Distributed Teams: The Art and Practice of Working Together While Physically Apart

by John O'Duinn

Can you have a meaningful, well-paid career without a daily commute to a physical office, and without burning out? Can your team or organization work well together and maintain team culture, even when physically apart?

Can your organization's "work from home" policy be a competitive advantage--improving organizational resilience while also addressing important social, diversity, urban planning and environmental issues?

If you find yourself asking questions like these, this book is for you.

This updated second edition features best practices from over 28 years working in, leading, and coaching globally distributed organizations--as well as lessons learned helping organizations quickly shift to fully distributed during COVID-19 office closures.

Each short easy-to-read chapter has practical takeaways on what did--and did not--work from my own hard-learned lessons, along with a wide range of interviews with company founders, hedge fund managers, government agency leaders, software developers, accountants, political organizers, recruiters, military personnel, executive assistants and medical technicians.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction

379 pages, Paperback

Published January 20, 2021

Reviews

[Camilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoo boy, it took me a while to get through the book because it's a little dry and because it's organized into these bite-size tidbits of useful information, so I often succumbed to the temptation to read the bite-sized portion and then stop reading until the next time. It was also chock-full of advice around the functioning of a diverse workplace. It talked about the benefits of having employees work from home (cost savings for the company, requires a crisp organization, emphasis on clean communication, etc.). There are some pieces of advice I disagree with, like O'Duinn's encouragement of using the camera feature in online meetings. Or the outdated information related to certain specific video conferencing sites or instant message sites or even specific email functions. Technology just moves too quickly for this book to stay relevant forever if its going to include recommendations for existing technology. I learned a lot about how to function as part of a distributed team and I appreciate that someone took the time to explicitly spell out how to make the new age of employment work for everyone.

[Doğa Armangil · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels obsolete despite its timely subject matter.

In the book's introduction and closing remarks, the author makes a case for distributed organisations and companies as a way of enhancing societies and individuals. That would have made a great article in itself. As for everything in between: the author harkens back to his 20+ year carrier, which is a world gone by. While the book tries to take on a trendy subject, most of the book's content is not specific to remote/distributed companies.

The author thinks that the distributed/remote organisational form is applicable to companies in many different sectors of activity. When we search on the web for a list of fully remote organisations, or FROGs, some of which have already reached unicorn status (Slack, InVision), then a different picture emerges, as most of them are Internet and software companies.

It would have been interesting to read a lot more about the tools that distributed teams are using in order to function. Video conferencing and ticketing systems might have been great 10 years ago, but the state of the art has advanced quite a bit since then. As software has moved to the cloud and cloud software from different vendors have begun integrating with each other in order to make up compete software solutions, distributed teams have become much more viable than in the past.

It would have been interesting to read about how the leading FROGs are working.

[سليمان العوشن · Rating 4 out of 5]

بين صفحات هذا الكتاب ستجد رؤية عميقة وعملية في آنٍ واحد تساعدك على فهم التحولات الكبرى التي يشهدها عالم العمل اليوم. سيجعلك المؤلف تدرك أن الفرق الموزعة ليست مجرد خيار تنظيمي فرضته التكنولوجيا أو الأزمات، بل هي مستقبل العمل الذي يفتح أمامك أبواب التنوع والإبداع والوصول إلى أفضل المواهب حول العالم. أكثر ما سيشدك في الكتاب هو تركيزه على أن نجاح هذه الفرق لا يقوم على الأدوات الرقمية وحدها، بل على الثقافة التنظيمية الواضحة، والقيادة الملهمة، وبناء الثقة بين الأفراد رغم تباعدهم الجغرافي. سيحفزك هذا العمل على إعادة التفكير في معنى التعاون، وكيف يمكنك تحويل التحديات مثل فروق التوقيت أو العزلة إلى فرص للنمو والمرونة. إنه دليل عملي ملهم لكل قائد أو موظف مثلك يسعى لفهم فنون العمل الموزع، وسيترك في ذهنك قناعة راسخة بأن المستقبل لن يكون للمكاتب التقليدية بقدر ما سيكون للفرق القادرة على العمل بانسجام عبر الحدود

تابعني على شبكات التواصل الاجتماعي

سليمان العوشن

http://about.me/aloshan

[Mihai Tabara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Needless to say this is a must book in every corporation or government sector leader's book shelf. The book is a treasure, full of practical advices appliable in the real world into how to make teams work more effectively.

Covers everything end-to-end, from the hidden costs of physical offices (yes, there are so many!) to the behavior changes that are needed to make a team work effectively. If only more people read this book, step by step, and start applying the lessons, we'd all live in a better world and thrive in much more productive environments.

As a software engineer working fully remote for almost four years now, I highly recommended this book.

[Steve Spiker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Went into this as a resource to help me think about potentially building a mostly distributed team versus local hire, and came out of it with a huge list of process and organizational changes all over the place! Totally blew me away with how much I learned and have been able to apply so soon. I wish I read this ten years ago, but it didn't exist then, I wish I read it before I thought about distributed teams for the plethora of tweaks to how I manage!

[Chris AtLee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great handbook for how to work effectively as a distributed team. Not only that, it's a great handbook for how to work effectively in any company. There are lots of useful tips and links about how to communicate effectively, how to be a better manager, or how to interview and hire the right candidate for a job.

If you are a remotie, or work with remoties, give this book a read!

[Christopher J Lockwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok read.

There are decent ideas here and I did have some takeaways. However, some of the advice is more general business and thus did not really address the topic at hand. Plus, much of the advise assumes either a larger budget or that the distributed team is all within the country.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

O'Duinn makes the argument for the value, the craft, and the do's and don't's of working remotely. He's thought of all the angles. If you work for a company that has remote workers, or if you manage remote workers, or if you are a remote worker, then keep this book handy for reference when things go pear-shaped. And they will. And then you will thank me -- and O'Duinn.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice, comprehensive and detailed guide on working in distributed teams, which contains practices and techniques that can be useful to teams with any degree of "distributeness", from fully distributed to fully centralized.

[John Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, lots of practical info you can use if you are managing a remote team. Some basic common sense and some good structural elements too. Not sure I agree with all of it and some of the meeting stuff seemed overdone but well worth the read.

[Sourabh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book for anyone working with remote teams. Extremely practical with plenty of examples and stories.

[Vladimir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep, thoughtful and well structured

Lots of content from the industry veteran. Definitely a must read in the age of too much shallow books on the hot topic of remote.

[Christy]

This book was recommended to me by someone who I think is quite good at distributed work.

[Michael Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some fantastic practical advice.

[Saboor Sakhizada · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was very basic. It can be a great help to those who are just getting started in their virtual/remote work.

[Mickaël A]

This is a great handbook for working in teams that are distributed, but not only. It is full of very useful tips and practices based on a lot of experience, for both manag-ers and manag-ees.
The extensive part on audio/video call is extremely valuable and makes really understand why this should a major tool and not just a gizmo.
There is in this book a true understanding of what it is to work as a full or partial remote team.