The office isn't as essential as it used to be. Flexible working hours and distributed teams are replacing decades of on-site, open-plan office culture. Wherever you work from nowadays, your colleagues are likely to be somewhere else. No more whiteboards. No more water coolers. And certainly no Ping-Pong. So how can you organize yourself, ship software, communicate, and be impactful as part of a globally distributed workforce? We'll show you how. It's time to adopt a brand new mindset. Remote working is here to stay. Come and join us.
Remote working is on the rise. Whether or not we are remote workers, it is likely we are all part of a global workforce. We need to learn to interact remotely, because we are all remote from someone in some way. Rather than simply simulating the way we'd usually work together via digital means, we have to learn new communication skills and adopt a different mindset in order to work remotely effectively, efficiently, and, most importantly, healthily.
We'll start by getting you set up with the right equipment and habits. Then, we'll learn the mindset of treating everyone as remote, and conquer both synchronous and asynchronous communication. You'll learn how to produce amazing artifacts, how to communicate clearly, and how to manage yourself and your teams. Then we'll look at the bigger picture: from measuring the remote readiness of your workplace, to creating a handbook for your team, to exploring remote-first culture and tackling burnout and mental well-being.
Fundamentally we'll see that adopting a remote-working mindset can do wonders for our organization, our effectiveness, and our impact in our careers. It can even create a more diverse and inclusive industry for us all to work in.
So what are you waiting for? The remote future is now. Be a part of it.
What You Need:
There are no prerequisites to reading this book, other than having had some experience of working in the software industry and a healthy curiosity.
Author(s): James Stanier
Edition: 1
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: Publisher's PDF
Pages: 348
City: Raleigh, NC
Tags: Management; Communication; Team Management; Productivity; Teamwork; Onboarding; Remote Job
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Biggest Remote-Working Experiment in History
Where You’re Headed
The Outline of This Book
What’s Next?
Part I—Getting Oriented for Remote Work
1. A Remote Future
A Brief History of the Future
Lockdown
Remote Is Here to Stay
Time to Get Set Up
2. Getting Set Up
The Office: What We Want and What We Don’t
The Basics, Briefly
In the Real World
Installing Mental Scaffolding
The Golden Rule
Part II—Building Effective Remote Teams
3. Treat Everyone as Remote
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
A Principle for Cultural Change
Taking Practical Action
Let’s Build a Model!
4. The Spectrum of Synchronousness
Synchronousness
Permanence
Restoring Your Humanity
Onward to Hyrule
5. The Same but Different
A Normal Day in the Office
Through the Magic Mirror
Conquering the Dark World
Let’s Discover Some Artifacts
6. Artifacts for a Better Future
Comparing Artifacts
Written Artifacts
Codebase Artifacts
Recorded Artifacts
Getting on Board with Onboarding
7. Onboarding and Orientation
The Contribution Curve
The Onboarding Equation
And Here’s the Trick
Coming Up: Considering Communication
8. Effective Communication Techniques
Why Humans Communicate
Principles for Better Remote Communication
Techniques to Improve Interactions
The Right Tools and When to Use Them
Turning Inward
9. Managing Yourself
An Organizational Bedrock
On Being Unobserved
Riding Peaks and Troughs
From Yourself to Teams
10. Managing Teams
The Output Equation Revisited
Shrinking the Scale Factor
Supercharging the Scale Factor
Time to Take It up a Level
Part III—Creating a World-Class Remote Culture
11. The Remote Working Test
The Joel Test
Twelve Questions about Remote Working
Making Changes in Your Company
Something to Guide Us
12. Creating a Handbook
The GitLab Handbook
Creating a Handbook for Your Team
A Handbook for the Company
Fully Making the Shift
13. Becoming Fully Remote
The Spectrum of Remoteness
The Challenge of Retrofitting Fully Remote Culture
The Triangle of Transition
Learning from Trailblazers
Now the Difficult Stuff
14. The Hard Parts
Walking the Curves
The Physical and Mental Impact of Working Remotely
Supporting Others Remotely
And Breathe …
15. The Path to Equality Is Remote
Diversity and Inclusion
Remote: The Great Leveler
This Is Just the Beginning
And That’s It
Bibliography
Index
– DIGITS –
– A –
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– F –
– G –
– H –
– I –
– J –
– K –
– L –
– M –
– N –
– O –
– P –
– Q –
– R –
– S –
– T –
– U –
– V –
– W –
– Y –
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