Managing remotely,
while remotely
managing
Lindsay Holmwood
@auxesis
Slide 2
Slide 2 text
! About me
Worked in and lead
distributed software
engineering teams
for 8 years
Slide 3
Slide 3 text
! About me
Lead teams with
follow-the-sun
coverage
Slide 4
Slide 4 text
! About me
Currently at Envato
leading distributed
team of 15,
growing to 20
Slide 5
Slide 5 text
The journey
0. Fundamentals
1. Starting out
2. Growing the team
3. Scaling to the whole org
Slide 6
Slide 6 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 7
Slide 7 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 8
Slide 8 text
No management
buy in?
Don’t even bother.
Slide 9
Slide 9 text
Outsource
Working from home
Distributed
Slide 10
Slide 10 text
Distributed?
• Geographical
• Temporal
Slide 11
Slide 11 text
1. Starting out
Slide 12
Slide 12 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 13
Slide 13 text
All remote, or
no remote
Slide 14
Slide 14 text
Create a
level playing field
Slide 15
Slide 15 text
Hybrid is hard
Slide 16
Slide 16 text
Regular face to face
catchups.
Ideal: once a quarter
Slide 17
Slide 17 text
Regular face to face
catchups.
Likely: once a year
Slide 18
Slide 18 text
Establish rituals
Slide 19
Slide 19 text
Priming
Slide 20
Slide 20 text
“exposure to one stimulus
influences a response to a
subsequent stimulus, without
conscious guidance or
intention”
Slide 21
Slide 21 text
Say silk five times.
Slide 22
Slide 22 text
Now spell “silk”.
Slide 23
Slide 23 text
What do cows drink?
Slide 24
Slide 24 text
If a red house is made with
red bricks, a blue house is
made with blue bricks,
a pink house is made with
pink bricks, a black house is
made with black bricks, what
is a greenhouse made with?
Slide 25
Slide 25 text
Priming to reinforce
segmentation
Slide 26
Slide 26 text
Segmenters
Create partitions
between
work and home
Slide 27
Slide 27 text
Segmenters
Use rituals to
reinforce boundaries
Slide 28
Slide 28 text
Establish rituals
Wear shoes
while working
Slide 29
Slide 29 text
Establish rituals
Different devices
Slide 30
Slide 30 text
Establish rituals
Walk around
the block
Slide 31
Slide 31 text
Establish rituals
Standing desks
Slide 32
Slide 32 text
Integrators
Blend home
and work life
Slide 33
Slide 33 text
Integrators
Strong desire to blur
the domains
Slide 34
Slide 34 text
Integrators
Easily transition
between domains
Slide 35
Slide 35 text
You
Integrator Segmenter
Slide 36
Slide 36 text
You
Integrator Segmenter
Slide 37
Slide 37 text
Integrators
are more accepting of
segmenters
than vice-versa
Slide 38
Slide 38 text
Integrators
need boundaries too,
and strategies for
disconnecting
Slide 39
Slide 39 text
Segmenters
report higher levels
of job satisfaction
compared to
integrators
Slide 40
Slide 40 text
How does this impact
working remotely?
Slide 41
Slide 41 text
Remote working
naturally lends itself
to integrators
Slide 42
Slide 42 text
Integration is a
slippery slope to
burnout
Slide 43
Slide 43 text
Christina Maslach
Slide 44
Slide 44 text
6 contributing factors
1. Workload
2. Control
3. Reward
4. Community
5. Fairness
6. Values
Slide 45
Slide 45 text
6 contributing factors
1. Workload:
Too much
Too complex
Too urgent
Too awful
Slide 46
Slide 46 text
6 contributing factors
1. Workload:
The amount of work to complete in a day
The complexity of my work
The intensity of demands from customers
The firmness of deadlines
The frequency of surprising, unexpected events
The opportunity to settle into a comfortable groove
The frequency of interruptions in my workday
The proportion of my work time spent with customers
The amount of time I work alone
The amount of time I work with other employees
Slide 47
Slide 47 text
Understand your
relationships with work
Slide 48
Slide 48 text
Promote a culture of
segmentation
Slide 49
Slide 49 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 50
Slide 50 text
Multiple internet
connections
Dongle with lots of data
Slide 51
Slide 51 text
Multiple internet
connections
Don’t skimp on quality
(fast upload a must)
Slide 52
Slide 52 text
Multiple internet
connections
Have backup equipment
Slide 53
Slide 53 text
Multiple internet
connections
Move to areas with NBN
Slide 54
Slide 54 text
Increase the size of
your hiring pool
Parents re-entering the
workforce
Slide 55
Slide 55 text
Increase the size of
your hiring pool
People priced out of
major cities
Slide 56
Slide 56 text
Increase the size of
your hiring pool
People with caring
responsibilities who
can only work part time
Slide 57
Slide 57 text
Have a second
monitor
See screen + video at
the same time
Ceremonies:
Daily standup
Rotate the facilitation
responsibility
Slide 64
Slide 64 text
Ceremonies:
Retrospectives
Discuss and refactor
practices
Slide 65
Slide 65 text
Leadership
participation
Show endorsement.
Build empathy.
Slide 66
Slide 66 text
2. Growing
the team
Slide 67
Slide 67 text
The basics
Even more important!
Slide 68
Slide 68 text
The basics
Bring in coaches to
observe and facilitate.
Slide 69
Slide 69 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 70
Slide 70 text
Hack:
Greet everyone to " check
Slide 71
Slide 71 text
Hack:
Ask questions in the negative
“Does anyone disagree?”
not
“Do we all agree?”
Slide 72
Slide 72 text
Ceremonies:
Daily standup
Keep time boxed to
15 minutes
Slide 73
Slide 73 text
Ceremonies:
Daily standup
Walk the wall
Slide 74
Slide 74 text
Team design:
Time zone coverage
How many time zones?
How much time zone overlap?
Slide 75
Slide 75 text
Team design:
Time zone coverage
Add people in new time
zones in pairs.
Slide 76
Slide 76 text
Team design:
Time zone coverage
Beginning &
end of day standups.
Slide 77
Slide 77 text
Team design:
Time zone coverage
Record crucial meetings.
Slide 78
Slide 78 text
Team design:
Antipattern:
Forcing everyone to work
at exactly the same time
Slide 79
Slide 79 text
Team design:
Antipattern:
Communication in physical
spaces that excludes
remoters
Slide 80
Slide 80 text
Team design:
Antipattern:
Activities that exclude remoters
(use of whiteboards)
(in-person icebreakers)
Slide 81
Slide 81 text
Google Quick Draw
Slide 82
Slide 82 text
Team design:
Defining question
How would this decision
make me feel if I was not
working in the office?
Slide 83
Slide 83 text
Leadership
participation
Show endorsement.
Build empathy.
Slide 84
Slide 84 text
3. Scaling to
the whole org
Slide 85
Slide 85 text
You Org
Technology
Practice
Slide 86
Slide 86 text
What does it take to
make distributed
teams a first class
citizen in the
organisation?
Slide 87
Slide 87 text
The executive and
management working
remotely at least 2
days a week.
Slide 88
Slide 88 text
Guilds
Share lessons learnt
with other teams
Slide 89
Slide 89 text
Feedback loops
Keep refactoring your
ways of working.
Slide 90
Slide 90 text
Permission to halt #
Make it culturally
acceptable to halt
meetings that aren’t
remote friendly
Slide 91
Slide 91 text
Feedback loops
“What got us here
won’t get us there."
Slide 92
Slide 92 text
Thank you!
(and questions?)
Slide 93
Slide 93 text
Thank you!
(and questions?)
Liked the talk? Let @auxesis know.
Slide 94
Slide 94 text
Stock photos from
Fonts
Junction from League of Movable Type
Fanwood from League of Movable Type
Slide 95
Slide 95 text
Learn more
◦ When work takes over your life (podcast)
WorkLife with Adam Grant
◦ 36 Great Tips for Online Meeting facilitation (infographic)
◦ Banishing Burnout: Six Strategies for Improving Your
Relationship with Work (book)
Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter
◦ Template “My Relationship With Work” survey (worksheet)
(make a copy and fill out every month)
Slide 96
Slide 96 text
Tracking your relationship with work over time
Slide 97
Slide 97 text
Tools for remote working
◦ GroupMap
Excellent retro + meeting facilitation tool
◦ Mural
Collaborative online real-time white boarding that
doesn’t suck
◦ Trello
Go wild and create a Trello board for all your
meetings!