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A review by ryangoodyear
Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried
4.0
A good "tid-bit" read on principles for working asynchronously. Most of the big picture stuff boils down to working in a collaborative software like Basecamp (the authors' creation.) The deconstructions of common arguments against remote work were great. Overall, the authors eloquently scrutinized all the typical ways of working in the office, then showed which to eliminate, minimize, and maximize.
Gems:
P46 “Your company may already be working remotely without your even knowing it. Unless it has its own lawyers on staff, it likely outsources legal work to an independent lawyer or a law firm…Legal, accounting, payroll, advertising…All these activities are carried out outside your company’s walls…and outside of your management’s direct control–and yet there’s no doubt it’s all being done efficiently.
So why do so many of these same companies that trust ‘outsiders’ to do their critical work have such a hard time trusting ‘insiders’ to work from home?”
P55 “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.”
P65 “Being available for a one-off…must-do phone call is a small price to pay for the freedom of remote work.”
P91 have 4 hours of overlap to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team
P95 often the easiest way to demonstrate a new feature is to record a screencast and narrate the experience
P111 “Forcing everyone into the office every day is an organizational SPoF. If the office loses power or Internet or air conditioning, it’s no longer functional as a place to do work.”
P135 “Be very available. Since you can’t meet face-to-face, you better return phone calls, emails, instant messages, etc. This is basic business stuff, but it’s tenfold more important when you’re working remotely. It may be irrational but, if you’re local, the client often feels that, if worse comes to worst, they can knock on your door. They “know where you live.” But when you’re remote, they're going to be more suspicious when phone calls go unreturned or emails keep getting lost…When they feel part of the project, their anxieties and fears will be replaced by excitement and anticipation.”
P164 “It’s a lot harder to fake your way as a remote worker. As the opportunities to schmooze in the office decrease, the focus on the work itself increases. Additionally, central online repositories for tracking tasks and reporting progress, like Basecamp, create an irrefutable paper trail showing what everyone is getting done and how long it’s taking.”
P167 “Being a good writer is an essential part of being a good remote worker. When most arguments are settled over email or chat or discussion boards, you’d better show up equipped for the task. So, as a company owner or manager, you might as well filter for this quality right from the get-go.
P170 “The best way we’ve found to accurately judge work is to hire the person to do a little work before we take the plunge and hire them to do a lot of work. Call it pre-hiring. Pre-hiring takes the form of a one or two week mini-project. We usually pay around $1500 for the mini-project. We never ask people to work for free…If the candidate is unemployed, they get a week. If they currently have a job, they get two weeks, since they usually have to carve out time at night or on the weekends to do the project.”
P173 “The prospective hire is going to be working with their teammates a lot more than their manager, so it's important that the team get a good feel for this person.”
P199 “You must make sure that people have access, by default, to everything they need. Most companies start out by adopting the reverse policy: everyone is only granted access to information and applications on a need-to-know basis. That’s completely unnecessary. Unless you work in the military, or belong to one of the very rare firms that deal with super-confidential information–information that even trusted employees can’t be trusted with–keeping those access barriers in place is just making it difficult for everyone to get their work done.
Part of the problem is the occasional pride that managers take in being Mr. or Ms. Roadblock. Having to be asked–even courted–gives them a certain perverse satisfaction. Do not discount how powerful this syndrome can be.”
P210 idea to divide day into catch-up, collaboration, and Serious Work
Gems:
P46 “Your company may already be working remotely without your even knowing it. Unless it has its own lawyers on staff, it likely outsources legal work to an independent lawyer or a law firm…Legal, accounting, payroll, advertising…All these activities are carried out outside your company’s walls…and outside of your management’s direct control–and yet there’s no doubt it’s all being done efficiently.
So why do so many of these same companies that trust ‘outsiders’ to do their critical work have such a hard time trusting ‘insiders’ to work from home?”
P55 “If you can’t let your employees work from home out of fear they’ll slack off without your supervision, you’re a babysitter, not a manager. Remote work is very likely the least of your problems.”
P65 “Being available for a one-off…must-do phone call is a small price to pay for the freedom of remote work.”
P91 have 4 hours of overlap to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team
P95 often the easiest way to demonstrate a new feature is to record a screencast and narrate the experience
P111 “Forcing everyone into the office every day is an organizational SPoF. If the office loses power or Internet or air conditioning, it’s no longer functional as a place to do work.”
P135 “Be very available. Since you can’t meet face-to-face, you better return phone calls, emails, instant messages, etc. This is basic business stuff, but it’s tenfold more important when you’re working remotely. It may be irrational but, if you’re local, the client often feels that, if worse comes to worst, they can knock on your door. They “know where you live.” But when you’re remote, they're going to be more suspicious when phone calls go unreturned or emails keep getting lost…When they feel part of the project, their anxieties and fears will be replaced by excitement and anticipation.”
P164 “It’s a lot harder to fake your way as a remote worker. As the opportunities to schmooze in the office decrease, the focus on the work itself increases. Additionally, central online repositories for tracking tasks and reporting progress, like Basecamp, create an irrefutable paper trail showing what everyone is getting done and how long it’s taking.”
P167 “Being a good writer is an essential part of being a good remote worker. When most arguments are settled over email or chat or discussion boards, you’d better show up equipped for the task. So, as a company owner or manager, you might as well filter for this quality right from the get-go.
P170 “The best way we’ve found to accurately judge work is to hire the person to do a little work before we take the plunge and hire them to do a lot of work. Call it pre-hiring. Pre-hiring takes the form of a one or two week mini-project. We usually pay around $1500 for the mini-project. We never ask people to work for free…If the candidate is unemployed, they get a week. If they currently have a job, they get two weeks, since they usually have to carve out time at night or on the weekends to do the project.”
P173 “The prospective hire is going to be working with their teammates a lot more than their manager, so it's important that the team get a good feel for this person.”
P199 “You must make sure that people have access, by default, to everything they need. Most companies start out by adopting the reverse policy: everyone is only granted access to information and applications on a need-to-know basis. That’s completely unnecessary. Unless you work in the military, or belong to one of the very rare firms that deal with super-confidential information–information that even trusted employees can’t be trusted with–keeping those access barriers in place is just making it difficult for everyone to get their work done.
Part of the problem is the occasional pride that managers take in being Mr. or Ms. Roadblock. Having to be asked–even courted–gives them a certain perverse satisfaction. Do not discount how powerful this syndrome can be.”
P210 idea to divide day into catch-up, collaboration, and Serious Work