Jon ReidAug 9, 2023

"Zoom orders workers back to the office" is funny, but there's nothing unique about Zoom doing it.

All these companies show that they don't understand how effective work is actually done, and how to organize around that. Instead, they're relying on the implicit benefits of the past where work _happened_ to be done in person (but they don't know how).

Show threadJon ReidAug 9, 2023

As I coach software teams (and do so remotely), it's pretty clear that the root problem is that folks never knew how to work together in the first place.

And I do mean "work together," not folks siloed in their little caves where you have no idea what they're up to.

Working together is a skill, it doesn't come for free. It can be learned. It can be taught.

Show threadJon ReidAug 10, 2023
An old coworker of mine replied, "Organic, spontaneous cross-organization collaboration is much harder to do when everyone is remote." Hmm. Let's dig into that a bit.
Show threadJon ReidAug 10, 2023
There are certainly benefits to being in person. But "collaboration is much harder to do when everyone is remote" isn't because people are remote. It's because people work in systems that are designed to inhibit real-time spontaneous collaboration. Examples include passing JIRA tickets around, Pull Requests, individual assignments, reviews based on individual performance, planning meetings, high Work In Progress instead of limiting WIP… The list goes on and on.
Show threadBenji Weber

@qcoding I saw collaboration increase when everyone went remote because the terrible office environment was actively impeding collaboration.

But then I've also seen the benefit of office spaces actually designed for collaboration.

Aug 14, 2023 at 5:57pmWeb
Show threadJon ReidAug 14, 2023
@benjiweber Yes, the "open office" idea was co-opted from Extreme Programming where people could rearrange their space to gather the people they needed. You know, as opposed to lining everyone in rows where the real purpose was cost-cutting instead of supporting collaboration.