Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Building and scaling effective distributed teams
Search
Lindsay Holmwood
November 27, 2017
Education
4
210
Building and scaling effective distributed teams
Lindsay Holmwood
November 27, 2017
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Lindsay Holmwood
See All by Lindsay Holmwood
Your API ain't as secure as you think
auxesis
0
120
Footguns and factorisation: how to make users of your cryptographic library successful
auxesis
0
1.4k
Levelling up database security by thinking in APIs
auxesis
0
120
How to thwart your devops transformation with counterinsurgency doctrine
auxesis
1
74
Microservices are an antipattern
auxesis
0
200
Mirrors, networks, and boundaries
auxesis
0
110
Managing remotely, while remotely managing
auxesis
13
4.3k
Testing Conway’s Law in open source communities
auxesis
6
580
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
auxesis
2
270
Other Decks in Education
See All in Education
Diseño de estrategia de analítica del aprendizaje en tu centro educativo.
tecuribarri
0
140
小学校プログラミング教育、次の5年に向けて 〜つくること・学ぶことの歓びへ〜 /NextGenerationOfProgrammingEducation
kiriem
2
350
Ilman kirjautumista toimivia sovelluksia
matleenalaakso
1
20k
A Chatbot is Not a Search Engine (it's more like a roleplaying game)
dsalo
0
140
Juvenile in Justice
oripsolob
0
130
1030
cbtlibrary
0
340
5 Things Every L&D Pro Should Steal from Marketing
tmiket
0
130
開発終了後こそ成長のチャンス!プロダクト運用を見送った先のアクションプラン
ohmori_yusuke
2
290
Поступай в ТОГУ 2025
pnuslide
0
14k
あきた地域課題解決インターンMarch2025
toyodome
0
270
LinkedIn
matleenalaakso
0
3.5k
Evaluation Methods - Lecture 6 - Human-Computer Interaction (1023841ANR)
signer
PRO
0
820
Featured
See All Featured
KATA
mclloyd
29
14k
The Pragmatic Product Professional
lauravandoore
32
6.4k
Agile that works and the tools we love
rasmusluckow
328
21k
Side Projects
sachag
452
42k
Docker and Python
trallard
44
3.2k
A Philosophy of Restraint
colly
203
16k
A better future with KSS
kneath
238
17k
Automating Front-end Workflow
addyosmani
1367
200k
実際に使うSQLの書き方 徹底解説 / pgcon21j-tutorial
soudai
175
51k
Design and Strategy: How to Deal with People Who Don’t "Get" Design
morganepeng
128
19k
Being A Developer After 40
akosma
89
590k
Large-scale JavaScript Application Architecture
addyosmani
510
110k
Transcript
Building and scaling effective distributed teams Lindsay Holmwood
About me Worked in and lead distributed software engineering teams
for 7 years
About me Lead teams with follow-the-sun coverage
About me Currently at Envato leading distributed team of 15
The journey 0. Fundamentals 1. Starting out 2. Growing the
team 3. Scaling to the whole org
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
No management buy in? Don’t even bother.
Starting out
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
Regular face to face catchups. Ideal: once a quarter
Regular face to face catchups. Likely: once a year
Establish rituals
Multiple internet connections Dongle with lots of data
Multiple internet connections Don’t skimp on quality (fast upload a
must)
Multiple internet connections Move to areas with NBN
Multiple internet connections Have backup equipment
Instant messaging Non-negotiable, primary comms method
Instant messaging Your lifeline to your team.
Instant messaging Scheduled do not disturb time
Instant messaging Announce start/stop
Ceremonies: Daily standup Rotate the facilitation responsibility
Ceremonies: Retrospectives Discuss and refactor practices
Leadership participation Show endorsement. Build empathy.
Growing the team
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
The basics Even more important!
The basics Bring in coaches to observe and facilitate.
Hack: Greet everyone to check
Hack: Ask questions in the negative “Does anyone disagree?” not
“Do we all agree?”
Team design: Time zone coverage How many time zones? How
much time zone overlap?
Team design: Time zone coverage Add people in new time
zones in pairs.
Team design: Time zone coverage Beginning & end of day
standups.
Team design: Time zone coverage Record crucial meetings.
Team design: Antipattern: Forcing everyone to work at exactly the
same time
Team design: Antipattern: Communication in physical spaces that excludes remoters
Team design: Antipattern: Activities that exclude remoters (use of whiteboards)
(in-person icebreakers)
Google Quick Draw
Team design: Defining question How would this decision make me
feel if I was working from home?
Leadership participation Show endorsement. Build empathy.
Scaling to the whole org
Inclusion Practices Technology Sponsorship
What does it take to make distributed teams a first
class citizen in the organisation?
The executive and management working remotely at least 2 days
a week.
Guilds Share lessons learnt with other teams
Feedback loops Keep refactoring your ways of working.
Feedback loops “What got us here won’t get us there."
Thank you! (and questions?)