Distributed Teams, Systems & Culture

Harrison Dahme@isthebaron // harrison@pantheon.io

Finding success with a distributed workforce

Hi!

-Who works with someone who- works remote, full time?- works from a separate office?- works from home occasionally- would like to?works from home occasionally

Quick Poll!

Distributed Culture?

● Give autonomy to teams so they can function independently in space and time.

● Ingrain that in company culture

Wait, but why?Organizations which design

systems ... are constrained to

produce designs which are copies

of the communication structures

of these organizations

—M. Conway

Wait, but why?

● More sleep!

● High availability!

Wait, but why?

● More time!

30 minute commute= 1.5 hours a day= 7.5 hours a week= 370 hours a year= 3 weeks of vacation

Wait, but why?

● Nomadic freedom

Wait, but why?

From where?!

When to start?

● Now

● Start small

Making it work

● Work distribution

Making it work

● Communication

Making it work

● Slack

Making it work

● Google Hangouts

Making it work

● appear.in

Making it work

● Waffle.io & Sprint.ly

Making it work

● PagerDuty

Making it work

● statuspage.io

When to meet in person

● Onboarding

● Planning

Making it work

● Team cohesiveness

Dragons!

● Trust

● Security

● Morale

Resources● https://www.lullabot.com/articles/yahoo-best-buy-and-telecommuting-

advice-from-a-distributed-company● https://www.lullabot.com/articles/what-is-a-distributed-company● Remote: Office Not Required, by Jason Fried and David Hansson● http://hanselminutes.com/375/on-culture-and-remoteness-at-github-

with-paul-betts-and-justin-spahr-summers

Distribute Culture

Thank you

Harrison Dahme, Pantheonharrison@pantheon.io