Managing a widely distributed team

Companies more and more embrace working in a distributed environment. While it allows for attracting talent and working with great people around the world, it also means it comes with new challenges.

Based on my experience as an engineer manager at GitHub for a team of 20 people across 3 continents in 7 countries, 6 states in the US and 7 timezones I would love to share the things we do to build a strong and cohesive team. Would like to share how we embrace asynchronous workflows where we can, use synchronous time we do have very effectively and meet up in person regularly as well.

Transcript

1. Managing a widely
   distributed team
   Dirkjan Bussink
   @dbussink
   

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3. Senior engineering manager
   Principal engineer
   

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4. Why?
   

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5. First some context
   

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6. 28 people
   

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7. Original from 5 continents
   

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8. From 11 countries
   

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11. !"#$%&
    '
    (
    

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14. Psychological safety
    https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/
    

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15. Meet in person
    

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16. Regular cadence
    

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17. Use the time together well
    

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18. Long time strategy
    

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19. Team structure
    

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20. Iterate on collaboration processes
    

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21. No day to day development
    

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22. Do non work activities
    

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23. Grab dinner together
    

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27. Keep talking
    

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28. Continue to build trust in 1:1s
    

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29. Talk to people regularly
    

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30. Non work video chats
    

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31. Virtual water-cooler
    

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32. Be timezone aware
    

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33. Asynchronous communication
    

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36. No instant gratification
    

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37. Unblock others
    

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38. Don’t block yourself
    

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39. Over-communicate
    

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40. Use restraint
    

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42. Hardly anything is urgent
    

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43. “Durch Einfach Liegen Lassen Erledigt”
    

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44. Use timezone spread
    

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45. Recap
    

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46. Everyone is distributed
    Work hard on building team bonds
    Enable asynchronous workflows
    Use the power of distributed teams
    

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