I'd rather work on a team that simply wants to get things done as opposed to conducting various rituals. Accomplishment is probably the ultimate team building exercise.
Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
111–120 of 153 posts
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#112The pandemic has made it more challenging. I've worked remotely for over eight years and managed teams for 4 of those years. Engagement feedback has dramatically shifted, with people feeling disconnected and needing more social interaction. Before the pandemic, people leveraged their local social networks and didn't need work to be their source of community. One of the rituals on my team that has stuck for years is a…
I couldn't agree more and funny enough I created a conversation app at frenemy.live that helps with just this.
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#113> - Posting once a week about what I did for fun over the weekend, usually with photos. Honestly, if I heard about this during the hiring process I'd see it as a red flag. Especially the photos. I once had this terrible VP who was a horrible micromanager and an all around a-hole. For every weekly meeting he'd go around the room forcing people to share what they did on the weekend. It was under the guise of "team buil…
I suspect a lot of folks have some trauma from past bosses that inform how they view relatively tame things. When I start a new job I set myself as away on slack and never change it to active because I had a boss who would message me if I was away for more than 5 minutes during COVID. The green/gray circle is pretty big brothery and feels crazy to me but everyone accepts it. I think I'm hyper sensitive to this becaus…
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Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#114> - Posting once a week about what I did for fun over the weekend, usually with photos. Honestly, if I heard about this during the hiring process I'd see it as a red flag. Especially the photos. I once had this terrible VP who was a horrible micromanager and an all around a-hole. For every weekly meeting he'd go around the room forcing people to share what they did on the weekend. It was under the guise of "team buil…
You're talking about something very different. I agree - forced socialising like this is terrible!
I think the word "ritual" indicates it's forced. Maybe not forced by management, but if 80% of the team is doing it, there's a lot of pressure on people to do the same.
I share details of my personal life with my team, but it definitely isn't a ritual in any sense of the word. People share when they feel like they want to.
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#115Having worked remote for more than 10 years I feel most of these rituals as imposed after the pandemic by the managing layers and people obsessed with work culture. I accept any non mandatory activity and might participate sometimes. But boy, I hate that my week is filled with meetings. At previous full remote positions meetings were the exception and all communication happened either on IRC or hipchat/slack. And tha…
I agree with this and I've also been remote for more than a decade. The only time I have seen folks try and start implementing these things has been in meetings with folks who are managing teams that have recently become remote.
I also don't think that the introvert/extrovert distinction works well. I am quite a social person; I participate in quite a few activities like climbing, playing music, or ecstatic dancing. Recently I've been spending a lot of time busking and really enjoying my interactions with passers by. And I also really like to be at home, alone, getting stuff done-- work or writing music or whatever.
I have much preferred having more agency over what that looks like, and that rarely includes just chatting with co-workers. Fortunately, my coworkers all seem to feel the same.
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#116Blood sacrifices and invocations to see who can summon the cutest and fiercest beast. You show your demon to the camera and get votes on it and on the chants you did to bring it from the depths. At the end of each sprint. Remote orgies to appease the gods of nature and ensure a good deployment. Everyone wears traditional handmade masks for anonymity and we only do it if all tests are green, obviously. Every three mon…
...and we only do it if all tests are green, obviously.
I picture the collective hackernews nodding in unison, muttering 'obviously.'
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#117> - everyone on the team writing up weekly summaries. What do you write in them that you didn't already mention during the daily standing meetings, the biweekly retrospective, the team meetings, the company meetings, or the Slack channels at the time they were relevant? I've worked with people who wanted more status updates, but all too often those updates just became "No news to report since I've been in status upda…
> What do you write in them that you didn't already mention during the daily standing meetings, the biweekly retrospective, the team meetings, the company meetings, or the Slack channels at the time they were relevant? Well I would rather write up weekly summaries and cut down on meeting time. Daily standup is not a time for summary. It's a time to check to see if people are blocked. If no one is blocked, you go back…
>Daily standup is not a time for summary.
I wish most teams did it this way, but it is almost always the case that time is burned going over what they did. I feel like that could always be done asynchronously in a place like Slack.
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#118I used to think that social rituals were bullshit, but I've completely changed my mind. I think they are just often done poorly and distract the team from what is important. I'm sure there is room for improvement and YMMV, but our current process is working really well for us: - As some context, we use Basecamp's Shape Up to deliver features. This prioritises independence, async communication, and deep work. Engineer…
You have too much stuff tacked onto a friday. If you want happier employees just let them have the early weekend instead of doing a "quiz" or "board game". I come to work to work, not be forced to play games with colleagues.
Also social check-ins are not great unless everyone is just living their best life. Over the pandemic it was pretty damaging for me as I was stuck in my 500 sqft apartment with an immunocompromised mother, too scared to go get groceries; and then seeing people from other departments posting about their spur of the moment vacation to cancun was quite the demoralizing agent... And, again, my colleagues aren't always my friends and I don't like to be forced to share my personal life with random people I wouldn't talk twice to outside of work.
It sounds like as an employer you're exercising unjust control over your employees personal and social lives. Some people may like this, but it's never been received well by me, my colleagues, or even friends I've worked with. We'd all rather have just enjoyed the extra time off and we could hang out if we were friends anyway. So while it may work for you, I believe you are self-selecting out of employees who would find this kind of thing a giant red flag; so the advice is likely skewed to those who want to foster a tolerable work environment for everyone.
I do like your forum idea though, I've been a large proponent of written documentation and thread-based persistent communication for years. However, convincing product/design/business of this is very difficult.
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#119Is this one of those "the fastest way to find the right way to do something is to post the wrong way to do it" things? :)
None of the "expected rituals" sound like good ideas, though the walk-and-talks sound interesting.
Boxing off time _during the work day_ to play multiplayer games is something we're looking at for team building (which is 10x easier in-office, but doesn't work for the distributed team).
Re: Ask HN: Hybrid/Remote software team rituals
#120Remote work thrives when you optimize for asynchronicity. The things you've listed do the opposite of that and sounds like a massive productivity sink.
"Lots of 1:1s" is a red flag for a team that can't work remote well, imo. Fewer 1:1s, optimize async communication (code review, short notes and docs, IMs or emails, a culture of respecting silence or delayed replies), that's great remote.
I had a manager earlier in the pandemic who could not work remotely and could not manage the team remotely because they wanted tons of 1:1s and only communicated through video, synchronously. The team struggled with this, because we couldn't get any work done (it was like being in a conference room all day) and the manager didn't have the technical comprehension skills to follow our IMs, code reviews, and technical documentation so they scheduled more 1:1s, more video calls, etc. It was terrible. The team came close to celebrating when the manager left.