Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#161

Post by sytse » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

We tend to use Google Docs to scribble notes during a meeting. We’ve gotten good at using indentation to represent tree structures. It has less flexibility than a whiteboard but it doesn’t run out of space, is always achieved, easy to read, and most importantly everyone in the meeting can contribute at the same time.

Real-time collaboration with text is so essential that this weekend I worked on a proof of concept with a friend to bring it to Gitlab issues https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/21473#note_301...

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#162

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #77

hawkice wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s not really true. There are companies with a few employees in expensive locations and many in low income regions. If you switched everyone to the same salary you’d bankrupt the company. I certain don’t assume to know what Gitlab’s financials look like. There's a slight of hand going on here, where you at first assume all employees are fungible, to mention it's not possible for some firms to pay all employees…

But that is the reason why San Francisco has higher pays, there is a huge competition between employers. In practice what you propose is not to hire in expensive places.

Which is what many companies do in practice. Say there's a company that's not in the Bay Area and has some potentially remote openings. As a Bay Area resident, go in demanding a FAANG in-person salary and most of them will laugh at you unless you're someone very unique who they need.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#163

Post by sytse » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

adolfoabegg wrote: post #150

From the manifesto: The results of work over the hours put in. How do you adapt that to the scrum process which has a burndown chart based in the time spent on tickets.

At Gitlab we try to reduce the scope of tickets so that they all ship in the same sprint.

We measure efficiency by measuring the MR rate, the number of merge requests in a month devided by the number of engineers. To game the number you have to split work up in smaller Parts which helps cycle time, coordination, predictability, and quality, for example smaller changes are easier to review.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#164

Post by dickeytk » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #109

lampe3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why do you need a whiteboard? What problem is the whiteboard solving? Drawing freely with a mouse is something that can be done but also you have tools like draw.io if you need to draw something.

Whiteboards are absolutely indispensable for communicating ideas quickly in a small group of people. It's effectively just a bigger (and easier to erase) version of grabbing a scrap of paper to scribble something down when explaining or describing something to someone else. I'm honestly more surprised that this isn't a universally known concept on HN. Scribbling on scraps of paper is something most people in western…

Indispensable for who? Perhaps designers? As an engineer I spent 5 years working remote and this has never been an issue. We just never needed—or even considered—drawing things.

Even now that I’m not remote all we use the whiteboard for is bulleted lists which easily can be done with notion or google docs

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#165

Post by flamtap » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

renchap wrote: post #110

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

Excalidraw ( https://excalidraw.com ) just implemented collaboration, making it a free, secure and OSS solution for remote whiteboard :)

Thanks for the tip!

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#166

Post by jasonkester » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

I've seen a pretty big uptick in new Twiddla [1] accounts in the last few weeks, and a bunch of mails from teachers and schools who want to start using it.

I market it to teachers for use as a remote classroom, so it's nice to be able to help out a bit. Though I'm a bit conflicted about marketing it too much right at the moment. The last thing I want to do is profit from the current situation.

[1] https://www.twiddla.com/

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#167

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #112

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

I actually found remote whiteboards to work quite well when used with a proper pen tablet (like a Wacom Intous). Downside of that is of course increased cost, as equipping everyone with one of those isn't that cheap. It also takes some time to get used to using those, but for permanent remote situations this is about as close as you will get to in-person whiteboards. A less sophisticated variant that works well for a…

It sometimes feels like we're very hung up on our traditional tools. Pick a remote whiteboard tool, give everyone relevant a big tablet (personally, I find something like an iPad is more intuitive than the Wacoms other than the Cintiq), norm using it (along with other collaborative docs), and you're probably in pretty good shape. Not really expensive compared to all the other costs you have.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#168

Post by dickeytk » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #145

cyphar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whiteboards are absolutely indispensable for communicating ideas quickly in a small group of people. It's effectively just a bigger (and easier to erase) version of grabbing a scrap of paper to scribble something down when explaining or describing something to someone else. I'm honestly more surprised that this isn't a universally known concept on HN. Scribbling on scraps of paper is something most people in western…

I'd actually prefer less whiteboarding to people spending a bit more of their own time on their ideas. Think about it and research it for a few days before calling a meeting.

Yeah I can think of several times when I or someone else came prepared to a remote meeting with a PowerPoint. Of course that took more work, but the product would often be reused and shared long after the meeting. Not only that, a higher quality work conveys the idea much better.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#169

Post by andai » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #112

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

I actually found remote whiteboards to work quite well when used with a proper pen tablet (like a Wacom Intous). Downside of that is of course increased cost, as equipping everyone with one of those isn't that cheap. It also takes some time to get used to using those, but for permanent remote situations this is about as close as you will get to in-person whiteboards. A less sophisticated variant that works well for a…

I got a used Wacom Bamboo (very decent) for $20. Though my handwriting makes it a lot like GP's picture :)

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#170

Post by rickspencer3 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

Just my opinion, but based on running remote and semi-remote teams since 2008 ... fully or mostly remote engineering teams are a competitive advantage, so, by definition, organizations that choose not to adapt to this reality will have a hard time competing.

Organizations can have a personal preference for co-located work, but, I think the marketplace will select those organizations out. I think this will unfold over single digit number of years.

From what I have observed, most of the resistance to remote work is really driven from the top; by less adaptable leaders.