Wide Teams

Wide Teams Podcast #20: Interview with Thomaz Leite

In this episode, a discussion with software developer Thomaz Leite, who lives in Missouri and collaborate with team members in Michigan, Portugal, and Brazli. He introduced me to an new Open Source VoiP tool that competes with Skype, and talked about doing pair programming with remote team members

Saving the Day with Social Media

Nov 29, 10 • In Practices

One of the biggest struggles in a dispersed team is to maintain a sense of connection with your coworkers. Social media can play a role in keeping the team together. It was one of those days. Things just weren’t going right and I felt like everything – and everyone – was against me. I posted a frustrated, grumpy Tweet (squawk?) to Twitter. If this were a story in the traditional media about the “risks of social media” this is where you might expect the story to get really bad – the boss sees the tweet, and all hell breaks loose. What actually happened was this: a coworker – someone I hadn’t yet met in person, and whom I hadn’t really gotten to know – IMed me privately to see if I was OK. They asked

Wide Teams Podcast Episode 19: Interview with Steven Willmott

Nov 23, 10 • In Interviews, Podcast

In this episode of the Wide Teams podcast, I interview Steven Willmott of 3Scale. We talk about supporting clients in multiple timezones, what you do when one of your developers who lives on a mountainside and generates his own power gets hit with a snowstorm, and much more!

The Rambling Remote Worker: Marieke Guy on virtual teams, event amplification, and the future of remote work

Nov 22, 10 • In Basics, Experiences

Today we are lucky to have a guest post from remote worker and blogger Marieke Guy. In this article she recounts her own transition to remote remote work and then to becoming a champion for remote workers; discusses the concept of “event amplification”; and talks a little about the future of distributed teams. Hello, I’m Marieke Guy and I work for UKOLN, a centre of excellence in digital information management. I’ve been there for 10 years now and have worked on a variety of different ‘information management’ projects. The majority of my work today centres around the Web (especially Web 2.0 and beyond), digital preservation and innovation. There’s more on my staff page. Why be a Remote Worker? UKOLN is based at the University of Bath. For those of you who haven’t heard of Bath

Wide Links #15: Management, Busyness, Satisfaction

Nov 19, 10 • In Links

The week’s best articles on remote teams from all around the web. In this edition, pointers for managing a distributed team, tips for communicating how busy you are to people who can’t see you, a report that says teleworkers are happier than people who work in offices, and more! How to Manage Telecommuters: Tips from Project Managers – Annotated Four managers chime in with tips on leading remote teams. tags: wideteams “For complicated tasks, employees are asked to paraphrase tasks given. The manager reviews and sees if they are both in sync and if any extra input is required. This is more important for employees who are new to the job. Seasoned employees can read between the lines and have the experience required to understand any given task.” Ideas for a Distributed Team &#

Conquering “The Fear”: 5 pointers for stress-free management of remote teams

Nov 15, 10 • In Basics, Practices

Managing a dispersed team for the first time can be pretty scary. How will you know if everyone is doing their jobs and staying on schedule? Here are some tips that will have you breathing easy again. Here’s the situation: you’re leading a dispersed team for the first time. You’ve had a kickoff meetup so that everyone could meet face to face. You’ve assembled your collaboration tools. You’ve scheduled daily standup meeting at a time when everyone is available. But now the project has started, and you’re starting to get anxious. What is everyone doing right now? Are they working? Do they really understand their tasks? Are they on schedule? Are they being distracted by their families? Don’t look now, but you’ve got The Fear. It’s a creeping anxiety that affects many managers who have

Wide Links #14

Nov 12, 10 • In Links

Another fresh serving of articles and presentations about remote work and distributed teams, from all around the web. In this edition: building trust, collaborating on visual design while distributed, keeping a team together during dry spells, and much more! Creative Remote Collaboration » IQ Blog – Annotated tags: wideteams Remote collaboration is important for any line of work where people are divided by time and space, but the need is expanded in a creative industry where there is an increased requirement of collaboration, communication, and execution of ideas. When you work for a creative agency with colleagues and clients around the country (and developers around the world), how can you improve and streamline the creative collaboration process? Building Trust Within Virtual Teams – Small Steps Add Up – Annotated One of the ideas

Have a spam day! Making communication tools fun.

Nov 8, 10 • In Practices

Picking a new team communication tool is one thing. Getting everyone to use it is another. Here’s a fun technique for easing adoption of a new tool. So you’ve evaluated the options and picked a chat tool for your distributed team. Or a presence app. Or maybe you’ve decided to use video mail. Now you have another challenge ahead of you: getting everyone to use it. Some people are natural early adopters. I’ll try any tool out if it’s new and interesting, and keep using it if I find it helpful. Others are slower to change. One way to get over that initial resistance to a new tool is to make a game of it. One one of the teams I work with, the engineering leadership decided to roll out Yammer for status updates and

Meetings and Distributed Introverts

Nov 5, 10 • In Experiences, Practices

For an introvert, any meeting can be trying. In this guest article, contributor Chris Strom talks about how distributed meetings are especially taxing for those of an introverted bent, and some of his strategies for coping. I am a strong introvert. As with most introverts, I lose energy when I interact with people. Meetings, in particular, drain me. Since they are a staple of a professional career, I have built up something of a tolerance for meetings. Remote meetings, however, continue to confound me. Everything about remote meetings saps more energy than the in-person equivalent. By itself, any one thing does not amount to much. But, by the end of a meeting, I am completely drained. I have no fight left. I care more about reaching the end than reaching consensus. In my experience, eye

Wide Teams Podcast #18: Ruby DCamp 2010 Part 3

Nov 3, 10 • In Interviews, Podcast

The third and final part of a series. This is a recording of a round-table discussion on distributed software teams held at the Ruby DCamp 2010 unconference in northern Virginia. Be sure too listen to Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already. Show notes: The Ruby DCamp website Trevor Lalish-Menagh is @trevmex on Twitter and blogs at http://trevmex.com/ Nick Gauthier of SmartLogic Solutions is @ngauthier on Twitter Chris Strom is @eee_c on Twitter and blogs at http://japhr.blogspot.com/ Camille Bell doesn’t have a Twitter account that I could find, but perhaps she will correct me. Jim Gay of Saturn Flyer is @saturnflyer on Twitter Brian Glusman of ENJYN is @bglusman on Twitter Apologies to the other participants whose info I wasn’t able to hunt down – please comment or email me and I’ll update this post!