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Wide Teams episodes
- Podcast #33: Keith Casey of Blue Parabola
In this episode, Keith Casey of Blue Parabola talks about managing a successful PHP company with  a 100% distributed team, being a buffer zone between corporate and open-source worlds, and what mainstream companies look for in hiring remote workers.
Show Notes:PHP Architect
Web2ProjectCaseySoftwareTwilio02:06 – Keith Casey introduction and background[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Software developer based in Austin Texas
- Primary focus is PHP community
- Blue Parabola 100% distributed
[/unordered_list]
03:12 – History of Blue Parabola as a distributed team[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Natural progression
[/unordered_list]
04:20 – Blue Parabola[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- One of the more active, unheard of, PHP companies
- Runs PHP Architect Magazine
- Runs PHP Tech, a conference in Chicago
- Contracting, consulting, training
- Works with companies of people trying to understand the PHP community
- Buffer zone between corporate world and open-source world
[/unordered_list]
06:30 – A day in the life with Keith[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Varied work schedule/time zones
- Chat channel/status calls
- Twice a week daily stand-ups
[/unordered_list]
08:22 – Useful tools09:05 – Web 2 Project[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Lead developer
- Web-based formal project management
[/unordered_list]
13:45 – Ups and downs of working from home[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- No commute time is nice
- Stopping at the end of the day is difficult
[/unordered_list]
14:38 – Communicating in person as a team[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Try for once a quarter
- Conferences
[/unordered_list]
16:45 – PHP Community[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Mainstream companies doing big things who hire people wherever they are located
- Hiring experienced people
[/unordered_list]
19:20 – Advice for future dispersed teams[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Open up channels for communication and get used to communicating there
[/unordered_list]
22 min - Podcast #32: Louis Font of Zyncro
In this episode I talk to Louis Font of Zyncro. We talk about his internationally distributed team and how they, as a company, seek to be available to customers 24/7 no matter what time zone they are located in, solving communication gaps between businesses and social networks, and how important physical communication is in the world of remote work.
Show Notes:ZyncroBlog
Twitter: @zyncroFacebook00:40 – Introduction[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Louis Font of Zyncro, an enterprise social network
- Employees around the world: Spain, France, Argentina, USA
- Develop local relationship with customers no matter what time zones customers are in
[/unordered_list]
02:22 - Louis†background[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Entrepreneur out of Barcelona that creates, grows and sells companies for profit
[/unordered_list]
04:20 – Distributed team structure and background09:08 – Challenges working distributed[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- You have to meet other team members that youâ€re working with to establish fluent relationships
[/unordered_list]
10:30 – Cultural differences between team members[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Human interaction is important no matter where you are
[/unordered_list]
12:00 – Zyncro as a company[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Trying to solve communication gaps between businesses and social networks
- Enhances software using collaboration tools
[/unordered_list]
16:22 – Advice for distributed teams[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Communication minimum two times per day
[/unordered_list]
17:20 – Future of distributed teams[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Will become more common
[/unordered_list]
23 min - Podcast #31: Joseph Moore of Pivotal Labs
In this episode I talk to Joseph Moore of Pivotal Labs. We talk about the challenges of moving from a collocated team to being a “satellite team member” thousands of miles away. What’s especially interesting about Joseph’s story is that he still pair-programs all day, every day with other members of his team despite being remote.
 Show Notes:00:55 - Introduce Joe[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Software Developer
- Moved from San Francisco to Atlanta and continued working for Pivotal remotely
[/unordered_list]
01:41 – Interview begins 01:58 – Joeâ€s background[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Â Pivotal Labs is a consulting company specializing in web apps, web development, and mobile development
- Worked on site for Pivotal and continues working remotely from new location in Atlanta
[/unordered_list]
04:50 – Pair Programming[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Two developers sitting side by side at one computer, working on the same problem together
- Slower, but teams produce code that is higher quality, fewer defects, better design, etc.
- Quickly & easily make changes
[/unordered_list]
06:55 – Pair Programming 100% of the time while remote[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Same standard equipment (iMac)
[/unordered_list]
09:10 – Patience and Social Skills while Pairing[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Be a good listener
- Not let ego and opinions take too much precedence
- Have an open mind
- Arrive at solutions together
- Patience with finicky technology
- Video face time is important
- Being disciplined with distractions
- Take breaks (naturally)
[/unordered_list]13:55 – Keyboard back & forth sharing[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- 100% access vs watching and critiquing
- Â Etiquette and cues
- Â Latency
- Â Free up CPU by using multiple machines
[/unordered_list]
23:08 – Daily Pair Swapping[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Change who youâ€re working with
- Make sure everybody is aware of everyone involved in a project
- People are introduced to many other ideas and opinions
[/unordered_list]
25:09 – Going from co located to remote (Joeâ€s experience)27:18 – Daily Standups[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Discuss standing up versus sitting down
- Avoiding distraction during daily standups
- Look at what has been done and what goals are for that day
[/unordered_list]
32:01 – Daily check-ins with clients[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Ensures everything is moving smoothly, have priorities changed, and verify work that has been done
[/unordered_list]
33:56 -Â Social impact of going from co located to remote[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- If you can make occasional physical visits, do it
[/unordered_list]
36:40 -Â Advice for remote workers[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Discipline
- Patience with technology and others
[/unordered_list]
38:17 – Type of person who can be successful at remote work[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- 50% patience
- 50% skill
[/unordered_list]
39:40 – How much of a “normal†work environment can be replicated with distributed teams?40:35 – Aspects that are superior to remote versus co located work42:00 – Remote pair programming and coworking43:38 – Wrap Up[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Anyone interested in agile project tools should check out Pivotal Tracker
- Free software: Pivotal Tracker
- Pivotal Labs is a consulting company located in San Francisco, New York, Boulder, CO, and Joe in Atlanta
- Twitter @joem
- Blog: 40withegg
[/unordered_list]
46 min - Podcast #30: Dan Menard of Macadamian
A discussion with Dan Menard of Macadamian, covering the importance of taking the time to build personal relationships; the advantages of having a team that’s split across time zones, the practice of distributed code review, and much more!
Announcements:
[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- I’m looking for a sponsor so I can do the podcast on a more regular schedule! Contact me if you’re interested.
- Get your free copy of the Dispersed Team Kick-Start Guide by signing up to the Wide Teams mailing list.
[/unordered_list]
Show notes:
[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Dan blogs at dan-menard.com and is @dan_menard on Twitter.
- Macadamian
- How to work with someone 12 hours away
- Yammer
- Smartboard
- The Wine project
[/unordered_list]
03:15 – Danâ€s background[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Macadamian Technologies based out of Ottowa, Canada, with offices in Romania and Armenia
- Product creation company that helps other companies bring products to life
- Software development
- User research
- User experience and visual design
- Quality assurance
[/unordered_list]
04:02 – History with oversea startup[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Helped to work more effectively with clients in different timezones
[/unordered_list]
06:00 – Schedule Flexibility[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Adjusted schedule
- Work from home or office
[/unordered_list]
07:28 – Importance of relationships[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Personal connection
- Avoid “Us†versus “Them†mentality
- Skype is useful
- Personal presence at all offices
[/unordered_list]
09:50 – Advantages of working with teams across time zones[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Working in teams across time zones expands a regular work day
- Instead of fitting 8 hours into a work day, you can get around 16
- Get projects done in half the time
- Overlap shifts slightly to sync up with SCRUM meetings, etc.
[/unordered_list]
12:00 – Tools[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Skype
- Confluence (Wiki)
- Email
- Internal mailing lists and news groups
- Yammer
[/unordered_list]
14:40 – Smartboard[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Whiteboard with a projector hooked up to it
- Touchscreen
- Interactive
[/unordered_list]
17:06 – Code Review[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Patch-a-day
- Do things in small batches
- Develops good patterns and catches bugs earlier
- Responsibility
[/unordered_list]
19:00 – Adjustment to working with distributed teams20:52 – Future of working with distributed teams21:24 – Advice to distributed groups[unordered_list style=”bullet”]
- Do whatever works for your individual team
[/unordered_list]
24 min - Podcast #29: John Hawkins of 9Seeds LLC
In this episode, an interview with John Hawkins, one of the founders of 9Seeds, a company that specializes in custom WordPress development. The 9Seeds team is fully dispersed, with every team member working from home. We talked about how 9Seeds came to be a distributed company, and why John intends never to set foot in a brick-and-mortar office again.
Show notes:
- John Hawkins is @vegasgeek on Twitter
- 9Seeds LLC
- The Event Ticketing and Affiliate Manager WordPress plugins
- 9Seeds sponsors WordCamp conferences
28 min - Podcast #28: Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter
In this episode I talk to Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter, a fully dispersed software consultancy. We talked about recruiting the right kinds of people for a distributed team, and how to stay connected as friends as well as coworkers.
Show notes:
- Shane Pearlman is @justlikeair on Twitter
- Shane & Peter
- Check out the Shane & Peter Lifeblog
- Redmine
- Adium
- Coworking
- Freelance Camp
33 min - Podcast #27: Susan Tenby & Jessica Dally of TechSoup
This podcast is a departure from the dispersed software development teams I usually cover. I interviewed Susan Tenby and Jessica Dally of TechSoup, a nonprofit focused on providing other nonprofits with the technology they need to better accomplish their missions. One way they assist nonprofits is in helping them to use Second Life, a massive on-line “virtual world”, to collaborate and build community online.
I talked to Susan and Jessica about why TechSoup is a distributed organization, and why organizations are using Second Life to meet, network, and do their work. For someone who spends a lot of time doing remote collaboration, it was eye-opening for me to discover this whole new frontier of online interaction. After listening to this interview you may just be inspired to add a virtual world meeting space to your own remote collaboration tool box.
Show Notes:
- Susan Tenby is @suzboop on Twitter
- Jessica Dally is @jessicadally
- TechSoup is @techsoup on Twitter
- Nonprofit Commons is @npsl on Twitter.
- A video about NPSL’s work in Second Life
- Second Life
- Hypergrid Business, a blog devoted to “enterprise users of virtual worlds”
- Community Voice Mail
- 5PM project management tool
- Evernote
- HootSuite
- BaseCamp
38 min - Podcast #26: Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com
In this episode I talked to Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com, a web-based collaboration tool for distributed teams. This is another episode recovered from near-disastrous technical malfunction, and as a result all of my audio has been re-dubbed. Thankfully, Sahil’s insights into he advantages of a dispersed team have been fully preserved.
Show notes:
- Sahil Parikh is @sahilparikh on Twitter.
- Check out DeskAway at DeskAway.com / @deskaway
20 min - Podcast #25: Jared Goralnick of AwayFind.com
The conventional wisdom says that while some distributed teams might work, it’s not possible to have a geographically dispersed software startup. With AwayFind.com, Jared Goralnick is challenging that wisdom. I talked to him about time management, establishing rapport in a distributed teams, and the advantages of remote workers for a startup.
Show notes:
- Jared is @technotheory on Twitter, and blogs at Technotheory.
- AwayFind.com is a great service for avoiding email overload.
30 min - Podcast #24: Derek Wade
In this episode, a conversation with Derek Wade, a collaboration expert and Team Coach at Kumido Adaptive Systems. We talk about building “high-gravity” distributed teams, work-scapes, and the benefits of simple, free-form tools for collaboration.
This episode is “back from the dead” — all of the audio from my side of the interview was lost, but I reconstructed and re-dubbed my questions so that I could share this interview.
Show notes:
- Derek can be found at derekwwade.net, and is @derekwwade on Twitter.
- Slides for the presentation “High Gravity Distributed Teams“
- The #lrnchat hashtag on Twitter
- I did a video demo of the Cardmeeting tool.
39 min
About Wide Teams
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The blog for geographically dispersed organizations