S

Tools Used By Remote Teams

To Stay In Touch and Stay

Productive

Jessie Link

Director of Engineering

Lookingglass Cyber Solutions

WE13 conference lightning talk

Risks of

remote work• Team cohesion may suffer

• Requires trust

• Communication problems

• Security risks

Benefits of

remote work• Recruit/retain better talent

• Work/life balance

• Happier workers

• Increased productivity

• Fewer interruptions

• Focused workers

• Creativity boost

• Early birds and vampires

• Weather/traffic proof

Video

Conferencing• Tools: Go-To-Meeting,

Google+ Hangouts, Skype

• Benefits:

• Non-verbal communication

and feedback from team

• Increased accountability

• Sense of team

Code

repository• Tools: Git, Github

• Benefits:

• Built-in code review

mechanisms

• Visibility into what each

developer is working on

• Data redundancy and

replication

• High availability

Requirements

tool• Tool: Trello, VersionOne

• Benefits:

• Work tracking

• Clear list of what work is

required

• Status of where work is

• Can be accessed online from

anywhere

IM/Chat

client• Tool: Hipchat

• Benefits:

• Asynchronous

communication

• Allows informal chatter

between team members

• Team building

• Quicker response than email

• Allows 1-on-1 chats as well as

team rooms

VPN• Tool: VPN

• Benefits:

• Security

• Employee can access systems

behind corporate firewall

IM bots• Tool: Linkbot (custom Ruby

plugin)

• Benefits:

• Unifies outputs from all tools

into a common interface

• Allows IM client to serve as

the communications nerve

center for the team

• Creates a cohesive picture of

what team has been up to in

one central place

Core working

hours• Process: employees are

expected to be online between 10am-3pm EST

• Depends on how distributed your team is

• Benefits:

• Core hours where communication is expected to be returned in a timely fashion

• Allows team to plan/anticipate time to work collaboratively together

Pair

Programming• Tools: Screenhero, Google+

Hangouts, tmux, Video Chat

tools

• Benefits:

• Team building/bonding

• Keeps people in the loop on

work being done

In-person get

togethers• Tool: planes, trains and

automobiles

• Benefits:

• Team building

• Brainstorming opportunities

• Opportunity to celebrate

• Reward for remote workers

Questions?

Jessie Link

jlink555@gmail.com

twitter.com/mad_typist