A lot of people don't know how to work remotely and there is a wide variance in how that is set up.
I was just talking to a surgeon about a procedure and mentioned how I had seen a study saying that a similar procedure had slightly more side effects or complications. He pointed out that there is a big difference between the way that different surgeons execute the procedure.
So I think that it is harder to make remote work effective for people who are used to traditional work and don't study up on the best ways to create a good remote working environment.
I personally believe the most effective tool for remote working is just a shared chat room with a history like Campfire and then putting most of the relevant conversations in there. Ideally I think that everyone should be in that room including customer stakeholders if possible, (although I haven't seen anyone really include the customers in that chat room very much).
The second most effective tool would be things like screen sharing and phone or VOIP, which can help a lot, but you have to be careful not to do that too much when it might be better to document things in a common chat room.
I may just be slow or lazy or something but as a more general comment on software project management I feel like the issue/task tracker or Pivotal or whatever is an extra distraction from the chat room or more direct communications because I can only really focus on a few important things in a day, I would like to deliver them immediately, and if I have a problem to respond to or something to communicate I want to do it directly rather than hoping or assuming that someone is going to see a notification email or whatever.
I was just talking to a surgeon about a procedure and mentioned how I had seen a study saying that a similar procedure had slightly more side effects or complications. He pointed out that there is a big difference between the way that different surgeons execute the procedure.
So I think that it is harder to make remote work effective for people who are used to traditional work and don't study up on the best ways to create a good remote working environment.
I personally believe the most effective tool for remote working is just a shared chat room with a history like Campfire and then putting most of the relevant conversations in there. Ideally I think that everyone should be in that room including customer stakeholders if possible, (although I haven't seen anyone really include the customers in that chat room very much).
The second most effective tool would be things like screen sharing and phone or VOIP, which can help a lot, but you have to be careful not to do that too much when it might be better to document things in a common chat room.
I may just be slow or lazy or something but as a more general comment on software project management I feel like the issue/task tracker or Pivotal or whatever is an extra distraction from the chat room or more direct communications because I can only really focus on a few important things in a day, I would like to deliver them immediately, and if I have a problem to respond to or something to communicate I want to do it directly rather than hoping or assuming that someone is going to see a notification email or whatever.