Posts Tagged ‘dispersed teams’
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Podcast #32: Louis Font of Zyncro
In this episode I talk to Louis Font of Zyncro. We talk about his internationally distributed team and how they, as a company, seek to be available to customers 24/7 no matter what time zone they are located in, solving communication gaps between businesses and social networks, and how important physical communication is in the world of remote work. Show Notes: ZyncroBlog Twitter: @zyncro Facebook 00:40 – Introduction 02:22 - Louis’ background 04:20 – Distributed team structure and background 09:08 – Challenges working distributed 10:30 – Cultural differences between team members 12:00 – Zyncro as a company 16:22 – Advice for distributed teams 17:20 – Future of distributed teams
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The Narrating Your Work Experiment
Hans de Zwart recently finished an experiment in which he encouraged his distributed team to “narrate their work”—to issue frequent updates to the team about what they were doing. In this article, he discusses the results of the experiment. This article was originally posted on Hans’ blog, and he has kindly granted permission to reprint it here. A few months back I posted a design for an experiment on my blog. The goal of the experiment was to find out whether it would be possible to use a microblogging tool to narrate our work with the intention of making better performing virtual teams. Over the last two months, the direct team that I work in (consisting of 18 people) basically participated in the experiment in the way that it was designed: They posted constant, daily or weekly updates
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Podcast #29: John Hawkins of 9Seeds LLC
In this episode, an interview with John Hawkins, one of the founders of 9Seeds, a company that specializes in custom WordPress development. The 9Seeds team is fully dispersed, with every team member working from home. We talked about how 9Seeds came to be a distributed company, and why John intends never to set foot in a brick-and-mortar office again. Show notes: John Hawkins is @vegasgeek on Twitter 9Seeds LLC The Event Ticketing and Affiliate Manager WordPress plugins 9Seeds sponsors WordCamp conferences
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Podcast #28: Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter
In this episode I talk to Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter, a fully dispersed software consultancy. We talked about recruiting the right kinds of people for a distributed team, and how to stay connected as friends as well as coworkers. Show notes: Shane Pearlman is @justlikeair on Twitter Shane & Peter Check out the Shane & Peter Lifeblog Redmine Adium Coworking Freelance Camp
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6 Ways Remote Workers Can Communicate Effectively
Remote workers such as telecommuters and freelancers often face the challenge of little- to no-face time with team members. Lack of in-person communication means one loses access and the non-verbal cues of team members, such as facial expression, body language and sometimes tone of voice. As a result, remote workers face challenges such as misinterpretation of information, lack of information due to delay in response, and low team spirit due to limited personal interaction with team members. There are ways remote workers can overcome these challenges with different communication techniques. Knowing when to use e-mail, the phone, and instant messaging can also help everyone communicate more effectively. Use the phone for urgent matters. If you have a question or a matter to discuss of urgent nature, you want to reach your team member over the
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Wide Links #19
The latest and greatest news and resources for remote workers, from all around the web. Set Up Remote Colleagues With the Apps They Need Using Ninite: Online Collaboration « Ninite has a selection of many of the most commonly used apps, including browsers, IM clients, media players, office apps, Flash, PDF readers, security tools, utilities and even some of WWD’s favorite tools, like Dropbox, Evernote and KeePass. The installer installs the most up-to-date version of the apps; running the installer again will update the apps to the latest version. iPad 2: The Best Tablet for Distributed Teams Just Got Better: Online Collaboration « I’ve talked about the importance of a “comms appliance” for remote workers; the iPad 2may just be the best device yet for that role. tags: communication videoconferencing ipad People who think
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Podcast #27: Susan Tenby & Jessica Dally of TechSoup
This podcast is a departure from the dispersed software development teams I usually cover. I interviewed Susan Tenby and Jessica Dally of TechSoup, a nonprofit focused on providing other nonprofits with the technology they need to better accomplish their missions. One way they assist nonprofits is in helping them to use Second Life, a massive on-line “virtual world”, to collaborate and build community online. I talked to Susan and Jessica about why TechSoup is a distributed organization, and why organizations are using Second Life to meet, network, and do their work. For someone who spends a lot of time doing remote collaboration, it was eye-opening for me to discover this whole new frontier of online interaction. After listening to this interview you may just be inspired to add a virtual world meeting space to your
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Of Tools and Chasms
There are a dazzling array of agile project management tools out there, with new ones being added every day. More and more of them are targeted at geographically dispersed teams, claiming to increase productivity, enhance communication, and improve our insight into the state of the project. The hidden cost of these tools, however, can be complexity. I asked David J. Bland, an Agile coach and a speaker on distributed agile project management, to write about the pitfalls of complexity, and the virtue of using simple tools in a dispersed agile software development team. So your enterprise organization has decided to adopt agile. Everyone on your team received a two day training course, a subscription to safari books online and a login for the spiffy new Agile Project Management (APM) tool. Now go forth with
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Wide Links #18
Been a while since I did one of these… here’s a fresh helping of remote-work related links from all around the web. What to Do When An Employee Asks to Telecommute: Online Collaboration « A telecommuting trial run isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s not biased against success from the start. tags: wideteams Telecommuting is becoming more common in organizations of every size. It makes it possible to work with the best people for your projects, no matter where they are based. It can be an opportunity to keep your team happy and it’s a privilege you may be able to provide without a lot of work or expense on your part. Even if telecommuting doesn’t wind up working for all of your team and on all of the projects you work on,
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The Wide Teams Podcast
A weekly podcast featuring interviews with people who are making dispersed teams work day by day.
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