How do people whiteboard remotely?<p>This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting.<p>And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: <a href="https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNfR-12.png" rel="nofollow">https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf...</a>. Is there anything good that really solves this problem?
Regarding the principles:<p>>><p>3. Writing down and recording knowledge over verbal explanations.<p>4. Written down processes over on-the-job training.<p>5. Public sharing of information over need-to-know access.<p>6. Opening up every document for editing by anyone over top-down control of documents.<p>7. Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.<p>These remote work principles have the direct, or side effect of breaking organizations that are "moral mazes," and hyper political bureaucracies.<p>The reason organizations suck is because managers just talk instead of producing data, which is basically conspiring to steal value instead of creating it for the organization.<p>I see this today, where I make an email request, and the person follows up with a phone call, then misrepresents what was agreed to on the phone to others. At one site, I literally stopped answering my phone for anyone I didn't directly work for, because I knew those people were just using the verbal channel to create uncertainty about what was said and leverage the resulting confusion.<p>The WIFO rule solves a lot of org problems. (write it, or f-off).
I appreciate they have a whole section on disadvantages, but this stands out to me: "All-remote companies should consider meetings as a last resort, instead relying on asynchronous collaboration tools[...]"<p>To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when compared with in-person collaboration. That can be fine for some things. But there's all sorts of work where I really value live discussion.<p>I know that some remote-first companies tend to group related work by timezone, so that teams can be both distributed and low latency. I take it Gitlab isn't one of those?
Just my opinion, but based on running remote and semi-remote teams since 2008 ... fully or mostly remote engineering teams are a competitive advantage, so, by definition, organizations that choose not to adapt to this reality will have a hard time competing.<p>Organizations can have a personal preference for co-located work, but, I think the marketplace will select those organizations out. I think this will unfold over single digit number of years.<p>From what I have observed, most of the resistance to remote work is really driven from the top; by less adaptable leaders.
Our Company Handbook for Remote Work <a href="https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/" rel="nofollow">https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/</a><p>Other HN members have pointed out previously, that it looks like a landing page where you need to leave your e-mail address. You don't. You can download the PDF from here directly.
I always used to hated remote work. Nothing like in person, face to face conversations to get things done. Due to coronovirus, for the past few days have been working remotely. Its surprising that things are going smoothly. I feel, its mostly due to that fact that everyones remote right now. But I'm guessing, there has to be an inflection point in the team, where this is achievable. Not sure, what it is though.
From the manifesto:
The results of work over the hours put in.<p>How do you adapt that to the scrum process which has a burndown chart based in the time spent on tickets.
One issue I heard coming up recently is bandwidth many companies have to support remote access is not capable of dealing with a majority doing so. Then there are those using by license VPN solutions having insufficient simultaneous access.<p>I am used to the web ex approach for collaboration but again this is limited by bandwidth issues. if anything hopefully this shows people how many meetings are just unnecessary
I think that what's key here, especially during the current crisis, is to support businesses as much as we can to switch to WFH in the best possible way, with a simple process, and by helping them to stay engaged, hopefully without the need to make them all jump into real-time video calls many times through the day and lose focus.<p>At our company [1], we've been receiving an incredible amount of inbound. People really need tools that don't get in the way —we're a video-first async comm platform— and I'm happy our team is being able to help these companies switching to WFH.<p>The team and I are happy to help anyone with setting a basic process of communication for companies moving to WFH during these weeks. Just write to me at jp@standups.io and we'll be happy to jump in a call and see how we can help.<p>[1] <a href="https://standups.io" rel="nofollow">https://standups.io</a>
Also, Gitlab's remote work emergency plan is a good read too > <a href="https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/remote-work-emergency-plan/" rel="nofollow">https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/remote-w...</a>
Do any companies think they will keep doing remote after COVID?<p>I have delayed sleep phase disorder (sleep-in late; fixed by camping / sunlight) and live in a van in (roughly) CO, so the perfect job for me is working remote with a team in San Francisco. I currently work in-office with a fairly major start-up.
We've received a ton of questions on how to manage teams remotely this week as well. We decided to make our eBook on "Managing Remote Teams" free, to help ease the transition for teams moving to WFH.<p>This 60+ pages book is the result of months of research and interviews with successful remote companies (it’s usually a part of our paid product). We collected tips on pretty much everything, from onboarding to communication best-practices, to tools you should consider.<p><a href="https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams</a>
Gitlab's remote manifesto speaks to me in so many ways. I'd also love to work for Gitlab anyway. But, alas, I don't know Ruby on Rails and I think it's too late for me to gain the proficiency that I'd require for my expected salary from Gitlab. Are there any fully remote companies doing Python?
Based on data we collected from 297 remote managers and employees, here are 11 free chapters of best practices on how to manage a remote team. <a href="https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams</a>
Appreciate the guide coming from Gitlab. Gitlab is one of my inspiration to start my remote company[1] which also helps remote job seekers.<p>[1] - <a href="https://remoteleaf.com" rel="nofollow">https://remoteleaf.com</a>
I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote places the ability to work for such a company.<p>What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.