Wide Teams

Podcast #34: Ron Evans of The Hybrid Group

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In this episode, Ron Evans of The Hybrid Group talks about being a part of a consultancy and the importance of reputation, balancing family and distributed work, and a wonderful project aimed at our youth to introduce them to coding at a young age and keep the Ruby community alive and thriving!

Show Notes:

Twitter: @deadprogram

The Hybrid Group
Kanban Pad 
The Kids Ruby Project
Clutch

00:51 – Introduction

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  • Ron Evans of the Hybrid Group a software consultancy with a dispersed team

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    01:50 – Interview begins
    02:05 – Ronâ€s background

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    • Ring leader of The Hybrid Group: a development company based in L.A.
    • Has developers in 5 countries, 4 different time zones, speaking in 4 different languages

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      04:05 – Sustainable development

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      • Works on client programs already in progress
      • Takes over an existing code base

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        04:38 – Communication practices

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        • Uses real-time communication
        • Has Skype chat room for each client and encourages client participation
        • Transparency is essential

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          06:00 – Being extreme

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          • Times when distractions need to be eliminated
          • Times when you need to be collaborative

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            06:40 – Tools

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            • Skype
            • Email
            • Ticketmaster
            • Clutch: universal feed that allows you to track projects
            • Kanban
            • Kanban Pad

              • [/unordered_list]

              11:45 – Consultancies

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              • Reputation is key
              • Caring gives you a competitive edge
              • Treat client how you wish to be treated
              • How can we make things better and improve as a provider of service

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                14:10 – Building a remote culture

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                • Geographic centers where you can cowork
                • Silly customs can help build the culture of a dispersed team
                • PBEOD: Production by end of day
                • Deploy Master: rotating person in charge each day

                  • [/unordered_list]

                  23:40 – History of The Hybrid Group

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                  • Meet tons of like-minded people, especially at conferences
                  • Evolution of Ronâ€s previous consultancy

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                    29:35 – Pair programming and when to do it

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                    • Pairing is done to solve a problem and to have people looking at code collaborativly
                    • Screen-share-style pairing
                    • Pairing with a client
                    • Solving a particularly difficult problem
                    • Do anything all the time is not a good approach to solving problems

                      • [/unordered_list]

                      36:48 – Does agile development work?
                      38:30 – Family and distributed work

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                      • Avoid commute times
                      • Choose your own environment for productivity
                      • Having control over your own destiny
                      • Investing in people rather than infrastructure

                        • [/unordered_list]

                        41:50 – The Kids Ruby Project

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                        • Fantastic developers started programming very young
                        • Computer education in schools is decreasing for programming type jobs

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                          50:55 – Advice for future dispersed teams

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                          • Cultivate an attitude of transparency
                          • Share information
                          • Truth will set you free
                          • Be ethical

                            [/unordered_list]

                            ...more
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