This document provides tips for effective remote work between distributed teams. It notes that without proper communication and infrastructure, teams can become siloed with poor productivity. It recommends having face-to-face meetings to build personal connections, using video conferencing and chat tools, conducting daily stand-ups, agreeing on core working hours despite time zones, practicing pair programming, and ensuring cross-functional collaboration to avoid Conway's Law where organizations replicate their communication structures in software designs.

1. E F F I C I E N T
REMOTE WORK
Felipe Dornelas

2. COMMON FRUSTRATIONS
2

3. “Organizations which design systems … are
constrained to produce designs which are copies of
the communication structures of these organizations”
— Melvin Conway, 1968
3

4. Conway’s Law
4

5. 5
Hi. I’m Conway!

6. LET’S IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO
6
• Distributed UK and Brazil teams
• UK team are clients
• Brazil team are contractors
• Need to build a big service

7. 7

8. WHAT IS PLANNED
8
Big Service

9. 9
This isn’t going to
end well…

10. LET’S BUILD THIS
10
Brazil Team UK Team

11. LET’S BUILD THIS
11
Brazil Team UK Team

12. LET’S BUILD THIS
12
Brazil Team UK Team

13. COMMUNICATION ISSUES
13
• UK makes decisions
• Brazil is not invited to all meetings
• E-mail communications
• Separate time zones

14. INFRASTRUCTURE DOES NOT HELP
14
• Phone conferencing sucks
• No video
• Chat apps blocked by firewall

15. AS TIME GOES BY
15
Brazil Team UK Team

16. AS TIME GOES BY
16
Brazil Team UK Team

17. AS TIME GOES BY
17
Brazil Team UK Team

18. DISTRIBUTED MONOLITH
18
A B
Tight Coupling

19. TWO SILOS
19
Brazil Team UK Team

20. FRUSTRATIONS
20
• Siloed knowledge
• Poor productivity
• Code quality is sacrificed
• Over-engineered distributed monolith

21. 21
I WARNED YOU!
MUAHAHAHA!!!

22. Can we avoid this?
22

23. 23
Yes you can!
Shut up!

24. Communication is the key!
24

25. MEET THE TEAM
25

26. Sometimes, you just gotta be there
26

27. 27

28. DROP BY FOR A VISIT
28
• Meet everyone face to face
• You won’t be just an avatar anymore
• Understand the organization culture

29. MAKE FRIENDS
29
• Don’t be shy
• Have lunch together
• Make a team outing
• Be nice!

30. BRING FOOD
30

31. BLEND IN
31

32. START INFLUENCING
32
• Identify key persons
• Who makes decisions?
• Understand how they work

33. MAKE A TRAVEL SCHEDULE
33
• Rotate travel among the team
• Have someone from your team onsite
• Bring the client to visit your office!

34. INFRASTRUCTURE SETUP
34

35. You don’t realize how much you need the
Internet until it stops working
35

36. CONFERENCING
36
• Internet bandwidth is critical
• Turn the video on
• Good audio equipment
• Phone line can have degraded audio

37. CONFERENCING
37

38. INTERNATIONAL CALLS SUCK
38

39. USE GOOD AUDIO EQUIPMENT
39

40. DEDICATED AUDIO VIDEO LINK
40

41. EVEN AN OLD LAPTOP WILL DO
41

42. TEAM CHAT
42
• Slack
• FlowDock
• HipChat
• Campfire
• Good’n old IRC

43. SCREEN SHARING TOOLS
43
• Screenhero
• vim + tmux
• VNC

44. COMMUNICATE
44

45. Rule #1: don’t be shy!
45

46. CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE
46
• Use the audio video link as much as
possible
• Participate in the team chat
• One or two quick daily stand-ups
• E-mail as a last resource

47. I’M TALKING ABOUT THIS!
47

48. …AND THIS!
48

49. Got a problem? Say it!
49

50. MEETINGS
50
• If you didn't understand, ask
• If audio quality is bad, let them know
• Stay focused

51. CORE HOURS
51
• Agree upon core hours
• Let the team know when:
• You are going to be late
• You will leave your desk for too long
• It’s all about perception!

52. Answer fast, be responsive
52

53. DEALING WITH TIME ZONES
53
• Intersection core-hours
• A decision log may be helpful

54. AVOID FUNCTIONAL SILOS
54

55. Gotta constantly fight Conway’s Law
55

56. 56
I’m your worst
enemy!

57. CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
57
• Vertical stories
• Understand the whole stack
• Work on all modules
• Share knowledge

58. 58

59. REMOTE PAIR PROGRAMMING
59
• Don’t neglect it
• No more than a few hours per day
• As needed

60. CONSULTING ADVICE
60
• Have someone onsite as a contact point
• Ask for help
• Don’t let the client forget to invite you
to meetings

61. 61
Follow these
tips and you
shall succeed!
Grrrrrrrr…

62. Felipe Dornelas
fdornelas@thoughtworks.com
THANK YOU