Interview #41: Deepish Adwani
Name: Deepish Adwani
Position: Sr. Application Engineer at a global tech firm.
Other Info: Deepish is based in Indian office but interacts primarily with the colleagues in US.
Interviewed by: Sam Wang
Date of Interview: 10/17/2016
Q: What’re some pain points of remote working?
A: Time zone difference make it impossible for real time interaction, lack of personal connection with the people he interacts without immerse experience using the existing technology
Q: Is the VR based conferencing system the solution that needed to address your problem?
A: Yes, it can make the communication more efficient and engaging, especially during the brain-storming sessions.
Q: Is your team willing to invest in solution like this?
A: Probably not. It’ll ultimately depends on the actual need of each department, will probably consider make such investment for the teams that require extensive cross-functional collaboration/interaction.
Q: Do you prefer Avatar or real face in the video conference call?
A: Avatar can be useful in some cases, but in general would still prefer to see people’s real faces in order feel more emotionally connected.
Q: Will the notification system help address your problem?
A: System is already in place, good to have it as an optional feature, some people prefer not to be bothered especially when they have legitimate reasons to have notification turned off at the first place.
Q: Other considerations?
A: Doing a price comparison with alternative solution could be a worth exercise, it would be great to prove that one time investment of such solution can drive down the total expense in the long run.
Q: How would such a solution impact you (or your organization)?
A: More effective use of time (employee’s time is arguably the most expensive resource for an organization); keep meetings more effective and engaged, therefore boost employee’s productivity.
Position: Sr. Application Engineer at a global tech firm.
Other Info: Deepish is based in Indian office but interacts primarily with the colleagues in US.
Interviewed by: Sam Wang
Date of Interview: 10/17/2016
Q: What’re some pain points of remote working?
A: Time zone difference make it impossible for real time interaction, lack of personal connection with the people he interacts without immerse experience using the existing technology
Q: Is the VR based conferencing system the solution that needed to address your problem?
A: Yes, it can make the communication more efficient and engaging, especially during the brain-storming sessions.
Q: Is your team willing to invest in solution like this?
A: Probably not. It’ll ultimately depends on the actual need of each department, will probably consider make such investment for the teams that require extensive cross-functional collaboration/interaction.
Q: Do you prefer Avatar or real face in the video conference call?
A: Avatar can be useful in some cases, but in general would still prefer to see people’s real faces in order feel more emotionally connected.
Q: Will the notification system help address your problem?
A: System is already in place, good to have it as an optional feature, some people prefer not to be bothered especially when they have legitimate reasons to have notification turned off at the first place.
Q: Other considerations?
A: Doing a price comparison with alternative solution could be a worth exercise, it would be great to prove that one time investment of such solution can drive down the total expense in the long run.
Q: How would such a solution impact you (or your organization)?
A: More effective use of time (employee’s time is arguably the most expensive resource for an organization); keep meetings more effective and engaged, therefore boost employee’s productivity.
Interview #42: Jeremy Kowk
Name: Jeremy Kwok
Position: Sr. Application Engineer at a global tech firm.
Other Info: Jeremy frequently interacts with colleagues and clients at remote locations.
Interviewed by: Sam Wang
Date of Interview: 10/25/2016
Q: What’re some pain points of remote working?
A: The biggest headache stems from the time zone difference, it’s challenging to coordinate meetings with clients in Japan or Turkey.
Q: Is the VR based conferencing system the solution that needed to address your problem?
A: In his view, the VR based conferencing system is probably not an ideal solution. First of all, it doesn’t help to address his biggest pain point around time zone. In addition, the VR technology is advanced enough to bring people the in-person like experience.
Q: Is your team willing to invest in solution like this?
A: Not really. The ROI is far from certain, hard to quantity the real impact, the reliability of the technology is also at question.
Q: Do you prefer Avatar or real face in the video conference call?
A: Avatar feels too cartoonish, real face is more likely to forge connection between people and build trust and bonding.
Q: Will the notification system help address your problem?
A: This is interesting. Having a real time notification system built into the wearable devices can facilitate real time communication, it’s a nice-to-have feature but probably not a must-have functionality for most users.
Q: Other considerations?
A: Cost is also a big concern, smaller tech company might not be able to afford implementing company wide solution which required both hardware and software system in order to function properly.
Q: How would such a solution impact you (or your organization)?
A: It might not have any tangible impact on himself or his organization at large.
Position: Sr. Application Engineer at a global tech firm.
Other Info: Jeremy frequently interacts with colleagues and clients at remote locations.
Interviewed by: Sam Wang
Date of Interview: 10/25/2016
Q: What’re some pain points of remote working?
A: The biggest headache stems from the time zone difference, it’s challenging to coordinate meetings with clients in Japan or Turkey.
Q: Is the VR based conferencing system the solution that needed to address your problem?
A: In his view, the VR based conferencing system is probably not an ideal solution. First of all, it doesn’t help to address his biggest pain point around time zone. In addition, the VR technology is advanced enough to bring people the in-person like experience.
Q: Is your team willing to invest in solution like this?
A: Not really. The ROI is far from certain, hard to quantity the real impact, the reliability of the technology is also at question.
Q: Do you prefer Avatar or real face in the video conference call?
A: Avatar feels too cartoonish, real face is more likely to forge connection between people and build trust and bonding.
Q: Will the notification system help address your problem?
A: This is interesting. Having a real time notification system built into the wearable devices can facilitate real time communication, it’s a nice-to-have feature but probably not a must-have functionality for most users.
Q: Other considerations?
A: Cost is also a big concern, smaller tech company might not be able to afford implementing company wide solution which required both hardware and software system in order to function properly.
Q: How would such a solution impact you (or your organization)?
A: It might not have any tangible impact on himself or his organization at large.
Interview #43: Carl Merritt
Name: Carl Merritt
Position: IT Director at a manufacturing plant
Interviewed by:Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: 11/1/2016
Q: What are some challenges around working remotely?
A: My company and I are used to it ever since we shut down the Sunnyvale plant. I'm enjoying the autonomy. Every quarter or so we all get together for a leadership meeting.
Q: What do you think of our proposed VR conferencing system?
A: The key is to have some sort of ability to focus on an object of collaboration. Whether that be a whiteboard, 3D model of something, or a document. The Hololens does a pretty good job of this.
Q: As an IT Director, how would you imagine a deployment of this technology at your office?
A: I have a lot of colleagues who are not tech savvy since I'm in the manufacturing industry. It has to be incredibly easy to use. As absolutely idiot proof as possible.
Q: What's the value add of our proposed VR system over existing solutions?
A: I think it's cool but it wouldn't be worth the spend at the moment.
Q: The technology for this be a little premature. What do you think?
A: Yes I agree. I see something like Google Glass eventually merging with AR/VR visors. I don't think that's 20 years away, I think it's a few years away.
Position: IT Director at a manufacturing plant
Interviewed by:Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: 11/1/2016
Q: What are some challenges around working remotely?
A: My company and I are used to it ever since we shut down the Sunnyvale plant. I'm enjoying the autonomy. Every quarter or so we all get together for a leadership meeting.
Q: What do you think of our proposed VR conferencing system?
A: The key is to have some sort of ability to focus on an object of collaboration. Whether that be a whiteboard, 3D model of something, or a document. The Hololens does a pretty good job of this.
Q: As an IT Director, how would you imagine a deployment of this technology at your office?
A: I have a lot of colleagues who are not tech savvy since I'm in the manufacturing industry. It has to be incredibly easy to use. As absolutely idiot proof as possible.
Q: What's the value add of our proposed VR system over existing solutions?
A: I think it's cool but it wouldn't be worth the spend at the moment.
Q: The technology for this be a little premature. What do you think?
A: Yes I agree. I see something like Google Glass eventually merging with AR/VR visors. I don't think that's 20 years away, I think it's a few years away.
Interview #44: Harrison Dahme
Name: Harrison Dahme
Position: Software Engineer at Pantheon, a website hosting company.
Other Info: Harrison works remotely 6 months of the year, primarily due to his interest in traveling across the world. He has worked at Pantheon for 2.5 years and his remote working choice is fully supported. He is now helping with growing the company, so he is often coordinating work or being the tech lead on projects.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 4th, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
Yes, current position allows remote work. When he is on the road, he often works in different time zones. Works from home half the time every month. Typically uses slack and email for communication. Feels he is missing face time when working remotely.
However the situation is entirely different when he is on the road – since there are very few people in the office in San Francisco. Communication is asynchronous.
When working from remote locations he communicates differently. When he is in the same time zone as others, he uses slack and email. When in different time zones he asks different questions which are more pre-emptive. The company has a strong culture of documentation, so one can refer back to emails.
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Slack, GitHub, JIRA
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
The Company culture is to work wherever since it is a start-up. Harrison feels he is 2-3 times more productive when working remotely. The company has had remote culture from Day 1.
The talent pool is wider with remote workers. When hiring local engineers in the Bay Area, you have to pay exorbitant salaries. Instead, hire remotely, save money, and still find awesome talent.
Trust with remote workers is all about results! The measure of being unproductive when working remotely is to not deliver anything, that is a sign of slacking off. However, working in the office does not guarantee results either. Some people are a lot more motivated when away from desk. Harrison may not work more hours necessarily, instead he focuses on finishing tasks.
He works remotely to get inspired, and travel more. The phrase “work-life balance” to Harrison implies work is different from life. As an example, Harrison worked from Cape Town last year.
He is currently in Tenerife, Spain, and this is his first time in a co-working space. He likes the community so he can have social interaction, since he likes to hang out with people. He enjoys the energy and can meet other people that are different from himself.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
He would like to get paid a lot more. Does not feel like he’s done it enough to comment on it. With more experience, he might change his opinion
Prototype Comments
AR/VR: this solution might be helpful – he is not sure. He doesn’t know what getting his desk in a virtual environment would do for him. Feels that one can understand a lot of visual cues with video chat already. However, a whiteboard is lacking the most! He would be very interested in that solution.
Why/how we interviewed this person
Harrison is a remote worker by choice, and works from various locations around the world. He has also given presentations on remote work at conferences.
Position: Software Engineer at Pantheon, a website hosting company.
Other Info: Harrison works remotely 6 months of the year, primarily due to his interest in traveling across the world. He has worked at Pantheon for 2.5 years and his remote working choice is fully supported. He is now helping with growing the company, so he is often coordinating work or being the tech lead on projects.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 4th, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
Yes, current position allows remote work. When he is on the road, he often works in different time zones. Works from home half the time every month. Typically uses slack and email for communication. Feels he is missing face time when working remotely.
However the situation is entirely different when he is on the road – since there are very few people in the office in San Francisco. Communication is asynchronous.
When working from remote locations he communicates differently. When he is in the same time zone as others, he uses slack and email. When in different time zones he asks different questions which are more pre-emptive. The company has a strong culture of documentation, so one can refer back to emails.
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Slack, GitHub, JIRA
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
The Company culture is to work wherever since it is a start-up. Harrison feels he is 2-3 times more productive when working remotely. The company has had remote culture from Day 1.
The talent pool is wider with remote workers. When hiring local engineers in the Bay Area, you have to pay exorbitant salaries. Instead, hire remotely, save money, and still find awesome talent.
Trust with remote workers is all about results! The measure of being unproductive when working remotely is to not deliver anything, that is a sign of slacking off. However, working in the office does not guarantee results either. Some people are a lot more motivated when away from desk. Harrison may not work more hours necessarily, instead he focuses on finishing tasks.
He works remotely to get inspired, and travel more. The phrase “work-life balance” to Harrison implies work is different from life. As an example, Harrison worked from Cape Town last year.
He is currently in Tenerife, Spain, and this is his first time in a co-working space. He likes the community so he can have social interaction, since he likes to hang out with people. He enjoys the energy and can meet other people that are different from himself.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
He would like to get paid a lot more. Does not feel like he’s done it enough to comment on it. With more experience, he might change his opinion
Prototype Comments
AR/VR: this solution might be helpful – he is not sure. He doesn’t know what getting his desk in a virtual environment would do for him. Feels that one can understand a lot of visual cues with video chat already. However, a whiteboard is lacking the most! He would be very interested in that solution.
Why/how we interviewed this person
Harrison is a remote worker by choice, and works from various locations around the world. He has also given presentations on remote work at conferences.
Interview #45: Babak Khademi
Name: Babak Khademi
Position: Babak is a Customer Success Manager at Bluescape, which is a virtual collaboration software company.
Other Info: Babak works on customer sites very often, helping them understand and use Bluescape. He does not work remotely himself; our interview was conducted from his perspective as a technology specialist and focused on the use of software for remote collaboration.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 28th, 2016
What are some existing software solutions for remote collaboration?
How do you feel trust between remote teams is being addressed with remote collaboration solutions?
Trust is still best established in person; no way to establish trust using technology unless people can physically cohabit in the same space. In the design world, companies set up a space called the big room, where all different stakeholders live under the same roof. Trust and transparency can be established in that way.
Bluescape’s solution is to enable long periods of co-location virtually. Ultimate goal is to raise efficiency and transparency. In Bluescape one can upload 2D models and renderings, thereby preventing “communication latency” by uploading this information to the cloud.
The construction industry is moving towards lean construction, and users need a contractual framework that incentivizes gains and pains. Tech solutions need to enable constant communication. Bluescape is positioning itself as a medium for that.
Other industries have moved ahead, but the field of design and construction is lagging behind. Primary and supporting players are siloed, and they need a way to be able to communicate better. Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is very important – for example Forge by Autodesk is doing just that. Envision is another similar application. However at present, only Bluescape offers access to content anywhere at anytime with an immersive interactive experience.
Position: Babak is a Customer Success Manager at Bluescape, which is a virtual collaboration software company.
Other Info: Babak works on customer sites very often, helping them understand and use Bluescape. He does not work remotely himself; our interview was conducted from his perspective as a technology specialist and focused on the use of software for remote collaboration.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 28th, 2016
What are some existing software solutions for remote collaboration?
- There is a plethora of software solutions geared for remote teams to collaborate, including Google and Microsoft apps which are all moving to the cloud now. Many popular solutions have their own closed ecosystems. For example, Google recently introduced the JAMboard which includes a 55” touch monitor. Similarly Microsoft has a Surface Hub, which is built on top of Skype. Bigger companies are building touchscreens to enhance their own collaboration apps, and those cannot work with other products. For creative companies which are using a slew of solutions, those are not optimal solutions. Microsoft/Google etc. have not done production integration with others yet.
- Other solutions include “Realtimeboard.com and Mirelli. However these don’t have very compelling solutions beyond Webapp solutions – for example there are no large visualization solutions.
- Bluescape – addresses a broader range of uses. It enables collaborative work from a touchscreen wall, mobile devices, laptops and tablets. It is an open platform – hardware and software agnostic.
How do you feel trust between remote teams is being addressed with remote collaboration solutions?
Trust is still best established in person; no way to establish trust using technology unless people can physically cohabit in the same space. In the design world, companies set up a space called the big room, where all different stakeholders live under the same roof. Trust and transparency can be established in that way.
Bluescape’s solution is to enable long periods of co-location virtually. Ultimate goal is to raise efficiency and transparency. In Bluescape one can upload 2D models and renderings, thereby preventing “communication latency” by uploading this information to the cloud.
The construction industry is moving towards lean construction, and users need a contractual framework that incentivizes gains and pains. Tech solutions need to enable constant communication. Bluescape is positioning itself as a medium for that.
Other industries have moved ahead, but the field of design and construction is lagging behind. Primary and supporting players are siloed, and they need a way to be able to communicate better. Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is very important – for example Forge by Autodesk is doing just that. Envision is another similar application. However at present, only Bluescape offers access to content anywhere at anytime with an immersive interactive experience.
Interview #46: Nitin Rao
Name: Nitin Rao
Position: Head of Infrastructure, Cloudflare
Other Info: Nitin lives and works in San Francisco and has worked at Cloudflare for about 5 years now. Cloudflare has offices in San Francisco, Singapore, London and Austin.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: November 1st, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
He doesn’t really work remotely, sometimes works early mornings and evenings from home. He does take calls from home, Europe and Asia on google voice or skype. On his direct team, one person works remotely, spending half their time in Virginia and half time in SF.
On his extended team, people are based in London, Singapore, and Austin.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
As a self-proclaimed workaholic, he is able to maintain a 24x7 pace of work, and can take calls or work from home in the mornings or evenings. He can also hand off work to someone else when needed. Working remotely with someone else forces clarity of process and communication, especially when using email etc.
However, he thinks he loses on a lot of stuff if working remotely (for example when on vacation):
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Hipchat or google hangouts to talk remotely. Some people in his office use video chat features since they’re based in G-Suite, but he doesn’t think it’s necessary. Does not find lack of facial cues a problem. Does not use whiteboarding feature, uses excel or PPT for back and forth work between teams.
Prototype feedback:
Thinks the prototype is very promising, and believes that all future work will happen in this way. The idea of using this prototype for networking (like Linked-In) appeared very interesting to him. However, Nitin felt that the adoption would take time and will probably occur in tech centers like San Francisco, taking a much longer time to become widely used in other places.
Position: Head of Infrastructure, Cloudflare
Other Info: Nitin lives and works in San Francisco and has worked at Cloudflare for about 5 years now. Cloudflare has offices in San Francisco, Singapore, London and Austin.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: November 1st, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
He doesn’t really work remotely, sometimes works early mornings and evenings from home. He does take calls from home, Europe and Asia on google voice or skype. On his direct team, one person works remotely, spending half their time in Virginia and half time in SF.
On his extended team, people are based in London, Singapore, and Austin.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
As a self-proclaimed workaholic, he is able to maintain a 24x7 pace of work, and can take calls or work from home in the mornings or evenings. He can also hand off work to someone else when needed. Working remotely with someone else forces clarity of process and communication, especially when using email etc.
However, he thinks he loses on a lot of stuff if working remotely (for example when on vacation):
- Lack of involvement if not present in person in the office
- Fluidity of work, cannot work with people based on their interest, have to manage working with whoever is available.
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Hipchat or google hangouts to talk remotely. Some people in his office use video chat features since they’re based in G-Suite, but he doesn’t think it’s necessary. Does not find lack of facial cues a problem. Does not use whiteboarding feature, uses excel or PPT for back and forth work between teams.
Prototype feedback:
Thinks the prototype is very promising, and believes that all future work will happen in this way. The idea of using this prototype for networking (like Linked-In) appeared very interesting to him. However, Nitin felt that the adoption would take time and will probably occur in tech centers like San Francisco, taking a much longer time to become widely used in other places.
Interview #47: Marcin Szuberla
Name: Marcin Szuberla
Position: Data Analyst, supports analytical effort of the team working with hospitals and radiology departments, assessing effectiveness in terms of staff capacity and utilization or machine capacity and utilization. Fulltime GE employee.
Other Info: Marcin is 37, lives in Denver and works remotely on a full-time basis. He is from Poland originally, he was born and raised there.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 27th, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
Yes, position is full-time remote work. Start work from 8-9 am. Depends on work schedule for the day, “that’s the beauty of remote work, not limited to certain hours”. Sometimes works more than that, sometimes less. Initially had a different image of remote working, thought people were slacking. However, now he realizes that it depends on the person and the work being done. If working on important project, he does not think people slack as much. Worka 8-9 hours every day. Typical work functions include analyzing data, implementing scripting methodologies. After data is cleansed, derive real insights from the data. Make recommendations to client.
He is based in Denver, where GE healthcare does not have much presence. When he started he was based in Chicago and expressed an interest in living in Denver and it was allowed. Since then he is 100% remote, and there is no GE office in the area. His team has a flexible policy, but not sure if that is possible globally at GE. The vast majority on his team works remotely.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
Challenges
Likes
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Phone call, WebEx, Cisco Telepresence – don’t do video a lot, but have the option. Instant messaging: yammer, jabber. No task management tools currently. Use a timesheet solution which is an internal GE software. Use it more for forecasting and workplanning. Does not use any tools that are not offered enterprise wide.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
He is in a comfortable spot right now, has a good manager who does not micro manage. He has the flexibility to create things that are needed. He is basically inventing stuff – sort of a mini enterprise solution. However sometimes people that you don’t work with every day may ignore you when you ask them for help, although own team members do not ignore.
Prototype feedback:
Position: Data Analyst, supports analytical effort of the team working with hospitals and radiology departments, assessing effectiveness in terms of staff capacity and utilization or machine capacity and utilization. Fulltime GE employee.
Other Info: Marcin is 37, lives in Denver and works remotely on a full-time basis. He is from Poland originally, he was born and raised there.
Interviewed by: Aditya Oruganti
Date of Interview: October 27th, 2016
Q. Does your current position allow remote work? If yes, walk me through a typical day working remotely. If not, what do you need to overcome to work remotely?
Yes, position is full-time remote work. Start work from 8-9 am. Depends on work schedule for the day, “that’s the beauty of remote work, not limited to certain hours”. Sometimes works more than that, sometimes less. Initially had a different image of remote working, thought people were slacking. However, now he realizes that it depends on the person and the work being done. If working on important project, he does not think people slack as much. Worka 8-9 hours every day. Typical work functions include analyzing data, implementing scripting methodologies. After data is cleansed, derive real insights from the data. Make recommendations to client.
He is based in Denver, where GE healthcare does not have much presence. When he started he was based in Chicago and expressed an interest in living in Denver and it was allowed. Since then he is 100% remote, and there is no GE office in the area. His team has a flexible policy, but not sure if that is possible globally at GE. The vast majority on his team works remotely.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
Challenges
- Biggest challenge was knowledge sharing, had to train self into learning since colleagues are not sitting next to you, you can call them but it’s not the most effective way of learning. In his IT role, he is able to get a lot of information online. That’s hard to do initially, but there are lots of resources.
- Getting promoted would be harder – career path is more opaque. “How can companies better enable remote workers to advance their careers?”
- Challenging for brand new managers to manage remote workers, especially new entrants. Younger workers have work discipline issues.
Likes
- Enjoys the ability to be at home, work life balance. Taking kids to doctor etc. Still does the work other times of day. Real estate is not needed for the company. Geographical and time zone distribution across the US helps with delivering client work. Hiring employees is also easier when not limited to a geographical area.
- He does not involve himself in office politics, so that’s a benefit of remote work. But feels that principals and general managers have to be invested in keeping their employees in the loop and well informed and engaged. It is easy for remote workers to panic due to incidents in the primary work location.
- He works with rather small team, they travel for business together and have a chance to bond. Even though the job is remote, one needs to have some aspect of physical interaction with other workers. Current has 1 time/quarter in person meeting with colleagues. He knows everyone on his team and has met them as well. Current business is in a strategic spot, the business model is growing and GE wants to adopt it more widely. So GE enables people to meet 4 times/year in addition to client meetings on site.
Q. Are there any remote working tools that you use?
Phone call, WebEx, Cisco Telepresence – don’t do video a lot, but have the option. Instant messaging: yammer, jabber. No task management tools currently. Use a timesheet solution which is an internal GE software. Use it more for forecasting and workplanning. Does not use any tools that are not offered enterprise wide.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
He is in a comfortable spot right now, has a good manager who does not micro manage. He has the flexibility to create things that are needed. He is basically inventing stuff – sort of a mini enterprise solution. However sometimes people that you don’t work with every day may ignore you when you ask them for help, although own team members do not ignore.
Prototype feedback:
- If this is the only solution for engaging with other employees, it might work – single platform. Computer will slow down otherwise.
- Cyber-privacy is important – emails leaking etc. to the highest level possible.
- Need a way to quickly disengaging or stepping away from computer – once someone decides to disconnect they’re fully disconnected, so they’re not on screen if not needed.
- Personally feels he is old school, not a fan of such solutions right now. Remote work leads to loss of discipline, and feels VR will also have other such pitfalls.
- He is 37, people are more and more virtual in nature, large group of people who will embrace this at some point in the future.
- Do not virtually whiteboard, only when meeting in person. Does find it problematic, using mouse to draw on the screen right now. Stylus or touchscreen would help. If he has touchscreen laptop, that would help a lot.
Interview #48: Dipkin Guglani
Name: Diplin Guglani
Position: Program Manager @ Visa
Interviewed by: Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: October 15, 2016
Q. Are you able to work remotely?
Yes, on occasion.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
Like the autonomy and being able to slip in errands and other personal stuff. Realistically end up working more hours when I'm remote to ensure that I'm doing my job thoroughly and also for visibility to managers. I tend to take blocks of work to do at home when it's quiet so I enjoy not having others around. The challenges are talking to people easily and quickly. But since I take blocks of work to do at home, it's not so much a challenge as part of the enjoyment of being away for a day.
Q. What remote working tools do you use?
GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts and Blue Jeans.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
I don't know, I think it works reasonably well the way it is. Perhaps improve audio or video dropouts since those are frequent.
Position: Program Manager @ Visa
Interviewed by: Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: October 15, 2016
Q. Are you able to work remotely?
Yes, on occasion.
Q: What do you like about working remotely? What are the challenges?
Like the autonomy and being able to slip in errands and other personal stuff. Realistically end up working more hours when I'm remote to ensure that I'm doing my job thoroughly and also for visibility to managers. I tend to take blocks of work to do at home when it's quiet so I enjoy not having others around. The challenges are talking to people easily and quickly. But since I take blocks of work to do at home, it's not so much a challenge as part of the enjoyment of being away for a day.
Q. What remote working tools do you use?
GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts and Blue Jeans.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would an ideal solution to working remotely look like?
I don't know, I think it works reasonably well the way it is. Perhaps improve audio or video dropouts since those are frequent.
Interview #49: Kim L, CA
Name: Kim Limbrick
Position: Software Development Manager, Apple. Had a Software Development team working remotely from India, NZ, Australia and UK
Roles & Responsibilities: Assign and manage remote teams to deliver on their priorities.
Interviewed by: Anshul Tyagi
Date of Interview: 11/02/2016
Q: Walk me through a typical day working with someone working remotely.
A: I had a team of people working remotely for me in India. We would typically have a meeting at the start of our day, which would be towards the end of the day for people in India. We would go over our action items for the day and the progress made in the last day. Then towards the end of our day, their morning, we would have one more session where we would do the same thing again.
Q: Was there a formal system used to track# of hours worked?
A: I am not a big believer of tracking hours. I usually trust people to do the right thing in such a scenario. If you finish your work earlier than the time I think it would take you, then I don’t care if you take the extra time off.
Q: What do you like about working remotely?
A: I think the concept it nice. I liked the fact that when we had a remote team, we could work in a 24 hr cycle. Our QA team was working remotely and continually test the code we had written during the day. It just made our effective working hours longer.
Q: What challenges do you encounter?
A: Different time zones were hard to coordinate. Mostly we would be left with one small window during the middle of the day when all our stakeholders would be available. Also, I thought that the people who were working remotely got deprioritized because that urgency of response was not there. This also led us to spending more time on conference calls to understand their blocking issues and provide fix for them. Also, just the quality of conversations was not great. There were constant call drops, bad call quality etc.
Q: What was the effect of these challenges?
A: Our feature velocity reduced even though we were working longer hours. We realized that the only work we could give to our remote team was something that required low supervision and was not technically challenging. Interviewing someone remote for a position was also a challenge as we had to accept whatever we were getting.
Q: Would a solution involving VR headset work? (Described the solution in detail)
A: This would definitely solve the problem of “Immediacy of Response” for me. It would just be like my contractors sitting next to me while I give them knowledge transfers. I like the use of avatars for interviewing as well. However, I would want a setting that also helps in removing emotions from an avatar so that we can choose to remain unbiased about a problem.
Q: What else would you want to see in this solution.
A: Some way to annotate the virtual meeting so that people can go back later and get a sense of what happened at what time in a virtual meeting. Also an ability to switch virtual rooms (similar to call holding feature in phones) would be very helpful as most of our daily work is interrupt driven.
Position: Software Development Manager, Apple. Had a Software Development team working remotely from India, NZ, Australia and UK
Roles & Responsibilities: Assign and manage remote teams to deliver on their priorities.
Interviewed by: Anshul Tyagi
Date of Interview: 11/02/2016
Q: Walk me through a typical day working with someone working remotely.
A: I had a team of people working remotely for me in India. We would typically have a meeting at the start of our day, which would be towards the end of the day for people in India. We would go over our action items for the day and the progress made in the last day. Then towards the end of our day, their morning, we would have one more session where we would do the same thing again.
Q: Was there a formal system used to track# of hours worked?
A: I am not a big believer of tracking hours. I usually trust people to do the right thing in such a scenario. If you finish your work earlier than the time I think it would take you, then I don’t care if you take the extra time off.
Q: What do you like about working remotely?
A: I think the concept it nice. I liked the fact that when we had a remote team, we could work in a 24 hr cycle. Our QA team was working remotely and continually test the code we had written during the day. It just made our effective working hours longer.
Q: What challenges do you encounter?
A: Different time zones were hard to coordinate. Mostly we would be left with one small window during the middle of the day when all our stakeholders would be available. Also, I thought that the people who were working remotely got deprioritized because that urgency of response was not there. This also led us to spending more time on conference calls to understand their blocking issues and provide fix for them. Also, just the quality of conversations was not great. There were constant call drops, bad call quality etc.
Q: What was the effect of these challenges?
A: Our feature velocity reduced even though we were working longer hours. We realized that the only work we could give to our remote team was something that required low supervision and was not technically challenging. Interviewing someone remote for a position was also a challenge as we had to accept whatever we were getting.
Q: Would a solution involving VR headset work? (Described the solution in detail)
A: This would definitely solve the problem of “Immediacy of Response” for me. It would just be like my contractors sitting next to me while I give them knowledge transfers. I like the use of avatars for interviewing as well. However, I would want a setting that also helps in removing emotions from an avatar so that we can choose to remain unbiased about a problem.
Q: What else would you want to see in this solution.
A: Some way to annotate the virtual meeting so that people can go back later and get a sense of what happened at what time in a virtual meeting. Also an ability to switch virtual rooms (similar to call holding feature in phones) would be very helpful as most of our daily work is interrupt driven.
Interview #50: Brian Bell
Name: Brian Bell
Position: Product Manager at Rocket Fuel
Interviewed by: Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: 11/09/2016
Q: Walk me through a typical day working with someone working remotely.
A: I personally work remotely on occasion. My team is distributed and I have some in Europe. We do daily stand ups with video, hip chat, google hangouts with all team members. I personally (not a company-initiative) want to experiment with having a remote team on a screen, so that, for example, you can always walk up to that screen and see the remote group if they are there.
Q: You mentioned several platforms, which one do you use primarily?
A: We use Zoom primarily.
Q: What types of documents or objects do you collaborate on?
A: Zoom has a custom whiteboard feature, though, we use it rarely. Most commonly, someone shares a screen, either a Google Doc or a spreadsheet, and all edit them together. Or, another example of sharing the screen, since I'm in Product, someone shares Jira and we edit or discuss together.
Q: What do you think of our proposed solution (described in detail)?
A: I think it's good for collaboration, remote designers, or to collaborate on a whiteboard. Drawing things out and marking them up virtually is helpful. Collaborating on a wall size doc or other object would be nice. I could book a particular room at my office and wear a VR headset for any remote people.
Q: Is the value add enough over what you use today to push you into buying the solution?
A: I think a touch screen computer would bring you most of the way there. That alone would help already. A VR headset would be a step beyond that. I would be concerned how much it would cost. What if we just bought touchscreen laptops instead? Use that and with a stylus pen, it would be much cheaper than outfitting each person with a VR headset. You can even get a cheap touchscreen tablet for $50. I think you can get most of the functionality just by doing a screenshare.
Q: Anything else?
A: I think you need to explore more. Pick a distributed team, and find out how satisfied they are with how things are going today. Run a controlled test. Ultimately, you would need to find innovators / early adopters to try out the technology who would deal with the rough edges while you figure out how to use it.
Position: Product Manager at Rocket Fuel
Interviewed by: Frank Bunger
Date of Interview: 11/09/2016
Q: Walk me through a typical day working with someone working remotely.
A: I personally work remotely on occasion. My team is distributed and I have some in Europe. We do daily stand ups with video, hip chat, google hangouts with all team members. I personally (not a company-initiative) want to experiment with having a remote team on a screen, so that, for example, you can always walk up to that screen and see the remote group if they are there.
Q: You mentioned several platforms, which one do you use primarily?
A: We use Zoom primarily.
Q: What types of documents or objects do you collaborate on?
A: Zoom has a custom whiteboard feature, though, we use it rarely. Most commonly, someone shares a screen, either a Google Doc or a spreadsheet, and all edit them together. Or, another example of sharing the screen, since I'm in Product, someone shares Jira and we edit or discuss together.
Q: What do you think of our proposed solution (described in detail)?
A: I think it's good for collaboration, remote designers, or to collaborate on a whiteboard. Drawing things out and marking them up virtually is helpful. Collaborating on a wall size doc or other object would be nice. I could book a particular room at my office and wear a VR headset for any remote people.
Q: Is the value add enough over what you use today to push you into buying the solution?
A: I think a touch screen computer would bring you most of the way there. That alone would help already. A VR headset would be a step beyond that. I would be concerned how much it would cost. What if we just bought touchscreen laptops instead? Use that and with a stylus pen, it would be much cheaper than outfitting each person with a VR headset. You can even get a cheap touchscreen tablet for $50. I think you can get most of the functionality just by doing a screenshare.
Q: Anything else?
A: I think you need to explore more. Pick a distributed team, and find out how satisfied they are with how things are going today. Run a controlled test. Ultimately, you would need to find innovators / early adopters to try out the technology who would deal with the rough edges while you figure out how to use it.