1.
The Good, The Bad And The
Ugly - Building Distributed
Teams at Realm
Christian Melchior - @chrmelchior
@chrmelchior

2.
What this talk isn’t
@chrmelchior
and what it is!

3.
What is Realm?
• Mobile database company
• 2 main products: Realm Mobile Database and
Realm Mobile Platform
• ~50 employees across the globe
• 2 main offices: Copenhagen and San Francisco
• ~1/3 work remotely away from the main offices all
our the world.
@chrmelchior

4.
#1 Realise that every team is
different
@chrmelchior

5.
name@realm.io

6.
name@realm.io

7.
Embrace the difference
• Allow for experimentation
• A single team member can change the entire
dynamic
• Don’t accept advise uncritically
• Partially vs. fully distributed team
@chrmelchior

8.
#2 Make communication
asynchronous
@chrmelchior

9.
A new way of thinking
• Harder than it sounds
• Interrupt-based vs. Push/Pull
@chrmelchior

10.
Standups
@chrmelchior

11.
Weekly status
@chrmelchior

12.
Code review
@chrmelchior
• When you start the work-day or after
completing a task.
• Make small pull requests
• Optimistic approvals: “+1 if X, Y, Z is fixed”

13.
#3 Don’t let tools dictate
process
@chrmelchior

14.
Who do you pick tools for
• Team members ?
• Team leads ?
• Product Managers ?
• VP’s / Directors ?
• CEO ?
@chrmelchior

15.
What do we use?
@chrmelchior

16.
Slack at Realm
• Currently 192 channels
• Everyone should be able to
create a channel.
• Fine-grained channels
• Use threads
@chrmelchior
• Only #general is required reading
• #<X>-team : Team channels
• #f-<X> : Discuss a specific
feature
• #t-<X>: Very temporary
channels
• #got: Here be dragons …

17.
Slack is not perfect
• Information overload
• Bad at storing persistent information
• Search in Slack is bad
• Notifications interrupt you
@chrmelchior

18.
Group notifications
• @channel
• Never use this!
• @here
• Only for real time interactions
• @g-java / @g-<group>
• Best of both worlds
@chrmelchior

19.
Notification setup
@chrmelchior

20.
You are not at work all the time
@chrmelchior

21.
#4 Define how decisions are
made
@chrmelchior

22.
Meetings
• Weekly team meeting (3pm CET)
• Europe 😊
• America 😪☕
• Asia 😫☕
• Team leads meeting (8pm CET)
• Europe 😫☕
• America 😊
• Asia 😴
@chrmelchior

23.
Decision making
@chrmelchior
• Harder to get consensus
• Who makes “the call”?

24.
#5 Be transparent in everything
you do
@chrmelchior

25.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
• Surface blockers quickly
• Be explicit about what you need
• You avoid getting interrupted
@chrmelchior

26.
Pull Requests : Work In Progress
@chrmelchior
• Visibility
• Lower the barrier for peers / community to
participate

27.
#6 Accept that turnaround is
longer
@chrmelchior

28.
Learn to multitask
@chrmelchior
• Immediate feedback is impossible
• Have a backlog of “easy” items
• Unblock others

29.
#7 Assume that people have
the best intentions
@chrmelchior

30.
Everyone did the best job they could,
given what they knew at the time,
their skills and abilities, the resources
available, and the situation at hand
Retrospective Prime Directive
@chrmelchior

31.
#8 Remember the social
interaction
@chrmelchior

32.
Social interaction online
• Okay to start the meeting with a little banter
• Video chat for meetings
• Remember special events
• Social chat channels: #pugs, #got, #food
@chrmelchior

33.
#9 Meet face-to-face
@chrmelchior

34.
It is harder to think of
people as idiots once you
met them face to face
@chrmelchior

35.
Meet face-to-face
• Realm-stravaganza ~ 1/year
• <Team>-stravaganza ~ 1/year
• Aligning on the vision
• Team building
@chrmelchior

36.
Lessons learned so far 👍
• Everything becomes more transparent
• Trust + Flexibility = Happy employees
• Diversity
@chrmelchior

37.
Lessons learned so far 👎
• Process problems are magnified
• Longer turn-around time for tasks
• No overlapping work hours
@chrmelchior

38.
9 tips for creating awesome
distributed teams
1. Realise that every team is different
2. Make communication asynchronous
3. Don’t let tools dictate process
4. Define how decisions are made
5. Be transparent in everything you do
6. Accept that turnaround is longer
7. Assume that people have the best intentions
8. Remember the social interaction
9. Meet face-to-face
@chrmelchior

39.
Questions?
@chrmelchior
cm@realm.io
@chrmelchior