Written Expression Skills is the #1 requirement from every member in a distributed development team
I love working from the kitchen table. After everyone in the house has left to their day, I take my laptop, a paper pad, a pencil, today's newspaper and a cup of Espresso and enjoy the silence and the space. These are my most productive hours. The kitchen's radio is playing classical music and I dive deep into my work.
 |
| Working from the Kitchen Table |
Some members in our team live just few blocks away from each other, others live in another city and some are hundreds of miles away. It doesn't make much difference. Physical distance plays lesser role today then time zone.
Like our team, there are many others. They have learned to collaborate with team members that rarely meet face to face. People from different nations and different cultures that share a common passion to software and computers, byte crunchers, geeks, designers, artists, that enjoy the great versatility of the digital world.
Some of us maybe in different locations, away from the others, but they are not alone because we have a live and active communication channel, through which we are writing emails, chatting, sending smileys :) and thumbs ups (y), tickets and documents that we use to create great things together.
The internet opened new doors for international collaboration. Good communication has always been a key to success in almost everything and as communication became more and more efficient, successful projects get completed faster and better today then ever before.
But while this works in favor of team members that no longer need to spend hours commuting or others that get better paying oportunities, virtual teams sets new challenges to managers. Marisa Mayer decided that working from home is not good for Yahoo and shut it down. Intel on the other hand encourage employees to work from home ocasionally.
Managers of the traditional office work environment, that have strengths like charisma, excellent Verbal Expression Skills, eye contact, even looks, may
(less fields)