From 13df9b3e30ef732b6645bd610149d2e26e9d8558 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "R. Tyler Croy" Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2020 07:52:52 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] Add the blog post about remote management office hours --- ...-03-05-remote-management-office-hours-1.md | 121 ++++++++++++++++++ tag/remote.md | 6 + 2 files changed, 127 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _posts/2020-03-05-remote-management-office-hours-1.md create mode 100644 tag/remote.md diff --git a/_posts/2020-03-05-remote-management-office-hours-1.md b/_posts/2020-03-05-remote-management-office-hours-1.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da49c24 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2020-03-05-remote-management-office-hours-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,121 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "Hosting Remote Eng Management Office Hours" +tags: +- management +- remote +--- + +Suddengly managing a remote engineering team may seem like a daunting situation, +one which many people are suddently finding themselves in as tech companies +institute sudden "work-from-home" policies in response to the Corona virus. +If you find yourself in this situation [don't +panic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWeuUwpEQfs). Managing remotely is not +significantly different than managing in-person, and your already existing good +management and communication habits will greatly help. Nonetheless, I thought I +might be able to help newly remote managers [by hosting an open office +hours](https://twitter.com/agentdero/status/1235291001671110656), +with the first experimental session yesterday in the afternoon PST. + +I am not sure what is the right cadence might be to host these in the future, +but if you're interesting, I wouldn't mind your feedback on this [doodle +poll](https://doodle.com/poll/ekttgd4uakvbshhn). + +I did not, and will not record these meetings, as I want to ensure that it's a +safe space to share ideas. The notes however are safe for sharing, and are +listed below. I have also included some of the brainstorming notes I did ahead +of the office hours at the bottom of this post. Those potential topics would be +good to dive deeper into for future office hours if this idea works out. + +--- + +## Notes + +* Managing across a massive timezone spread, e.g. Taiwan to Kiev + * Easier working with people that are already familiar with self-directed open source project processes + * Having people working on non-overlapping projects helps quite a bit +* “Any changes an org needs to make to support remote workers, benefits the entire group” + * Removing gatekeepers enables remote people quite a bit, but also in-office people +* Sometimes worth focusing on _zero_ overlap, and having everything written down between people + * Things that might be able to go back and forth over a couple hour period might otherwise take a few days, given the back and forth +* Managing cross-team dependencies when different teams have different priorities + * (In FreeBSD Foundation) Being selective on the kinds of projects that are taken on which have limited external dependencies +* Investing in automation and tooling can have a broader improvements for decoupling dependent teams or people +* Lots to learn from open source communities and how they work together +* Growing a remote team from scratch + * Defining the job requirements is important to have the right level of details but not overly vague and not overly specific + * Having a co-op/intern pipeline helps quite a bit + * Leads to a very long hiring pipeline, significant investment + * Great to hire early-career people +* Concerns about hiring early-career people into remote work + * Challenging to draw the lines between “work” and “life” can be especially difficult for those new to professional life + * Discussions worth having with people who are later in their career who are transitioning to remote + * It can definitely work, so long as the engineering manager understands the level of effort involved to help the employee succeed. + * Helping the employee learn the right boundaries for asking for help, escalating, etc + * Learning the right judgement for asking to help + * Feeling like you’re able to ask for help, having that psychological safety to ask for help or admit limitations + * Not everybody will feel comfortable vocalizing “I’m stuck” or “I don’t know” + * Not everybody knows when to stop “sitting and trying to solve” the problem + * “It’s amazing the lengths I went to, to not disappoint somebody when I was just starting out” +* Helping the team understand one another as people, rather than just some IRC nick that reviews my pull requests +* Remote hiring concerns + * Logistical concerns: handling the potential influx of candidates from a large audience + * Without much of a hiring process in place already, there’s a challenge to finding people without much of a organizational infrastructure to perform a “bigger” interview process + * Need to share the Automattic (?) approach for “try-before-you-buy” on hiring people on 90-day project-based contracts (Tyelr to find the link) + * How many initial rounds would you do for each offer + * 15:1 for Tyler + * Lots of variance depending on the type of position, some roles will self-select for a smaller pool of candidates. + +--- + +## Potential Discussion Topics + +### Remote-friendly Collaboration Tools + +* Standups and daily rituals +* Pair-programming when you’re not in the same place +* Video conference tools + +### Running effective remote meetings + +* Meeting notes in Google Docs / Confluence + * Everybody on the “live-edit” mode, contributing as we go along +* Video-on +* Meeting leader to recognize speakers + * Avoiding one speaker dominating the entire discourse +* Handling “partial-remote” meetings. + * One where a group of people are in an office, and everybody else is remote + * Always explicitly ask for responses/questions from remote people before people in the room. +* Headphones required: + * Participants not using headphones cannot hear social cues of others speaking, and will bowl over the discussion + +### Managing Performance + +* Working across timezones and adjusting expectations on responsiveness +* Code-review cycle times, etc +* Helping developers manage their home work environment +* Reducing distractions / maintaining focus + +### Dealing with fear/concerns related to Corona +* Empathy while avoiding overhyping or fear-mongering is challenging +* Managers have a dual responsibility to be true to their employees, but to also represent the company and help dutifully enforce company policies. Can be a tricky line to walk in emotionally charged situations +* Different people will be affected differently +* Those from or with family in China, Iran, etc, may have a much different view or level of concern than somebody based in the suburbs of North America +* Face-time is important +* Email or Slack blasts might get the information out, but communication is a two-way street. Making time to listen is just as important. + +### Remote Interview Pipeline + +* “Whiteboard” oriented interview sessions +* Moving interviews with candidates into a fully remote session +* Preparing the interviewers for a remote interview, especially if they’ve never done it. + +### Remote Fun and Not Strictly Work Related Things + +* Important to maintain the “social glue” of the team even if you’re not all in the same place +* Talk about “Bring Your Own Beverage” Google Hangout to just talk about cats, kids, and anything not work related as a team +* Multiplayer games to unwind. + + +--- + diff --git a/tag/remote.md b/tag/remote.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7500b22 --- /dev/null +++ b/tag/remote.md @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +--- +layout: tag_page +title: "Tag: remote" +tag: remote +robots: noindex +---