Once all the furor has subsided and the pandemic ebbs, I think it's safe to say that many companies will got back to in-person collaboration and others will remain remote. It's clear that remote work is feasible, but not everyone enjoys it.
Rather than argue the pros and cons, I'm more interested in seeing how distributed organizations will evolve. Slack and Zoom are getting the job done, but they are wearying. Organizations that aren't deliberate in designing their collaboration process will probably spin their wheels a lot.
Software development does have more focussed tools for collaboration, like GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Basecamp, Trello, StackOverflow, Figma and so on. So what are remote-first companies doing to improve productivity and minimize coordination overhead? Is it about finding the right modes of communication? Is it about distributing work differently? Is it building shared context to make communication more efficient?
I'm aware of (at least some of) the things that companies like GitLab and Automattic have written about their practices. Who else is thinking and writing about this?
I've only read a bit of it, but what leaps out at me is that it's clearly written prepandemic. It assumes its audience only knows in-person work, and remote work is this weird radical thing that only a few companies do. Understandable, as that was true 18 months ago, but wow have things changed!
Oddly, I bet it'll be hard or impossible for Zapier to write an updated edition, as they don't know what the pandemic has been like for the rest of us. Heck, I bet the experience of pandemic remote work varies widely.
Rather than argue the pros and cons, I'm more interested in seeing how distributed organizations will evolve. Slack and Zoom are getting the job done, but they are wearying. Organizations that aren't deliberate in designing their collaboration process will probably spin their wheels a lot.
Software development does have more focussed tools for collaboration, like GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Basecamp, Trello, StackOverflow, Figma and so on. So what are remote-first companies doing to improve productivity and minimize coordination overhead? Is it about finding the right modes of communication? Is it about distributing work differently? Is it building shared context to make communication more efficient?
I'm aware of (at least some of) the things that companies like GitLab and Automattic have written about their practices. Who else is thinking and writing about this?