I'm increasingly finding "being on the same page" and communicating "what needs to be done, why, and sometimes how" harder and harder when we're all in various time zones and increasingly working asynchronously.<p>Sometimes I think it's a tool problem - documenting and sharing thoughts is still not easy. Other times, I wonder if this is just a people issue and better tools can't/won't make it easier.<p>What has your experience been in this past year? What has been frustrating? What has got the best of you? What do you wish for?
GitLab's public handbook goes into far more and better detail, but here's some of my take-aways from my time with them as well as since;<p>- What to do when unsure what to do? There needs to be processes in place, like a Handbook-First / Manager-of-One kind of approach so people know where to go to re-orient themselves when a bit lost.<p>- As already mentioned, equity on the playing field. Remote-First approach even when hybrid means that everyone is starting from the same foot, so to speak.<p>- I suspect that Async itself is going to forever be a set of shifting goalposts. What works for an individual, team, or organization one quarter may not the next, or a year from now.<p>- Socializing is now a high-touch, deliberate act of peer-support. At any given point, some team members need to social support of their peers, while others do not and are able to lend a shoulder. This can range anywhere from coffee-chats to on-sites.<p>- Oh! and last but not least, the fact that the last year+ has not been what Remote / Remote-Hybrid work should look like. It's WFH during a pandemic, yah?
Something I'm having trouble with is gauging how busy someone else is.<p>In the office, it's common to have several people try to talk to me at the same time - CTO, product, QA, API dev, other colleague who can't find the button, colleague remote in India. And they can clearly see if there's a line and work on something else first.<p>Remotely, it ends up juggling 4 text conversations at the same time. Or doing calls, which nobody likes, and nobody else can see that you're 2 hours into a call with other people.
We increased our use of basecamp and zoom meetings when necessary. Things are quite smooth.<p>I think the main plus with my team is that individuals know why they are doing what they do and so they can make most of the smaller decisions without oversight.<p>Clear written communication, organized in a somewhat accessible and easy to review structure, is sufficient.<p>I never needed a manager to breathe in my neck nor do my reports. When in the office, I’d see someone face to face once a week, now equally easier with zoom.<p>We don’t work in a physical factory so the factory model (everyone present on the floor) does not make sense.<p>As for socializing, that happens via phone calls and zoom - we check in with each other and have a few minutes at the beginning where we connect as human beings.<p>I never in my career participated in socializing with coworkers apart from the weekly corporate lunch and sporadic one on one lunches so I’m not sure what everyone is talking about. Working in cubicles was crippling for my focus and productivity. Commute was crippling for my health and quality of life. Now, I work remotely, happily uncrippled.
Leaving work at the end of the day and disconnecting is hard.<p>Both home and work carry different kinds of emotional contexts/baggage for me. Switching between them takes work. Without a commute and literal distance, it’s hard to “switch off” work mode and get into parent/spouse mode. I hate having a foot in both doors: either feeling bad I’m not parenting enough or feeling bad I’m not working hard enough.<p>One solution I’ve found is powering my Mac down. Booting back up takes time, and requires me to log back into a bunch of services. So I’m not going to just slip back into work seamlessly: it takes a bit of effort.
Doing real collaboration has been harder .. collaborating has become “I’ll work on this part, you work on that part” rather than actually building on each other’s ideas.
I noticed that I'm a lot less aware of random things that go on in my company. It's amazing how much stuff I used to pick up by just overhearing people and random passing conversations.<p>Another obvious drawback is that my work requires me to use proprietary hardware. I can use it remotely, but it's just not nearly as efficient to do so.
I've been remote in a distributed company for almost 10 years.<p>The fact is, if the organization isn't setup to be remote-<i>first</i>, then you're always going to be lagging behind in terms of communication. Even then, it's still a problem that needs to be actively thought about and handled on a regular basis.