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Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

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Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#51

Post by addicted »

edwhitesell wrote: post #50
cosmie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Skype for Business, and it's a common cause of issues. We have constant issues with different individuals not being able to join meeting invites (although the dial in always works, the app doesn't), people being able to join but video/screenshare or audio not working, it refusing to acknowledge the leader so it doesn't start, etc. Our IT team has sent out a bunch of surveys trying to triage the cause of the in…

We used Skype for Business until a few months ago and had a fair amount of issues. We switched our Office 365 accounts all over to Teams and everything has been working a lot better since.

We are in the same boat. Skype for Business was extremely unreliable. Especially if you wanted to use a mobile device (I also had a weird issue where my Skype for Business would occasionally start thinking it was Lync, and refuse to work).

Switching to Teams has made life a whole lot better.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#52

Post by nilkn »

Surely you're not trying to manage 40+ people yourself. Your "team" is actually a division or sub-organization that should have a number of managers or leads within it. You are not a manager but a director/VP. Your actual team consists of the managers who should be reporting to you.

Each of your leads should probably be sending out a weekly email detailing the work that their team has been doing. You should be working closely with your leads so that they are distributing the right information downwards. You need to empower the managers below you rather than trying to take this all on yourself.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#53

Post by jnurmine »

gwbas1c wrote: post #46
mandeepj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15 minutes to figure out the teleconference software We just Skype for Business and Zoom at work. Both are just one click. Webex is also good. It's little confusing though (too many options). My partners use it so I have to also use it. Maybe, you need to evaluate your teleconf s\w.

I don't know why people are downvoting you. There are idiots who constantly take 15 minutes to figure out those teleconference software. Each and every time. I can understand taking 3-5 minutes extra the first time using something like that, and I can understand occasional technical difficulties. What's not acceptable is after 2 calls still having technical difficulties. For example, A year ago I started working with…

Maybe it is a tool issue?

For example, if developers using Linux are asked to teleconference using tools built solely with Windows in mind, sometimes it will work with a VM, but often it randomly doesn't.

If I remember right, Intel used Skype for Business which as a teleconferencing tool was just rubbish. (Maybe it still is?)

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#54

Post by speedplane »

mandeepj wrote: post #40
gwbas1c wrote: post #27

When I worked for Intel, we all went through training on how to run effective meetings. Why? In a distributed team, meetings can become a severe time sink. A lot of people hold meetings to feel busy and important, and even less people put in effort to keep the conversation focused so that the meeting ends on time. Some basic things are: - Determine an agenda in advance. The agenda must be part of the meeting invite.…

> 15 minutes to figure out the teleconference software We just Skype for Business and Zoom at work. Both are just one click. Webex is also good. It's little confusing though (too many options). My partners use it so I have to also use it. Maybe, you need to evaluate your teleconf s\w.

> We just Skype for Business and Zoom at work. Both are just one click.

Skype within the app is good, but if you use their dial-in numbers, it takes a minimum of 30 seconds to get into a conference.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#55

Post by pkalinowski »

We use [V2MOMs][1] for every team, created by said teams.

Then, daily and weekly calls. Whatever we do is more or less connected to goals in V2MOM. It helps from being distracted.

[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-v2mom-process-201...

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#56

Post by speedplane »

> We use Slack for internal comms, but it's used mostly for chit-chat conversations and real-time issues. Is there a product for slow-thinking updates where I can share teams news and align my +40 people team?

With distributed teams, I don't think communicating big vision ideas are all that difficult. They can usually be solved with a monthly all-hands.

The problem with distributed teams is the lack of informal interactions. When you come up with a seed of an idea, that may well be a bad idea or isn't thoroughly formulated, it's an immense help to walk over to someone's desk and run it by them.

Slack and email are poor tools for this type of early innovation because they require you to write your idea down. At the very early stages of innovation, you may not even have a clear enough vision of the solution (or the problem it's trying to solve), to commit it to writing.

Most of these early ideas are originally flawed or down-right incorrect, but low-risk informal chats with co-workers can help crystalize or disprove the idea far more efficiently than any written medium.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#57

Post by an_d_rew »

gwbas1c wrote: post #46
mandeepj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15 minutes to figure out the teleconference software We just Skype for Business and Zoom at work. Both are just one click. Webex is also good. It's little confusing though (too many options). My partners use it so I have to also use it. Maybe, you need to evaluate your teleconf s\w.

I don't know why people are downvoting you. There are idiots who constantly take 15 minutes to figure out those teleconference software. Each and every time. I can understand taking 3-5 minutes extra the first time using something like that, and I can understand occasional technical difficulties. What's not acceptable is after 2 calls still having technical difficulties. For example, A year ago I started working with…

Ha. Every week WebEx cannot remember my audio settings or the Dell laptop mic/headphone drivers just ... don’t work.

Don’t blame the people when all you give them are shite tools.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#58

Post by mac01021 »

speedplane wrote: post #56

> We use Slack for internal comms, but it's used mostly for chit-chat conversations and real-time issues. Is there a product for slow-thinking updates where I can share teams news and align my +40 people team? With distributed teams, I don't think communicating big vision ideas are all that difficult. They can usually be solved with a monthly all-hands. The problem with distributed teams is the lack of informal inter…

I'm not convinced that an idea (or a seed thereof) that is not formed well enough to be written down is ready for discussion with another person.

An idea that has navigated through the internal dialogue I have to engage in to put it to paper is much less a waste of your time.

And, if you want me to provide well thought-out feedback on your idea, don't ask me to respond to it in real time or in the timeframe of a meeting.

The ideal process for ideation may be informal and low-risk, but it is also asynchronous and via the written word (possibly with pictures).

Write down whatever you can about your problem or your idea and then send it to me, saying "what do you think?". I will read it at the time when I am most able to give it my full attention, cogitate for as long as I think necessary, and then reply with the best possible feedback.

Maybe some cases benefit from the rapid iteration that can happen in an oral conversation. But in my experience, most or all of those work just about as well with a rubber duck.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#59

Post by gtirloni »

cowpig wrote: post #22

We're not quite that size yet, but I've found that carefully curating our organizational culture has really paid off, starting with a document of principles[1] that we all agree with, and then on putting a lot of mental effort into training new hires to understand what the culture means and why it's important. [1] https://gist.github.com/cowpig/8d8194ac55e3789d9a3c4136d1e1a...

Oh, this is really nice! Did you use a process to have everybody agree on it? I usually struggle with top-down where some people disagree and work against it vs. bottom-up where consensus is really hard and nothing is done/decided.

Re: Ask HN: As managers, how do you make sure your distributed team is aligned?

#60

Post by peteradio »

gwbas1c wrote: post #27

When I worked for Intel, we all went through training on how to run effective meetings. Why? In a distributed team, meetings can become a severe time sink. A lot of people hold meetings to feel busy and important, and even less people put in effort to keep the conversation focused so that the meeting ends on time. Some basic things are: - Determine an agenda in advance. The agenda must be part of the meeting invite.…

I'd be weeded out as an idiot because Webex is not supported via linux even though it claims to be. I use it fine on my work laptop but if that had been used as a filter I'd have been gone.
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