
Convey business value
Sell the client on yourself
Make the client at ease via communication
Developer and project manager communication

20:40 – Wrap up

20:59 – End

Wide Teams Podcast Episode #2: Interview with Anthony Eden

Avdi Grimm — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:45:40 +0000

In this episode we feature another interview from RailsConf 2010. Today’s interview is with Anthony Eden, a developer, blogger, and longtime remote worker living in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Show Notes:

Anthony’s Eden’s home page with all of his assorted contact info.
“All Things (v8)“, where he has been posting short video blogs about getting started as a freelance developer.

00:30 – Anthony Eden

Freelance Developer and Blogger from Honolulu, Hawaii

01:22 – Anthony’s introduction and background

SDC Hawaii, LLC
Operate .mp top-level domains
Outside consulting

01:52 – History with remote development and work

Search for ways to build trustworthy network
Mobile developer always on the move

02:40 – Current team and how Anthony works remotely

Some local developers work in an office in Honolulu
Source code repository
Communicate on a daily basis
Use Pivotal Tracker to track everything

03:34 – Challenges of remote work

Staying in touch
Forget that you have other teammates to call upon for questions and advice

04:23 – Tools

Pivotal
Git
Skype, GoogleTalk, Email, phone

05:03 – Advice for future and current remote workers and groups

Know your process
Decide what tools you’re going to use and how you’re going to use them
Set up and document processes
Know the face of the person you’re working with

06:05 – Wrap up

07:17 – End

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 1: Interview with Marty Haught

Avdi Grimm — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:13:53 +0000

In today’s inaugural episode of the Wide Teams podcast, I interview Marty Haught of Haught Codeworks. I also talk a little bit about the purpose and goals of the site.

Show Notes:

00:30 – Purpose and Goals for Wide Teams site

02:12 – Introduce first of many interviews conducted at RailsConf 2010 in Baltimore, MD: Marty Haught, a software architect and engineer from Longmont, Colorado

02:28 – Interview Begins

02:41 – Marty’s introduction and background

03:05 – History with distributed work

04:00 – A day in the life with Marty and distributed work

Morning Stand-Up
Talker, Campfire, Skype Apps
Pair
Apple Remote Desktop
Client Discussions
Centralized Feedback

06:35 – Challenges of remote work

Network Connectivity
Video Bandwidth
Timezones
Client hesitation that distributed teams are effective
Discipline with distraction and staying on task
Acclimating to being remote

Wide Teams

Episode #81: Interview with J Sherwani and Vishal Kapur of Screenhero

Show Notes:

01:01 – J Sherwani Introduction

01:35 – Vishal Kapur Introduction

02:17 – Screenhero

02:43 – Presentation Tools vs Collaboration Tools

05:10 – Proxying

05:54 – Inventing Screenhero

08:15 – The Screenhero Team

09:48 – Use Cases

12:49 – Proxying Desktop Audio

13:41 – Feature Requests

15:34 – In The Works/Improving Screenhero

18:33 – Using Screenhero while Collocated

20:31 – Mobile to Mobile App

23:26 – Work for Screenhero!

Episode #80: Interview with Ernie Miller of LivingSocial

Show Notes:

00:41 – Ernie Miller Introduction

01:07 – Transition to leading a dispersed team

02:25 – Remote Working Days

03:31 – “Optimizing for Happiness”

06:52 – Dealing with Recruiters

09:26 – Considering Remote Work

12:02 – Dealing with Distraction

15:25 – Remote Meetings

16:51 – Ernie’s Remote Team

Episode #79: Interview with Nick Adams of Hudl and remotejobs.co

Show Notes:

00:37 – Nick Adams Introduction

01:35 – Hudl as a Distributed Team

02:02 – Nick’s history with remote work

04:29 – Tools

07:46 – Challenges of working remotely

09:08 – Making Hudl a dispersed team

09:42 – Living in Rochester, New York

13:21 – remotejobs.co

19:39 – Advice for companies looking to hire remote workers

Episode #78: Interview with Jonathan Mason of VersaPay

Show Notes:

01:28 – Introduction

02:45 – Life in Victoria

05:55 – VersaPay and it’s distributed team

07:32 – Team Work Process

10:22 – Challenges of working on a remote team

15:01 – In-person Team Interaction

Episode #77: Interview with Elliot Rodriguez

Show Notes:

00:54 – Elliot Rodriguez Introduction

02:04 – Wanting to work from home

05:54 – Working with a distributed team

12:25 – Video Conferencing

13:15 – Overcoming Isolation

14:23 – Ideal Work Environment

16:05 – Sticking with the remote working lifestyle

Episode #76: Interview with Zee Spencer

Show Notes:

00:57 – Zee Spencer Introduction

01:41 – History with Remote Work

05:04 – Pair Programming

11:08 – Pairing Pitfalls

13:28 – Remote Pairing Setup

20:23 – The State of the Art in Pair Programming

22:56 – Dev Bootcamp

Episode #75: Interview with Javier Gonel

Show Notes:

01:11 – Javier Gonel Introduction

03:37 – Working Remotely

07:19 – Benefits of Working Remotely

08:46 – Enjoying Commuting

09:42 – Working from Interesting Places

13:34 – Advice for people thinking about moving to remote work

Episode #74: James Costa and Matt Herron of The Phuse

Show Notes:

01:04 – James Costa (twitter blog) Introduction

01:20 – Matt Herron (twitter)

01:31 – The Phuse (site twitter blog dribbble)

02:43 – History of being a remote company

05:54 – Task Management