Getting A Distributed Workforce On The Same Page

by Sean Tierney / Nov 2

Moving to a distributed working arrangement with a team can provide convenience benefits but it also introduces challenges that must be addressed in order to maintain efficiency and team morale. Remote team members can become isolated and “out of phase” with the rest of the group simply from lack of exposure to body language, ambient feedback of overhearing conversations with vocal inflection and being able to respond to people in person. Fortunately many technologies now exist to help mitigate the negative effects of working in dispersed teams.

We at JumpBox have a nexus of employees in our Arizona office but we also have our Director of Engineering working remotely full-time as well as various working arrangements with contractors and advisors outside the company.  We use an assortment of tools and techniques to keep our team integrated. Here are the main ones:

Video conferencing: We use video conferencing to allow remote workers to attend our morning meetings. We’ve found having a company-wide pow-wow every morning to be very effective in revealing obstacles and syncing everyone with status updates and strategic information. Our remote employee joins everyday via video chat and, given the high quality of the call, it’s easy to forget and think he’s in the room.  I used video conferencing to attend meetings while on a month-long working roadtrip last holiday season and can testify that it was indispensable for reducing the feeling of isolation from the team.

Private chat room: We have a private chat room running at all times amongst our development team. One-to-one instant messaging is still be used when appropriate for private conversations but in general any dialogue that has relevance to other team members is conducted via the chat room.  Code snippets can be pasted and files attached when necessary. Having the chat room constantly open is a great middle ground between email and the telephone when a phone call is overkill and email is too asynchronous. It also yields the benefit of creating a transcript the text of which can be quickly skimmed or searched.

Issue tracking system with email notifications: We use the JumpBox for Trac as a ticketing system to track all bugs and development tasks on a project.  As tickets are created, transferred and closed the system triggers email notifications to everyone subscribed. The result is a river of status updates via email indicating the evolution of the project.  Filters for keywords can be setup by each employee to route messages based on content and keep the inbox clear. This window into all status updates gives opportunity for developers not directly involved in a particular task to observe and chime in if they can make a helpful contribution.

CRM system to track press interactions: We use the JumpBox for vTiger to coordinate all interactions with press. We’ve worked with outside PR companies in the past and it’s critical to know who is contacting who and what the outcome of those conversations are.  vTiger enables us to provide limited access to key contacts and see a history of interaction to know what communication has transpired with the press agent. The audit trail capability in vTiger allows us to easily check who has been using the system and which records they’ve recently added or accessed.

Document collaboration tools: We use a document and spreadsheet collaborative editing tool with our contract workers and vendors on anything from trade show preparations to authoring press releases.  Editing a document in a central location means there’s one authoritative copy that shows a history of all changes rather than multiple, disparate versions flying back and forth via email. Changes can be viewed over time and the document can be rolled back to a previous state.  This allows us to confidently make changes and know that no edits ever slip through the cracks.

Healthy culture: Stressful situations are bound to arise and put everyone on edge.  Having a culture of openness where employees feel important and encouraged to speak their mind is critical. Humor is the medicine for stress and the value of a good practical joke now and then can never be underestimated.

Agile development guru Alistair Cockburn coined the term “erg second” as the measure of time necessary to transmit a discreet piece of information to other members of a team.  The idea is that when moving to a distributed team environment, tiny amounts of friction add up over the course of many interactions and can mushroom into major inefficiencies if they’re not identified and addressed.  The other side to this coin is that having telecommuting options and remote working arrangements can strengthen employee loyalty, wipe out the occasional commute and make life more convenient. These are just some of the tools and techniques we at JumpBox use to keep the erg seconds minimized and keep our team well-integrated with one another.

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