Skip to content
Menu
Wide Teams
  • Newsletter
  • About
Wide Teams

Episode #43: Greg Bell of Reverb Software

Posted on August 1, 2012August 13, 2012

In this episode, Greg Bell, of Reverb Software, talks about mistakes he made during the early stages of managing a distributed team and what he’s done to combat those mistakes, and the ideal people that make up a widely distributed team.

http://media.wideteams.com/043-greg-bell-of-reverb-software.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Show Notes:

Twitter: @gregbell
REVERB Software
Greg Bell Design + Development
github/gregbell
Ruby Open Source Challenge

00:44 – Greg Bell Introduction and Background

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Based in Vancouver, Canada
  • Reverb has 6 staff members distributed around the world: France and Vancouver
  • Shared office space that can be utilized

[/unordered_list]

02:05 – Type of software worked on

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Rails applications in medical and pharmaceutical enterprise spaces

[/unordered_list]

03:00 – History with distributed teams

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • First experiences weren’t so good
  • Inherited distributed developers

[/unordered_list]

05:20 – What went wrong at first?

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Good technology wasn’t in place to allowl continuous communication
  • No IRC or Hip Chat
  • No daily standups
  • Language barrier
  • Time zone alignment

[/unordered_list]

08:30 – Plans to avoid future mistakes while managing a distributed team

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Try to get people in the same room as much as possible
  • Face time
  • Keep the team connected
  • Having the right people

[/unordered_list]

09:45 – Ideal people

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Enjoy writing down what they are doing
  • Documenting thoughts
  • Making it obvious what they are up to
  • Detail tickets

[/unordered_list]

11:20 – A day in the life

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Daily standup over Google Hangouts
  • Additional conversations between teams
  • HipChat all day

[/unordered_list]

13:14 – HipChat

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Easy to use
  • Integrated one-on-one video chat
  • More private than Skype

[/unordered_list]

15:10 – Division of work between people in Vancouver and people in France

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Everyone works on projects together
  • Meeting with clients is harder for those located in France
  • Iteration planning

[/unordered_list]

18:42 – Being stalled during work due to others being unavailable

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Always have multiple independent tasks you could be working on
  • Changing how you orient standups

[/unordered_list]

23:00 – Connecting with clients

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Tracking conversations
  • Taking meeting notes
  • Side conversations with clients can give a lot of context

[/unordered_list]

25:08 – Dealing with young members of teams

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Training/programs for young developers out of college
  • Remote pair programming

[/unordered_list]

29:05 – Number one piece of advice for someone getting into distributed work

[unordered_list style=”bullet”]

  • Show progress

[/unordered_list]

The Wide Teams Podcast

A weekly podcast featuring interviews with people who are making dispersed teams work day by day.

 Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe in iTunes

Categories

  • Basics
  • Conferences
  • Discussion
  • Experiences
  • Featured
  • Interviews
  • Links
  • Opinion
  • Philosophy
  • Podcast
  • Practices
  • Reviews
  • Site News
  • Tips & Hacks
  • Toolkit
  • Uncategorized
©2023 Wide Teams | WordPress Theme by Superbthemes.com