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Growing and Managing Distributed Teams
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David Copeland
October 26, 2018
Technology
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Growing and Managing Distributed Teams
David Copeland
October 26, 2018
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Transcript
GROWING & MANAGING DISTRIBUTED TEAMS Dave Copeland Director of Engineering
@ STITCH FIX @davetron5000
STITCH FIX Wants to Look Good Style Profile Stylist Warehouse
•Customer Experience •WMS •Buying/Planning •Customer Service •Styling •Payments •etc.
GROWTH & DISTRIBUTED TEAM 2013 $secret (but not much :)
Revenue Engineering Team Me IC HQ 50% Remote 50% 4 Engineers
GROWTH & DISTRIBUTED TEAM 2013 $secret (but not much :)
Revenue Engineering Team Me 2018 $1.2B IC Tech Lead UK Expansion 2014 $73M Manager 2016 $730M Director HQ 33% Remote 66% HQ 50% Remote 50% 4 Engineers 180 Engineers IPO!
WHY? Larger & More Diverse Hiring Pool Practices for Scale
HIRING IS A FUNNEL Your Metro Area
HIRING IS A FUNNEL Your Metro Area The Whole Country
! or World
DIVERSE TEAMS PERFORM BETTER Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2017/09/21/new-
research-diversity-inclusion-better-decision-making-at-work Inc https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/science-says-diversity-can-make- your-team-more-productive-but-not-without-effort.html
HIRING IS A FUNNEL Your Metro Area The Whole Country
! or World
HIRING IS A FUNNEL Your Metro Area The Whole Country
! or World
HIRING IS A FUNNEL Your Metro Area The Whole Country
! or World
Co-Located PRACTICES THAT SCALE Works Ad-Hoc
Co-Located Breaks Down Fast ☹ PRACTICES THAT SCALE
Co-Located Structure & Organization Required PRACTICES THAT SCALE
Distributed Structure & Organization Required PRACTICES THAT SCALE
Distributed These Structures Scale PRACTICES THAT SCALE
THINGS TO BE AWARE OF Benefits laws • Contractor laws
• Tax nexus Please work with an HR professional
EMPATHY CLEAR EXPECTATIONS FEEDBACK
…the capacity to understand or feel what another person is
experiencing from within their frame of reference… —Wikipedia EMPATHY
WHAT IS A DISTRIBUTED TEAM LIKE? •No instant communication •Not
awake/working at the same time •No illusion of productivity •No automatic humanization Not Physically Present
AND HOW TO USE THEM ESTABLISH CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION
ASYNCHRONOUS CHANNELS Your Team Outside World Pacific Mountain Central Eastern
Aleutian Atlantic
ASYNCHRONOUS Email Shared/Collaborative Documents (e.g. Google Docs) Text Chat Code
Your Team Outside World Pacific Mountain Central Eastern Aleutian Atlantic
SYNCHRONOUS CHANNELS
SYNCHRONOUS Text Chat Video Chat In Person
HOW TO USE THE CHANNELS Aware Respond Escalate How aware
are you of information coming into the channel? How quickly do you respond to requests? When do you escalate to a higher- bandwidth channel?
PAVE “COW PATHS” AT FIRST ITERATE VIA EMPATHY, OBSERVATION, AND
FEEDBACK
EMPATHY CLEAR EXPECTATIONS FEEDBACK
Hiring Onboarding Day to Day SCALING
HIRING Hiring is assessment—assess for ability to work remote Ensure
they understand the ways of working
ONBOARDING Empathize - they will never be more alone than
their first day Also: never more open to feedback Clear goals • Constant Contact • Lifeline
DAILY LIFE What do I do? How do I do
it? Did I do it right? What happens next?
FEEDBACK IS HARD •Programming is a not a profession of
critique or review •Text & Asynchronous Feedback is hard Cultivate a Culture of Trust, Empathy, and Authenticity
TRUST Capability Can you do it? Consistency Can you do
it reliably? Motivation Are you doing it for the right reasons?
CAPABILITY Objective and clear assessment of work product, level, etc.
CONSISTENCY Create a stable environment for execution —a level playing
field Beware “HQ bias” and “Timezone bias”
MOTIVATION Be transparent about yours Never guess at someone else’s
Always assume good intentions
OBSERVE & COACH
HUMANIZE BY MODELING & ENCOURAGING AUTHENTICITY & EMPATHY
What We Are Discussing What’s going on with me? (Authenticity)
What’s going on with you? (Empathy) HUMANIZE ANY CONVERSATION
THIS STRUCTURE SCALES WHEN DEMOGRAPHICS HOLD
People in New Situations That Stretch You
Ways of Communicating Assess Candidates Onboard Feedback SUMMARY
WAIT… ISN’T THIS JUST “RUNNING AN ENGINEERING TEAM”?
YES…BUT MORE EXPLICIT MORE OFTEN SOONER THAN YOU THINK
EMPATHY CLEAR EXPECTATIONS FEEDBACK