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A comment on Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to software companies. Parent comment

Re:Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to softw... by jpadkins on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @02:15PM (#34329994)
> I know a lot of that acculturation used to happen by osmosis and people working next to each other.

I used to think this too, but I think we need to be cautious of magical mechanisms for knowledge transference. I think the real mechanisms are code reviews, discussions of issues+code+project, consults / shared problem solving, design reviews. Just sitting next to someone doesn't work, there needs to be a shared task or problem for knowledge transfer to happen.

I think all of these shared tasks happen with remote workers just as effectively, as long as you have good team comm hygiene.

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Re:Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to softw... by majormajor on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @04:00PM (#34331402)
The biggest difference between remote and in-person is that many of those things can happen more easily without being scheduled. The organizational management skill bar you need to hit as a team is lower when the communication friction is much lower.

Talking to your teammate who sits nearby in person is both lower friction and higher bandwidth than sending them a chat method.

"Adhoc conversations" don't magically lead to knowledge transfer, the probability of any adhoc convo being long-term-meaningful is low, but they greatly increase the cumulative probability.

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