The Power of “In Person” – Why Distributed Teams are Less Effective

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/07/05/the-power-of-in-person-why-distributed-teams-are-less-effective

by dannyr • 16 years ago

30 15 16 years ago

dannyr• 16 years ago

My favorite part - I couldn't agree more.

"The best companies are built on common beliefs and culture – a common sense of purpose. Those cultural normals are established through human connections: the night we all stayed late to get that release out the door, the day we celebrated our funding round or the day we landed our first big account. The culture is forged through office parties, poker, paintball or film nights. And slowly, over the years, those crazy stories about Danny passed out in the company bathroom after the Summer party get replaced by weddings, births and family picnics. We become more than dispassionate colleagues – we’ve been in the trenches together and survived."

c00p3r2• 16 years ago

Tell that to Google.

ct4ul4u• 16 years ago

Google is of a size that requires distributed teams. It's hard to hire that many top engineers in one place, particularly given their laser focus on the top of the talent distribution. They pay a performance tax for having to distribute, but they get to marshall engineering resources most firms only dream of. And their culture is very consistent.

c00p3r2• 16 years ago

Did you notice that they were developed most powerful code-reviewing tools? That is an evolution of the pair-programming concept from an ortodox XP. ^_^

shadowspar• 16 years ago

"conventional wisdom says that distributed startup teams can be just as effective as those that are in person."

You've got to be kidding me. "Conventional wisdom" says that you need to co-locate everybody from the CEO to the mailroom staff in a big cube farm.

One thing I'll concede -- distributed teams need to work a hell of a lot harder at communication than co-located teams. You have to explicitly make a point of saying a lot of the things that practically get conveyed "for free" when you're in the same physical space.

I completely agree that companies -- teams -- need a shared culture and sense of purpose to gel. If you're undergoing the startup experience and communicating with others like they're humans (which you need to do to make telecommuting work) you'll quickly find you have close friends instead of coworkers, regardless of the distance between you.

plinkplonk• 16 years ago

More blather from the guy who wanted devs to stay on for years in dead end jobs so people like him wouldn't discriminate against "job hoppers" and when he got thrashed on HN for that article (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1287110), wanted to give us advice on "How to improve civility on HN" (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/06/03/some-tips-to-i...) which had its own discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1400882.

As for the article itself, summary -> "As many of your employees as possible should be collocated. I have weird preferences on which specific employees (with specific titles!) can and can't be co located and will fund only companies which meet those criteria."

Useful nonetheless. Potential founders get fair warning on which VCs to run from.

msuster3• 16 years ago

More accurate summary: author (me) believes that teams that colocate the three most critical people (CEO, VP Product & CTO) perform much better. I think some developers can be remote.

kulkarnic• 16 years ago

Some people still think that software is a handicraft industry and you can get by all the time playing it by the ear. I hope "the author" doesn't believe that his "weird preferences" are gospel enough to make funding decisions. At the very least, some background reading into actual research done on this topic would help.

Start here: http://macbeth.cs.ucdavis.edu/distributed.pdf

binspace• 16 years ago

One thing that the author does not account for is the cost of the commute. If the average total daily commute is 1 hour, over 10% of the day is lost to the commute.

That coupled with the gas (and pollution) necessary to get the workforce from point A to point B, means there is a heavy tax on our resources and time on having everybody work in a particular spot.

Collaborative technology is getting better. Many times email (or the next iteration of communication technology) is better than meetings.

I also personally find I get more done from home than from the office because it is a more relaxed atmosphere. I can focus and easily pace around (which helps me think) without bothering anybody. At work, I'm often distracted and am not as happy (that has got to count for something).

Anyways, I cannot wait to have the freedom to work from a location of my choice.

msuster3• 16 years ago

I'm not against you. I think some developers working remotely can be useful. I am also OK with any team member working a day or two from home. Finally, from an environmental point you're absolutely correct. My biggest argument is that management teams (CEO, VP Products, CTO) who work in remote geographies are often sub-optimized.

known• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_to_noise_ratio

ankeshk• 16 years ago

Some statistics show that left handed people are more creative. Does that mean you should only buy art from left handed folks?

Thats the argument in the article - central locations are good for communication and faster work. Hence you should only invest in centrally located teams.

But good startups can come from distributed work environments too. WordPress comes to mind.

rmah• 16 years ago

For those that feel a visceral need to disagree with the article, be careful to not let your own personal preferences overshadow the needs of the group.

While I may quibble with a few details, I believe the author is generally correct. Over last 20+ years, I have worked with a variety of teams: co-located, remote and mixed. From what I've seen, when co-located teams mesh well, they tend to perform the best. I'm not saying remote or mixed teams can't work well -- they often do. I'm just saying that co-located teams have the potential to work better and over a longer period of time (because of the whole culture thing).

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

Reminds me of the people who still argue for the old fashioned "butts in seats" measures of productivity, rather than something more modern like a Results Oriented Work Environment.

When all is said and done, it shouldn't be about what makes the boss most comfortable or what "feels" right to management. It should be about getting things done.

The Power of “In Person” – Why Distributed Teams are Less Effective

Related Stories