Remote worker off and on for 30 years from both sides: alone at home and in the office supervising others working remotely.
There are obviously many pros and cons, but in my experience, there is one huge overriding factor most likely to determine remote success: workers' ability and willingness to read and write.
In my most successful remote relationships, almost everything was written down, written well, and read well. I'm talking about all the usual suspects: business requirements, functional specifications, technical specifications, project plans, stories, post-mortems, meeting agendas, code reviews, and of course, test plans.
But then again, this has little to do with working remote. You MUST write all of these things down anyway: I have witnessed over and over again a high correlation between writing and reading well and project success, remote or not.
If has never really mattered what methodologies or tools were used (yes, email is fine, so are waterfall and agile). You HAVE to write things down in the software building world.
Using this line of thinking, remote can actually make your team more effective. You have to get good and reading and writing to succeed. You have much less option of meeting, or huddling, or whatever they call those crutches these days. Write it down and all that fluffy overhead goes away.
Wanna go "remote-first"? Learn how to "read-and-write-first". The rest is gravy.
I've had exactly this issue. I was working remotely a couple of years ago and the project manager couldn't effectively communicate (we were all remote in different parts of the US).
The result was a disaster and the project manager playing the blame game. I eventually left.
There are obviously many pros and cons, but in my experience, there is one huge overriding factor most likely to determine remote success: workers' ability and willingness to read and write.
In my most successful remote relationships, almost everything was written down, written well, and read well. I'm talking about all the usual suspects: business requirements, functional specifications, technical specifications, project plans, stories, post-mortems, meeting agendas, code reviews, and of course, test plans.
But then again, this has little to do with working remote. You MUST write all of these things down anyway: I have witnessed over and over again a high correlation between writing and reading well and project success, remote or not.
If has never really mattered what methodologies or tools were used (yes, email is fine, so are waterfall and agile). You HAVE to write things down in the software building world.
Using this line of thinking, remote can actually make your team more effective. You have to get good and reading and writing to succeed. You have much less option of meeting, or huddling, or whatever they call those crutches these days. Write it down and all that fluffy overhead goes away.
Wanna go "remote-first"? Learn how to "read-and-write-first". The rest is gravy.