- "I am a firm believer that 100% remote work as actually a net negative for collaboration."
You're entitled to your beliefs, but they are just that. I'd hate to see companies making decisions based on "feelings" they have in regards to one format being more effective than another.
- "Workshops, ideation, brainstorming, all of these thrive when people are engaged in the moment, not on a scheduled zoom call."
I'll counter your anecdote with my own: I've observed no difference.
Is it really hard to believe that activities that rely on communication thrive in environments that support high-bandwidth communication? nb: lack of evidence does not substantiate the absence of something, it may mean nobody has bothered to collect the evidence (or that the evidence is difficult to capture).
Neither side is bringing any evidence.
You can throw in all sorts of argumentation, eg remote people have more time, you can get better people casting a wider net, and so on.
But until someone does a proper study you don't know what arguments are backed up by data.
Maybe you didn't use the word 'wrong', but you did dismiss their opinion without consideration, and then proceeded to commit the same fallacy so as to prove a point. So not only was your comment dismissive, but it was devoid of content or constructive conversation. Actually, the inclusion of the counter example actually made it the opposite of constructive imo.
Why participate in the same rhetoric you're throwing out, even for example, when what you're saying is already quite clear?
This isn't debate club. It's a conversation.
The OP's argument is invalid because there is no evidence. It seems silly to discuss that point further.
"proceeded to commit the same fallacy so as to prove a point" - what fallacy is that? I never made any broad assertions and stated them as fact. I even stated that I was providing my own anecdote. The OP did the opposite. That is, they stated their anecdotal experience as fact. How any of this could be misinterpreted is beyond understanding, and is a you problem.
In my opinion, it seems like you are having a reading comprehension issue here.
Perhaps you should try to internalize the whole of my comment (i.e. comprehend it) before trying to reply again. Sniping individual pieces by being needlessly pedantic is--again--not productive to conversation.
Anyhow, I won't be replying again unless if you have something constructive to add to the conversation; I'm not interested in debate club with you. Perhaps ChatGPT is though!
On the days I go to my office, all I observe is people wearing headphones to be able to focus. Team lunches are nice, but we never talk about work. As I've already developed personal connections with my coworkers, I could go months without seeing them in person (as a matter of fact, that's what happens with my coworkers who live across the country).
The famous "whiteboarding sessions where ideas are born" can be easily done remotely, or in one off events in the office if people who believe in office work insist. I found shared docs and basic digital whiteboards allowing me to draw rectangles, arrows and labels as efficient than physical chalk/marker boards. Why? Because the hard work is on the ideas and conversations, not the drawing.
Also anecdotally, in 10+ years of office work, I've never observed a single "watercooler conversation" leading to a particularly interesting idea. I generally hear sports, weather chat and complaints about the food by the watercooler. Oh, have you seen that? I'll counter that with the dozens of non-watercooler conversations that led to interesting ideas.
It's funny to hear all this hand wringing about the loss of spontaneous collaboration in offices, because in 10 years of working in tech offices in NYC, this was by far the dominant pattern: dozens of people sitting in a big open room wearing noise canceling headphones, talking to each other on Slack.
I have. Happens all the time.
> The famous "whiteboarding sessions where ideas are born" can be easily done remotely
Really? How? All the tools are garbage and none have the tactility of a marker.
you just made the case for losing the non-remote team and outsourcing everything to a cheaper time zone or even a cheaper country, because why not? after all, remote is so efficient. So why waste money on extremely expensive western labor?
> As I've already developed personal connections with my coworkers
there could be people that, you know, haven't yet done that, like juniors or newhires
They are distinct things, and knowledge workers aren't the most fungible things.
A good team is a good team, regardless of how they communicate and collaborate. Replace one person in that team, and you have a different team.
Replacing a team just because they're remote is phenomenally destructive, just like the layoffs are.
> because why not? after all, remote is so efficient
That's not the point of remote. It is a preferred way of working for a significant portion of the industry.
But you suggested getting rid of the existing team in favour of a remote team in another country, because remote is more efficient. You lose more than you'll gain in the cost savings.
I'm fully on board with remote teams across the globe, especially when it means engineers can be on call while the sun is up.
Do it becuase it gives you access to talent, not because it's cheaper or remote is "efficient".
In fact, it's even more of an illustration for what i'm trying to say. Let's assume all remote hurdles have been lifted, 100%. So, if I'm hiring for a new group initially based in Australia, what makes me recruit from a pool of 25mil people vs. 250mil people in Pakistan and 1400mil in India? Why in this case even have an Australian engineering team, ever?
My point was that remote teams across countries, and in some cases timezones, can work. But replacing a team just becuase you can get cheaper engineers is destructive.
Build a remote team on purpose, or let your team move to locations that requires them to work remote.
The point I'm trying to make is focus on the team and what's best for them. If it's a new team why limit yourself to one country.
> Why in this case even have an _________ engineering team, ever?
The same reason some engineers command more renumeration than others (in the same market), you find good talent and want them on board.
Most of the internet is run on software built by geographically dispersed engineering teams working asynchronously. Software so well developed and innovative that companies as large and office based as Microsoft eventually had to back down and hop on the ride.
That's really not my experience. I'm always very confused when I see this statement being thrown around as if it was a universal truth. Perhaps depends on your role?
Honestly, for all the companies I worked in the past decade, the ones where I had better quality communication were the ones where I worked remotely.
Then again, I'm a software developer. Developers tend to be good at communicating through pull requests, documentation, screen sharing and text-based chat where you can send snippets.
Because it's obviously true.
Communicating through pull requests is shockingly inefficient. It can take days or even weeks to accomplish what face-to-face communication would accomplish in SECONDS.
They are a hindrance more often than not.
IME face to face communication gives the impression that communication happened. The impression that a problem was discussed and solved. When talking people barely listen and just wait for their turn to speak and feel like they are contributing.
Written communication can be re-read, it can be looked at your own pace when you're focused. It can be challenged with comments and it's much harder to hand wave the questions away.
First, the mega obvious: if I leave a PR comment, and you ignore it for several days, resolving the conversation will take several days! If I walk over to your desk and speak to you, now, that doesn't happen. Especially if we resolve the issue while I'm standing there, and I watch you type "git push".
Moving on...
In a Github PR (perhaps other interfaces are better!) you cannot comment on a line that wasn't changed. This can make it very difficult to point out problems caused by the way that added/changed code interacts with code nearby. It forces the reviewer to describe an outline of the issue, or paste bits of code and mention line numbers. It's possible to do this well, but it takes focus and clear writing. Folks who are not good writers, or who are communicating in a second language, struggle mightily with this.
...but if I can walk over to your desk (or you to mine), where I can point at the nearby code with my finger, there is no ambiguity. No need for careful English composition. No back-and-forth. I just point.
Honestly, have any of you in this thread ever had a face-to-face conversation?
In my experience, whatever gains come from increased communications bandwidth in-person are kind of a wash with losses to focused work being in a distracting environment.
I am a firm believer that 100% remote work is actually a net negative for collaboration.
Workshops, ideation, brainstorming, all of these thrive when people are engaged in the moment, not on a scheduled zoom call.
There’s definitely a balance between in-office and WFH. WFH is great for corporate jobs cuz half your day is filled with boring meetings, but for start-ups, it’s the opposite.