Lean Startup

Being part of a kickass team is one of the great benefits of distributed work. But it’s hard to keep track of things like what everyone else is working on and who’s out on vacation, let alone tackle how you can get more done together. In this talk, Patti Chan will share insights from Intridea, a 50-person, 5-year-old, 100% distributed company that uses a number of third-party apps–but has also built its own internal communications tools. She’ll explore: What’s best left to third-party products? How do you know you’ve hit a wall with third-party apps and need to build your own? How do you think about developing tools if you’re not a dev shop? How do you ensure internal buy-in for new tools?

Opening Remarks: Office Optional | Sarah Milstein by Lean Startup

When you have a central office, remote workers can wind up feeling uninformed, disempowered and disconnected. But they absolutely don’t have to have those experiences. Paul Hepworth, VP of Engineering at UserTesting, an 87-person company with more than a dozen remote workers, will talk about the very practical things you can do to ensure that remote team members can “see” into the office and are as connected and informed as co-located workers. In addition to interpersonal processes, he’ll also talk about cheap hardware setups that make a big difference.

Peter Armstrong, founder of Dashcube, will show us a new communications tool.

When StudySoup implemented a mandatory, daily virtual standup meeting for its team of {number}, it saw a monumental shift in both the relationships between team members and their progress on projects. CEO Sieva Kozinsky will explain how the calls are structured, how long they last, who talks, the system for taking notes and how it’s transformed the company.

People on distributed teams often say, “Working remotely is great for heads-down tasks, but collaborating remotely–especially on creative work–is really hard.” You’ve probably said that yourself. So how can we improve distributed collaboration in virtual meetings? Teryn Rikert, a workplace strategist with Steelcase, will break down the different modes of collaboration, helping us understand the key behaviors, interactions and tools we can use to support them over distance.

Is having a distributed workforce just a matter of letting people work wherever they like? It’s tempting to think so. In fact, once you let employees work remotely, the risks of legal employment, financial, and work-related misunderstandings amplify. Steven Yee, with more than 16 years of HR consulting and training experience, will talk about effective approaches and will provide examples of HR solutions redefined for virtual teams.

Post-it Notes and whiteboards are basic office collaboration tools, supporting useful, well-established processes for group brainstorming. But when you’re not physically next to the same wall, the effectiveness of these tools crumbles. William Donnell, Founder of Sodium Halogen, an experience-design consulting firm, often works with groups of up to eight and will share the techniques he’s developed for ensuring lively, engaged virtual brainstorming.

The Secrets of Successfully Working from Home

Lynne d Johnson@lynneluvah LYNNEDJOHNSON.COM

Elisa Batista @elisabatista MOMSRISING.ORG

Raina Kumra @rainakumra JUGGERNAUT

Keith Fahlgren @abdelazer SAFARI BOOKS ONLINE

What happens when your “remote office” is a corner of your living room, and your colocated coworkers are a large mutt and a four-year-old human–or you have no colocated coworkers at all? This panel will explore approaches that make working from home actually work. From physical setups, to social arrangements, to personal productivity and more, this discussion will plumb topics that many of think about every day.

Getting Customer Feedback When Your Product Doesn't Live On The Web | Ari Gesher by Lean Startup