Managing partly distributed teams
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Partly distributed teams (teams with co-located and distributed members) existed before the pandemic, but are becoming the new normal as companies plan their future. We have a lot of knowledge about managing fully co-located teams from centuries of work, and modern technology companies have pioneered fully distributed teams. However, leading a partially distributed team presents unique challenges, interpersonal and technical. What makes partially distributed teams especially challenging? How can we address these challenges to make our distributed organizations more effective? In this talk, Kevin Goldsmith discusses four main challenges: Conway's Law, Amdahl's Law (as applied to organizations), Empathy, and Communication. He gives examples of these problems and solutions from his experience leading partially distributed teams over the last 25 years.
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Managing partly distributed teams
- 1. CTO Connection Managing Partly Distributed Teams Kevin Goldsmith
- 2. Types of team distribution
- 3. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Types of distribution • Fully co-located
- 4. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Types of distribution • Fully co-located • Fully distributed
- 5. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Types of distribution • Fully co-located • Fully distributed • Partially distributed
- 6. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Types of distribution • Fully co-located • Fully distributed • Partially distributed
- 7. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy of people surveyed expect to work from home at least 1 day per week and 80% expected to work at least 3 days from home per week after Covid-19 according to an Owl Labs Survey 92%
- 8. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Unless you are trying to enforce an in-person culture, reinforcing the idea that there is a center and people remote from the center sends a bad mess Distributed NOT Remote
- 9. What makes working in distributed teams challenging?
- 10. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Distributed team challenges • Conway’s law • Empathy • Communication CTO Connection / November 2021
- 11. Conway’s Law
- 12. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Conway’s law Datamation Magazine, April 1968 Organizations which design systems... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
- 13. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Conway’s Law Implications CTO Connection / November 2021
- 14. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Conway’s Law Implications CTO Connection / November 2021
- 15. “ ” @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Eric Raymond restatement of Conway’s Law If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler.
- 16. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Are we trapped by Conway’s Law?
- 17. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy No
- 18. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy but
- 19. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy It is easier to work with Conway’s Law than to work against it
- 20. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Subverting Conway’s law CTO Connection / November 2021
- 21. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Subverting Conway’s law • Be deliberate CTO Connection / November 2021
- 22. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Subverting Conway’s law • Be deliberate • Find communication bottlenecks that conflict with architecture and eliminate them CTO Connection / November 2021
- 23. @KevinGoldsmith Nimble Autonomy Subverting Conway’s law • Be deliberate • Find communication bottlenecks that conflict with architecture and eliminate them • Design the organization to design the architecture CTO Connection / November 2021
- 24. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy The reverse Conway maneuver
- 25. “ ” @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Sam Newman, Building Microservices Netflix learned from this [Amazon] example, and ensured that from the beginning it structured itself around small, independent teams, so that the services they created would also be independent from each other. This ensured that the architecture of the system was optimized for speed of change. Effectively, Netflix designed the organizational structure for the system architecture it wanted.
- 26. Empathy
- 27. “ ” @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Merriam-Webster Dictionary : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner also : the capacity for this Empathy
- 28. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Familiarity breeds trust
- 29. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy
- 30. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy is not the same as
- 31. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy
- 32. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Level the field
- 33. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Take notes on paper
- 34. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Don’t hide
- 35. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Don’t hide *
- 36. “ ” @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Someone who has forgotten that the people they work with are actual humans well that is fine for you people at corporate… Recognize warning signs
- 37. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Get together regularly
- 38. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Leaders travel
- 39. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Leaders travel
- 40. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Leaders travel
- 41. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Humanize
- 42. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Include distributed individuals
- 43. Communication
- 44. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy
- 45. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy
- 46. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy
- 47. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Fewer communication channels
- 48. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Document clearly
- 49. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Don’t get too obsessed with tools
- 50. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Establish common working times GMT +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -8 -7 -9 -10 -11 -12
- 51. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Take turns working off-hours GMT +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -8 -7 -9 -10 -11 -12
- 52. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy GMT +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -8 -7 -9 -10 -11 -12 Take turns working off-hours
- 53. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Break up the default pairing
- 54. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Break up the default pairing
- 55. In conclusion
- 56. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy The modern workforce is distributed
- 57. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy Distributed teams create challenges
- 58. @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy The challenges can be overcome
- 59. @KevinGoldsmith @NimbleAutonomy https://nimbleautonomy.com https://kevingoldsmith.com @KevinGoldsmith CTO Connection / November 2021 Nimble Autonomy