We Are All Remote Workers

One year ago we closed our offices to become a fully distributed company. Here's our story so far.

Transcript

1. we are all remote workers @nicolaiarocci nicolaiarocci.com
2. work from home? Me, a couple years ago
3. we closed offices on july 2012 a little more than one year ago
4. why?
5. 7 team members
6. 12 kids 3 dogs 5 wives One husband
7. more like 20 team members life is more complex than just work
8. a nice proprietary location in Ravenna
9. a nice proprietary location in Ravenna turns out team members are mostly from the neighborhood
10. Ghibullo 9km x2pp x4 trips 72 km 1h28m Marina di Ravenna 17Km x1pp x4 trips 68 km 1h40m Classe 7Km x1pp x4 trips 28 km 0h40m Cervia 23 Km x1pp x2 trips 46 km 0h50m Forlì 25 Km x1pp x2 trips 50 km 0h56m Ravenna 3 Km x1pp x4 trips 12 km 0h24m approximate distances and travel time courtesy of google maps
11. 276 km, 5h58m every fucking workday
12. 276 km, 5h58m money / time / environment / safety / fitness / stress
13. infrastructure $$$ power / phone / conditioning / maintenance / you-name-it
14. proximity is overrated Works if you can turn your chair around and talk to a colleague, but if they’re on another floor or in another building, then they might as well be in another city. Vivek Haldar
15. proximity is overrated especially for programmers Headphones anyone?
16. besides we were using mostly remote tools already, right there in our offices
17. we are all remote workers chances that all the people we need to collaborate with are physically close to us are infinitesimally small inspired by Vivek Haldar’s We Are All Remote Workers, (incidentally posted on the same day I was working on this deck)
18. we are all remote workers we just embraced a process which has been in the making for a very long time
19. how?
20. remote all the things mixing remote and office workers is like black magic
21. HipChat free for teams of five / github bitbucket heroku hooks / guests
22. Google Hangout also good for code reviews and pair coding
23. Dropbox sharing files between us and with clients
24. Google Docs multiuser realtime editing for documents and spreadsheets
25. Google Apps shared mailboxes, domains, calendars, docs
26. GitHub free for public repositories
27. BitBucket free for private repositories
28. Trello organize, kanban style
29. get and make calls on mobile and desktop for cheap
30. the good
31. save on time & money commutes / meals
32. help the environment one hundred per cent pollution reduction
33. flexibility work from everywhere
34. flexibility work at any hour as we don’t count hours* (we focus on results and balance) * support team being the exception
35. balance work / family / fun
36. no interruptions there’s no guy across the room asking for your pen
37. Async > Sync drawing by Vivek Haldar
38. remote encourages Async drawing by Vivek Haldar
39. recruit the best we can hire the best people from all over the world
40. reduced stress all of this results in a huge...
41. productivity boost and to think that most people expect the contrary
42. reputation people always ask how we pulled this out and we have a great story to tell
43. last but not least...
44. we save a truckload of $$$
45. the not so good
46. adaption and change in managerial and organizational styles
47. establishing coordination between remote workers requires an initial effort
48. work and family responsibilities not mixing them up requires a conscious effort
49. lack of team spirit can be a issue if counter-measures are not taken
50. lack of team spirit we have a lot of fun in chat and during hangouts. really.
51. lack of team spirit once a month we meet for lunch, have fun and discuss work and non-work related stuff
52. lack of team spirit we also have regular face-to-face meetings
53. most of the time in exotic places
54. fear for data security make sure you do your homework here
55. trust & accountability chat and voip logs, centralized emails, hangouts, code repos
56. isolation get out and have fun when you feel like it
57. distraction hire self-motivated and productive people
58. not for everyone working from home, coffee shops or co-working space is not for everyone (so is office work)
59. meeting clients depending on your business branch, can be serious an issue
60. we believe in creating a parity and a culture of work where location doesn’t matter Joel Gascoigne
61. few years and setups like this will be normal for most businesses Joel Gascoigne
62. it’s a privilege to be part of this innovation, experiment and share our experience Joel Gascoigne
63. by the way our offices in Ravenna, Italy are up for sale
64. by the way as we are not going back. ever.
65. thank you @nicolaiarocci nicolaiarocci.com gestionaleamica.com
66. also inspired by Vivek Haldar’s We Are All Remote Workers incidentally posted on same day I was working on this deck Joel’s Gascoigne The Joys and Benefits of Working as a Distributed Team which also surfaced on the internet as I was looking for inspiration about this presentation