1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,140 Welcome, listeners, to the Cloud and Culture podcast. 2 00:00:03,860 --> 00:00:07,580 If you're listening for the first time, this is only episode five after all, 3 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:10,740 here's the quick background. I am Derek Harris from VMware. 4 00:00:11,140 --> 00:00:13,000 And I am Danielle Burrow from VMware. 5 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:18,700 And this podcast is focused on VMware Pivotal Labs and the work done by our team of experts 6 00:00:18,700 --> 00:00:24,480 to help organizations ranging from startups to the Fortune 500 shift their software development 7 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,860 into high gear. As the title suggests, that entails modernizing and sometimes just kick-starting 8 00:00:29,860 --> 00:00:34,200 software development and tooling, as well as helping clients create a culture that will 9 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:39,160 allow them to run efficient, self-sufficient software development teams for the long term. 10 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:44,120 And this week, we're joined by Pivotal Labs' Joe Moore and Paul Sullivan for a discussion 11 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:48,460 about the state of remote work and remote agile software development in particular. 12 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:54,180 Joe and Paul give tips around tools and strategies, share stories from helping clients go remote 13 00:00:54,180 --> 00:00:59,600 when COVID-19 closed down offices, and explain which parts of the work-from-home experience might 14 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:03,180 stick around even after things get back to normal and offices begin to reopen. 15 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:07,940 Indeed. It's a really fun and informative conversation. And if you want to learn more 16 00:01:07,940 --> 00:01:12,400 about optimizing your team's remote development strategy, check out the show notes for links 17 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:17,940 to a collection of guides, Miro templates, blog posts, and other content from the Pivotal Labs team. 18 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:24,540 And as always, don't forget to visit tanzu.vmware.com slash labs to learn more about Pivotal Labs 19 00:01:24,540 --> 00:01:29,280 and how we can help you kickstart your next project and get better at building software. 20 00:01:30,500 --> 00:01:36,640 So great, let's get started. So VMware Pivotal Labs is known for our in-person immersive experiences 21 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:41,160 with clients. But we actually have a history of working remotely, especially for certain types 22 00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:45,340 of engagements or with repeat customers, or maybe after an engagement has kind of kicked 23 00:01:45,340 --> 00:01:51,840 off in person at a labs office, and then we'd move to being remote or on-site at the client's location. 24 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:58,320 So even though, you know, normally a lot of people think of Pivotal Labs as being associated 25 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:04,240 with the Pivotal Labs office, we already had a lot of best practices and experience to draw 26 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:08,500 from when it, when the pandemic forced everyone to kind of shelter in place and work remotely 27 00:02:08,500 --> 00:02:13,760 in early 2020. And we published some webinars and blogs on remote software teams and remote 28 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:18,820 pair programming, and a lot of best practices. But now that, you know, millions of people have 29 00:02:18,820 --> 00:02:25,640 been remote for the past six, seven months, I wanted to talk to Joe Moore and Paul Sullivan 30 00:02:25,640 --> 00:02:31,540 about their experience working with these customers and also internally and kind of get a state 31 00:02:31,540 --> 00:02:36,980 of the union. So with that, Paul, Joe, why don't you just briefly introduce yourself, 32 00:02:36,980 --> 00:02:39,980 and then we'll kind of get to that state of the union question. 33 00:02:40,900 --> 00:02:45,520 Sure. I'm Paul Sullivan. I'm a solution lead with VMware Pivotal Labs. And I spend a lot of my time 34 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:50,900 helping our clients articulate what their kind of biggest software problems are, and then helping 35 00:02:50,900 --> 00:02:56,460 them bring the most powerful parts of VMware to bear to help them solve those problems. 36 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:05,100 I'm Joe Moore. I've been with VMware Pivotal Labs and the companies that came before it for quite a 37 00:03:05,100 --> 00:03:11,420 while, almost 15 years. And almost that entire time, I've been an individual practitioner, engineer, 38 00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:20,520 programmer on project teams. I think at last count, I was approaching 60 projects that I have been on 39 00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:21,700 over my time at the company. 40 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:25,020 Wow. Did you get a coin? Did they give you a... 41 00:03:25,020 --> 00:03:29,140 I wish. Actually, there was one project that did make a coin, and I'm still waiting for that coin. 42 00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:34,640 Some project t-shirts, but no coins yet, but it should be in the mail. But I did recently switch 43 00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:41,900 to a new team that is sort of supporting all of our services that we're kind of just... Paul and I have 44 00:03:41,900 --> 00:03:46,900 been... Paul described and I'm describing. So I have an interesting perspective, at least for myself, 45 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:52,240 of kind of being in one role for many, many, many years, and now I'm doing something new. And that 46 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,320 transition happened in the middle of the sort of pandemic. 47 00:03:55,320 --> 00:04:00,200 Yeah. And we were lucky to have folks like Joe around when the sheltering in place stuff happened, 48 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:05,760 because Joe was, for the large parts of his career with Pivotal, a remote software engineer. And so a lot 49 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:11,140 of the challenges that come into place as a remote software engineer, and you're working on a team that is 50 00:04:11,140 --> 00:04:16,600 adopting agile practices such as pair programming and radical collaboration and all those things, 51 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,860 we'd ironed out a lot of the details of what to do when Joe was remote, or there were other 52 00:04:20,860 --> 00:04:25,840 Joes around the company as well. But we did learn a lot in the transition when all of a sudden everyone 53 00:04:25,840 --> 00:04:32,820 was remote, and remote was not a thing that was unique or odd. We were all kind of going through it. 54 00:04:33,780 --> 00:04:39,700 And for me, when I think about back when it happened and the kind of transition we had to make, 55 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:45,160 it was learning from people like Joe and taking a lot of those practices and bringing them online. 56 00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:51,080 But I feel like when I think about where we are today with being remote, I feel like that first 57 00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:56,760 phase was kind of like the uncanny valley phase. It was like we were taking all the things we wanted 58 00:04:56,760 --> 00:05:01,460 to do and just sprinkling a little Zoom on it. It was all the same rituals and all the same things, 59 00:05:01,540 --> 00:05:06,620 but it was happening through Zoom. And when I'm seeing what teams are doing now, I'm seeing some 60 00:05:06,620 --> 00:05:12,180 real innovation in not just bringing a little Zoom on it, but how are we rethinking some of these 61 00:05:12,180 --> 00:05:17,740 practices that hold true to the principles that we believe in that underlie them, but acknowledging 62 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:22,780 this new crazy world we're living in where people are homeschooling their kids or taking care of 63 00:05:22,780 --> 00:05:30,140 sick relatives and everyone's life has just been upended. So I've seen quite an evolution in how teams 64 00:05:30,140 --> 00:05:32,640 have adapted to this scenario over time. 65 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:37,620 I think that's interesting. I mean, you mentioned Joe Joe's had been remote and there'd been a couple 66 00:05:37,620 --> 00:05:45,940 other or a few other Joe's, right? Remote with the place. Is it, I'm imagining Joe, I'm just curious if you feel a little more 67 00:05:45,940 --> 00:05:51,400 seen now or understood. I've worked remote for a long time and sometimes depending on where you're at, 68 00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:56,620 you're definitely the odd man out or the odd person out and you feel like, okay, I just kind of jump 69 00:05:56,620 --> 00:06:00,840 into this, I'll jump into this meeting or whatever, but I'm not really part of this thing. And now, 70 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:05,420 well, I mean, Pivotal, frankly, I joined when it was Pivotal and LPM were quite distributed to begin 71 00:06:05,420 --> 00:06:10,400 with. So it feels a little more natural, at least in my role, but I'm curious, like just, just kind of 72 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:14,140 sort of, do you feel more, do you feel more seen? Do you feel like everyone kind of gets 73 00:06:14,140 --> 00:06:17,640 now is what some of the challenges have been for you? 74 00:06:18,780 --> 00:06:25,480 Yeah, to, to an extent, definitely. It's something that, that I was really surprised by. And I, and I, what you 75 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:32,620 say resonates with me a lot, the, the feeling of being a bit, the odd person out, especially when at the, when I 76 00:06:32,620 --> 00:06:40,980 went remote full-time in 2010, I was one of the only full-time remote employees at our, at our company. And so it's 77 00:06:40,980 --> 00:06:47,640 very often that there was an entire onsite team and me, and I was always sort of the odd person out. 78 00:06:47,820 --> 00:06:52,440 And I will say like people never intentionally tried to make me feel that way. If anything, I 79 00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:59,240 put that on myself. People were always incredibly inclusive. I mean, I'm, I'm humbled by the amount 80 00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:07,080 of work people did in, you know, the, the co-located offices to make me feel included, all the extra 81 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:15,340 effort, the extra equipment, the wires and headsets and extra monitors and speakers and all the extra 82 00:07:15,340 --> 00:07:19,420 effort everybody had to do. And that made me feel very self-conscious for one that I felt like this, 83 00:07:19,420 --> 00:07:25,140 this burden, but then that did change over time where it became, you know, it did become more common 84 00:07:25,140 --> 00:07:30,540 for us to, to have distributed projects and such. And the thing that I was surprised by 85 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:38,700 was when the, when everybody cut literally on a, on a, on a, on a Friday, I think we all got an email 86 00:07:38,700 --> 00:07:44,820 that said, yeah, don't come to the office on Monday. So you better get all your stuff and go home. 87 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:52,320 I thought that Monday was going to happen. And the first time everybody is officially forced remote 88 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:58,680 and that there was going to be this just a matte chaos. I thought there was going to be some kind 89 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:04,480 of chaos of everybody clambering around, trying to figure out what's going on. And I was very much on, 90 00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:09,680 I had kind of, you know, I was ready. I was online early. I was like, I'm here, everybody, 91 00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:16,200 I'm going to help you. And it was just quiet. And I would check in with a few people and they're like, 92 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:21,520 oh yeah, yeah, we got it. We're good. Yeah. We, we were already doing like some of this with half 93 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:27,200 the team and now the whole team's doing it and we're fine. And I kept waiting for this like bat 94 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:34,880 signal to go up and it never went up because everybody was already sort of unwittingly training 95 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:41,200 for this moment through the last several years of increasingly more distributed teams. 96 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:47,000 And I'm not taking credit for any of this. Like everybody was, it's not like everybody had to go 97 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,680 through me or something like that, or, or the other Joes, so to speak at the company, it just became 98 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:57,440 a part of the way that we worked and other companies as well. But like I can, I can say our company, 99 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:03,760 it just became a part of the way that we worked and to the, to the, to the point where it, it, 100 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:10,720 it was less of a dramatic shift on that, you know, that first week than I predicted it was going to be. 101 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:15,000 Yeah. The word training jumped out at me, Joe. And like, I hadn't really thought about it in that way 102 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:20,760 before, but you know, in a healthy agile software delivery process, you're expecting change and you're 103 00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:25,900 kind of like, you're not over planning for, and predicting the future. You're planning just enough to get 104 00:09:25,900 --> 00:09:31,260 moving in the, for the next short time period and expecting what you do to influence what, 105 00:09:31,260 --> 00:09:35,880 what is going to come next. So you can't really predict it. So our folks are really oriented around 106 00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:40,360 this kind of like, Hey, things may be going smooth now, but they won't forever. And we need to identify 107 00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:45,900 it when it happens and react to it. And I think the other thing that the other muscle that was really 108 00:09:45,900 --> 00:09:51,540 important to us was this muscle of continual improvement. Like let's, let's have a, a culture of 109 00:09:51,540 --> 00:09:55,420 psychological safety when, where, when things aren't working, we can call it out and let's build a muscle 110 00:09:55,420 --> 00:10:00,620 of reflection and experimentation so that we do it on a regular cadence. We're looking at how things are 111 00:10:00,620 --> 00:10:05,440 going, acknowledging the things that are going well so that we keep doing them and, and having the 112 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:09,240 bravery to point out the things that maybe aren't going so well. So we can run some experiments to 113 00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:14,920 try to improve them over time. So I think that like trying to take an, take our, our, the agile process 114 00:10:14,920 --> 00:10:18,800 we all did in person and just kind of plop that on zoom felt a little inauthentic, but we wanted to 115 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:22,780 hold things we didn't want to change was these kinds of like underlying principles that we held 116 00:10:22,780 --> 00:10:27,480 very closely of reacting to change and, and, and reflecting and continually improving. 117 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:33,660 So it's very validating that just because we couldn't be sitting side by side, things didn't fall 118 00:10:33,660 --> 00:10:40,160 apart. You know, it was, it was the, the, the, the reason we're all together and like the principles 119 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:46,540 behind the way we work or why we're even doing this at all. Those, those didn't change. Didn't matter 120 00:10:46,540 --> 00:10:52,960 where we were or the orientation of the team structure of the team necessarily. You know, it would have been, 121 00:10:52,960 --> 00:11:00,320 it would have really shown that we were way off the mark if everything fell apart just because 122 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,340 we had to be remote. Sorry, Danielle, go for it. 123 00:11:03,560 --> 00:11:09,560 Oh no, that, and that totally makes sense. I was just going to kind of circle back to something that 124 00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:15,380 you brought up briefly, Paul, earlier on, you said that you've noticed some customers and, and some 125 00:11:15,380 --> 00:11:20,300 teams have gotten really innovative. Like it's, it's not just about sprinkling zoom on what you're 126 00:11:20,300 --> 00:11:27,180 already doing. Um, and I wondered like, do you have specific examples you could call out of things that 127 00:11:27,180 --> 00:11:32,520 are going really well? Well, there are two trends that I'm seeing that have come out in the, in the, 128 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:38,180 the last full of months that I think are driving a lot of the innovation that we're doing. One is the 129 00:11:38,180 --> 00:11:46,780 kind of like thoughtful and meaningful or a thoughtful and direct move of figuring out which communication 130 00:11:46,780 --> 00:11:51,500 channels can move to asynchronous. So when we're all sharing space together and we're all working on the 131 00:11:51,500 --> 00:11:56,020 same calendar, there's a lot of kind of natural conversation and natural flow of information that 132 00:11:56,020 --> 00:12:00,400 happens where you don't really have to be super intentional about it. Like I can just wait for Joe to 133 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:05,360 come back from his coffee break and I can ask him about the, the story that he's working on. So I think 134 00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:10,120 the, the, one of the trends I'm seeing is teams being super disciplined about reflecting on all of their 135 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:14,840 communication channels and meaning and, and being very purposeful about the, the channels that they 136 00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:20,020 moved to asynchronous speak. No, because the time that we're going to be spending together is by 137 00:12:20,020 --> 00:12:24,240 definition going to be less when people are, uh, dealing with all the, the, the kind of fallout of, 138 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:29,040 of the pandemic. The, the other trend I'm noting is kind of the, I'm noticing is the kind of flip side of 139 00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:36,180 that is when we do get time together, when we, when we are working on this really kind of high 140 00:12:36,180 --> 00:12:41,120 collaboration, high value work, how are we making sure we're making the most out of that time? And 141 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:45,780 some of the underpinnings of that has been tooling. So there's a lot of really great, um, kind of like 142 00:12:45,780 --> 00:12:51,860 cloud whiteboarding, cloud sketching tools that like, you know, um, will give you a semblance of like 143 00:12:51,860 --> 00:12:57,560 what it's like to kind of do a super, super collaborative, uh, session together. So how are 144 00:12:57,560 --> 00:13:01,200 we, when we do get that time, when we do have a moment where we need to collaborate, how are we 145 00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:05,020 squeezing the most out of that time? And how are we getting the right tools for the right job? 146 00:13:05,260 --> 00:13:12,540 For me personally, I do a lot of workshops with my clients and, you know, my, the, what I would 147 00:13:12,540 --> 00:13:16,900 usually do is get in the room, do all the workshops, and then I'd take pictures of all the things on the 148 00:13:16,900 --> 00:13:20,660 whiteboard and then go back the next day and do my kind of deep thinking synthesis on like, 149 00:13:20,860 --> 00:13:24,520 what does this mean and how are we going to help this client? And one of the things I love 150 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:29,860 about this new world we're in is when I do a workshop in a tool like Miro, I have that artifact. 151 00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:33,660 Uh, I have no more pictures of whiteboards on my phone. So that's, that's a good thing. I don't 152 00:13:33,660 --> 00:13:37,260 have to go through and delete those anymore. So, you know, that's a, I think that's a situation that 153 00:13:37,260 --> 00:13:41,600 that's, that's a thing that came to mind for me of like, how, how are we taking these new 154 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:47,380 constraints that we have to live with and turning them into a new strengths so that we can be more 155 00:13:47,380 --> 00:13:53,020 efficient and, and, and help our clients better. It is funny how some limits will tend to bring out 156 00:13:53,020 --> 00:13:57,140 some creativity in a way to be like, like, well, we have free to do everything. I'll just take pictures 157 00:13:57,140 --> 00:14:00,700 of this whiteboard. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. I've been reading a bit about the Stoics and 158 00:14:00,700 --> 00:14:04,780 they're all, they're all really into this idea of like, you know, how do you acknowledge these 159 00:14:04,780 --> 00:14:09,120 obstacles for what they are and like, turn it into the thing that sets you on the right path. 160 00:14:09,380 --> 00:14:14,020 And I feel very much, that is very much spurned by the challenges of COVID. 161 00:14:15,740 --> 00:14:20,720 Can I ask, have there been issues within, I mean, not issues, but I mean, have you, have you seen 162 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:27,240 other clients that have struggled to, to, to get on the, to get onto the onboard or get on board with 163 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:31,760 the remote, the remote work thing? Or has it been just, I mean, culturally, technologically, 164 00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:37,940 like, we're just not prepared. Yeah. I think, I think there's kind of like a root cause analysis 165 00:14:37,940 --> 00:14:44,840 of like, we could go back to of like, small challenges that get kind of amplified and blowed 166 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:51,420 up bigger in this environment. Like if, if, if you don't have a, a instinct for collaborative work, 167 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:56,200 there are more barriers to collaborative work now. So those folks that, so, so if you work in a place 168 00:14:56,200 --> 00:15:00,360 that doesn't encourage or reward cross-functional collaborative work, it's probably going to be 169 00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:04,060 harder for you to get that going in these environments. And, but that's also a place where 170 00:15:04,060 --> 00:15:08,620 we've been able to come in and help and bring all of our years of experience in, in doing this 171 00:15:08,620 --> 00:15:13,020 radically collaborative work to, to help our clients navigate that. And whether it's the foundational 172 00:15:13,020 --> 00:15:18,460 tools that they use or just the kind of like mindset and culture, it's harder. It may take a little 173 00:15:18,460 --> 00:15:21,680 more time, but I haven't seen anyone just like throw their hands up and give up yet. 174 00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:29,400 And Joe, I guess, you know, you talked about this a little bit earlier about, you know, that first day 175 00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:38,500 of everyone being remote and wondering if it was going to be just a total disaster. And, you know, 176 00:15:38,640 --> 00:15:43,220 people were set up with a lot of tools and we do have an instinct to work very collaboratively, 177 00:15:43,380 --> 00:15:49,340 but I, I'd be curious to hear kind of from your perspective of, you know, as an organization, 178 00:15:49,740 --> 00:15:56,020 what challenges we might be running into or that we've had to overcome working with clients in this way. 179 00:15:56,020 --> 00:16:03,440 Yeah. I think that, you know, one of the things that I'm seeing teams do, and I know that our team has 180 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:10,900 done is, is be very intentional about the, as Paul was kind of alluding to, like the kind of 181 00:16:10,900 --> 00:16:18,040 communication that we have and being very explicit and, and, and giving explicit time for things like 182 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:27,620 socializing as, as, as contrived as it might sometimes feel to have a, a meeting on the calendar 183 00:16:27,620 --> 00:16:34,900 at, you know, 4 PM on Thursday that says, get together and have fun. It's kind of like, you know, 184 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:40,620 it almost feels like ordering somebody. It's like, you'll be funny now or something like that. 185 00:16:40,900 --> 00:16:45,840 It's, you know, it's, it's, it's something that I'm seeing teams do. And I know that our team has done 186 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:52,980 too. So it's the, the having to acknowledge and put forth the, forth the extra effort to, 187 00:16:52,980 --> 00:17:02,020 to reinforce those personal interactions that, and social interactions that, you know, might've just 188 00:17:02,020 --> 00:17:08,560 come so naturally, you know, when we're, when it was more easy for us to get together and, you know, 189 00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:14,460 be in the same place. And, and even, I think that, you know, I, I'm thinking about the times when, 190 00:17:14,860 --> 00:17:20,760 when I was the, like the one remote person on a project, you know, I, we didn't do those things, 191 00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:25,780 you know, play games online or get together for an online beer very often, but I would always kind 192 00:17:25,780 --> 00:17:31,180 of save it up, right? Like I would, I would save it up for five weeks or so. And then I would make my, 193 00:17:31,180 --> 00:17:37,600 you know, once every six, you know, five or six week trip to the office from wherever I was living. 194 00:17:37,980 --> 00:17:43,360 And then we would kind of like pack in all the fun. And then I would like go back. Well, 195 00:17:43,460 --> 00:17:48,680 well now that, you know, there isn't, we don't know when the pack in all the fun time is going to be. 196 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,960 So, you know, taking that extra time has been really important. 197 00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:59,900 I joined a team's meeting to, as a, as a guest a week or two ago, and the first item on the agenda was 198 00:17:59,900 --> 00:18:05,900 witty banter. And it was like 10 minutes of witty banter. This team had set aside up front of the 199 00:18:05,900 --> 00:18:10,320 meeting. And, and then, you know, for 10 minutes, we just hung out and talked and caught up on how 200 00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:14,000 kids, people were doing with their families and how people were, you know, some people were complaining 201 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,700 about cabin fever. And then 10 minutes was up and we got into the meat of the project. And it was just 202 00:18:18,700 --> 00:18:23,920 so great to like have someone, one team that like walked them around his room and showed us, showed us 203 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:28,720 what his homework situation was. And it just, it just fosters so much more kind of like communal 204 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:33,580 empathy for each other that it's so easy to forget to take those moments and do those things. 205 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:40,180 Yeah, I can, I'll attest to me that I used to, I, Joe, I was very much in the same boat with you. 206 00:18:40,260 --> 00:18:44,600 I'd be like, sit at home, sit at home, remote, remote. And then once I got to the office, once I would 207 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:48,780 make that trip to the office, it was, yes, I barely got any work done. Cause it was, 208 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:54,080 you know, you've like, you, you pen, you pen up all of that, all of that talking and all that 209 00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:57,720 socializing and all that other stuff. And then you get there. And I kind of thought, I kind of thought 210 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:01,020 like when, when these things started showing up on my calendar too, within our team, well, these, 211 00:19:01,100 --> 00:19:06,080 this is to be kind of cheesy and whatever, like forced forced. So, but it's, but actually it's not. 212 00:19:06,180 --> 00:19:10,720 And whenever I do it, whenever I engage, it feels much more. Yeah. You definitely, you definitely 213 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,840 grow. There's some camaraderie that comes from that. And I think, yeah, especially now it's, 214 00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,820 it's just super important. And like, you're talking about Paul's, this idea of, 215 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:21,400 cause that's what I wanted to ask too, is like, we're doing all this stuff during a pandemic 216 00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:26,140 is absolutely not the same as working remote. As far as arguments are during normal times. You 217 00:19:26,140 --> 00:19:29,640 don't have, like you said, you don't have your kids at home for not one. If you have kids, it's like, 218 00:19:30,140 --> 00:19:34,060 that's, that's a whole other world. Do you get a, I'm curious what your sense is of like, 219 00:19:34,500 --> 00:19:40,880 how things maybe shift if, I mean, assuming we get to a post COVID time, like, like, like how does some 220 00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:46,880 of the things we're learning now transition or, or shift, you know, once people can go back to the 221 00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:52,180 office, but maybe they don't want to. Yeah. That's a deep question. Yeah. I think, you know, 222 00:19:52,180 --> 00:19:57,880 it's, there's a lot of speculation happening there and, you know, I'm happy to speculate as much as 223 00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:07,100 anyone. Yeah. I think that it's going to be very interesting to, to, to see how much of say going 224 00:20:07,100 --> 00:20:14,120 back to the great office with all the amenities that our offices have anyway, and everybody working 225 00:20:14,120 --> 00:20:20,080 together, you know, people being side by side, like how much of that feels like we were really missing 226 00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:27,120 that versus I'm going to struggle for words here for versus like how much of it feels extraneous or, 227 00:20:27,120 --> 00:20:34,160 or unneeded or needed only, you know, once a week or something like that, or like on an as needed kind 228 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:41,600 of basis. It's, it's really, it's really going to be strange. Like, like being in the middle of it 229 00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:46,640 right now, it's really hard to predict what it's going to be like, you know, can you go home again? 230 00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:52,260 Kind of a, kind of a thing, you know, is it going to be like going home or is it like going to be 231 00:20:52,260 --> 00:20:58,340 like going back to, I don't know, the, the hometown where you grew up, where you realize like, actually, 232 00:20:58,340 --> 00:21:04,100 I don't, I don't know if this is the place. Maybe I should just, you know, go back to my home office 233 00:21:04,100 --> 00:21:13,340 business and, and work from there. Yeah. I think, I think there, the people that I'm talking to are definitely 234 00:21:13,340 --> 00:21:20,860 feeling some benefits from the flexibility. Now, I would imagine that trend is going to continue that like we 235 00:21:20,860 --> 00:21:26,780 will, will continue to need to accommodate that type of flexibility because I think it's good. That might be hard to 236 00:21:26,780 --> 00:21:32,740 go back from. And I, yeah, I wonder what the pole of a central office will be like. We won't, will we have 237 00:21:32,740 --> 00:21:36,820 the communal coffee pot? Will we have the big jar of gummy bears that everyone's sticking their hands 238 00:21:36,820 --> 00:21:41,300 through? Like, I can't imagine that stuff happening anytime soon. So we, how is that going to influence 239 00:21:41,300 --> 00:21:45,440 people's behaviors of, of where they work each day? I don't really know, but I, but I do know that 240 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:50,820 we're learning some hard-earned lessons right now. Uh, and like most hard-earned lessons, 241 00:21:50,820 --> 00:21:55,980 like the, the, the things you learn tend to stick around with you. All this talk about, you know, 242 00:21:56,220 --> 00:22:03,020 being at home and being in teams and, and really having to work at different ways of communicating 243 00:22:03,020 --> 00:22:09,340 different types of information, like, you know, more asynchronous or more collaborative. It's all 244 00:22:09,340 --> 00:22:15,440 kind of reminding me of a conversation Derek and I had with Hedy Stern on our last episode where she was 245 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:20,000 talking about this tension in agile software development between autonomous teams, 246 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:28,360 kind of being too autonomous and, and not really being in line with what's actually needed for the 247 00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:37,140 business. And I, I guess I'm wondering, Paul, if, if you're seeing this come up as an issue with some 248 00:22:37,140 --> 00:22:42,460 of the teams you're working with, like, is it easier for teams to kind of go off and be more autonomous 249 00:22:42,460 --> 00:22:48,120 and harder to make sure that there's that balance there? I don't know. I don't really know what my 250 00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:50,900 question is, but I'm just kind of wondering, like, what's that look like right now? 251 00:22:51,820 --> 00:22:57,460 Yeah. I, in, in my experience with the clients I'm working for the, I haven't seen the dial move on 252 00:22:57,460 --> 00:23:04,560 that. Like the, I've seen, I have seen agile adoption in some of the big clients I work with 253 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:08,740 actually get more entrenched during this time. And I think it has something to do with that autonomy. 254 00:23:08,900 --> 00:23:12,660 And when I say agile software development, I am talking about like the practices, like 255 00:23:12,660 --> 00:23:17,340 the, the observable things that people are doing. I'm not talking about like the deeper cultural 256 00:23:17,340 --> 00:23:21,800 principles that underpin those things. So, but like, if you look at a team, you say like, yeah, 257 00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:25,580 they're doing, they have a backlog and they're kind of like collaborating and they're delivering 258 00:23:25,580 --> 00:23:30,060 stories and they're, and they have a lot of automation, like those types of things I look for that 259 00:23:30,060 --> 00:23:35,340 like, is this team quote unquote practicing agile? But again, those are the things that are evolving the 260 00:23:35,340 --> 00:23:39,080 quickest, right? Like, because, because we're needing to, we're needing to refactor those 261 00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:43,720 things in this new world. So yeah, I haven't really seen the needle move on. Like if you're 262 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:48,780 talking about like governance, like how, how, how teams are measured and how those measurements 263 00:23:48,780 --> 00:23:54,000 are connecting to the core outcomes, the business is trying to drive. It's, it's still a challenge, 264 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,380 but I haven't seen it become much more or less of a challenge. 265 00:23:57,340 --> 00:24:02,220 Yeah. It's interesting. The, it's totally true that there, there's always been a tension 266 00:24:02,220 --> 00:24:10,480 amongst such things as say what the customer wants and what the customer's users might want. 267 00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:16,140 And, and we've, I don't know that anything is really changing there, but there is something 268 00:24:16,140 --> 00:24:20,500 that kind of, I was thinking about, I was talking about this with, with somebody recently where 269 00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:29,860 it seems like a lot of things landed just at the same time as everybody having to go remote. 270 00:24:29,860 --> 00:24:36,820 And by, by, by things, I mean like enabling things, zoom, like zoom is not that old and zoom kept 271 00:24:36,820 --> 00:24:46,620 getting better. And zoom was, I think probably just able to absorb a world going remote right now. 272 00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:51,440 Like, I'm not sure. And I don't have stats on this, but I wonder like, if this had happened two 273 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:57,680 years ago, would, you know, when like zoom was, was brand new, we'd probably all be on some other 274 00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:03,560 technology. And would it have been able to have kept up things like good collaborative tools like Slack, 275 00:25:03,980 --> 00:25:09,360 you know, everybody going to Slack even more or Microsoft teams even more than they ever did 276 00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:14,700 before. You know, could that, would that have all collapsed just a few years ago, but around the, 277 00:25:14,700 --> 00:25:21,000 the idea of how teams work autonomously or not there, there's another sort of, it's kind of a 278 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:26,240 combination of, of technology, but also a concept that kind of came along just at the right time. 279 00:25:26,780 --> 00:25:31,120 And I'm not going to go wet down the rabbit hole of this, but it's basically called contracts or 280 00:25:31,120 --> 00:25:37,640 contract testing between, in a software system. And, you know, in a nutshell, it's, it's a way of 281 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:44,300 making sure that if our team or our part of the software changes in a way that makes it incompatible 282 00:25:44,300 --> 00:25:50,700 with another team's software that's relying on ours, that there's a sort of a test that will run and, 283 00:25:50,700 --> 00:25:54,540 and notify everybody like, Hey, you just made a change and that's going to break a bunch of stuff. 284 00:25:54,780 --> 00:26:00,080 You all need to get together and work this out is kind of the, the, what this concept and technology 285 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:07,100 enforces. And luckily that's becoming very mainstream now, just when everybody is like, not only developing 286 00:26:07,100 --> 00:26:11,560 on different parts of the software, but might be thousands of miles away from each other while 287 00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:16,760 they do it. And so it's, it's really, you know, it's, it's, it's going to be interesting to look, 288 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:21,620 you know, if we jumped ahead five years, you know, I'll, I'll wonder if we'll look back and say, 289 00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:27,780 wow, look, look how the confluence of the world came together just at the right time to support 290 00:26:27,780 --> 00:26:33,400 everybody going remote, you know, or will we be saying, um, God, how did they do that five years ago 291 00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:38,520 without these 10 technologies that, you know, that exist, you know, in the future, but not now. 292 00:26:38,900 --> 00:26:42,800 Yeah. And I think it's also important to just kind of look at like, what is, what is healthy 293 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:47,980 autonomy look like and how do we get that balance right? Like autonomy without accountability can go 294 00:26:47,980 --> 00:26:53,440 into chaos. Uh, to me, like the, what I try to instill is like the right level of autonomy is 295 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:58,300 teams are accountable to outcomes and those outcomes are directly tied to business value, 296 00:26:58,620 --> 00:27:03,240 saving money, making money, protecting the company. But the autonomy they have is 297 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:08,460 how the, how within the scope of their, their product, how, what, what, what they have to 298 00:27:08,460 --> 00:27:13,720 build to go reach those goals. So autonomy without accountability is chaos. And, and maybe that's 299 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:19,780 the reason that like, if you're, if success for your team is just building more stuff, you know, 300 00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,720 you'll just build more stuff, but if success for your team is driving business outcomes, 301 00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:27,380 then you have, you should have autonomy to go get rid of those outcomes. And I think that's 302 00:27:27,380 --> 00:27:30,840 just a place where I don't think COVID has made an impact yet on the mindset that 303 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:35,740 organizations have about, are we outcome focused or, or are we just, uh, building a lot of stuff? 304 00:27:36,060 --> 00:27:39,500 Yeah. That's a great thought experiment. That whole, well, what would happen if this had 305 00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:44,940 happened five, 10 years ago? And yeah. And then if it happened again in another decade. 306 00:27:45,060 --> 00:27:45,800 Yeah, exactly. 307 00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:52,020 Do you, but I, speaking of which, like one thing, you know, we've seen with, I don't know if this is 308 00:27:52,020 --> 00:27:56,460 an issue, but it just, Paul reminded me what you were just saying, you kind of peeked this at me. 309 00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:01,040 This question was like, is there, is there a risk though, when we talk about autonomy of 310 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:05,160 getting into, I don't know if it's filter bubbles is the right term, but it seems like, you know, 311 00:28:05,220 --> 00:28:08,840 if you're in Slack or if you're in a, you know, some sort of communication tool, 312 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:14,540 it seems kind of easy to get into, you know, this, like one channel goes off and, you know, 313 00:28:14,540 --> 00:28:18,880 you'll see like an 80 common thread over here about something, right. And it, it does get kind 314 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:25,160 of easy to go off into, I don't know, like, like the communication maybe can break down between 315 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,880 teams and people, you can kind of get into that rabbit hole. Like, well, this is what we're talking 316 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,860 about this now. And we're like, you know, is that, I mean, does that, does that, is that an issue? 317 00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:38,520 I'm just, I'm kind of thinking through my answer here. Like to me, what we want to instill 318 00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:45,460 is like a healthy communication style that is both kind and empathetic and direct. So yeah, 319 00:28:45,540 --> 00:28:52,440 do I, do I see the occasional Slack thread that goes on far too long and doubles back to the place 320 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:58,440 it started? I see a few of those, but I also like when I, when, when, when, when the teams I work 321 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:03,440 with see those things, the healthy ones say time to get back to work, you know, like, 322 00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:08,280 we, we, we, we, we've, we've, we've taken this to its logical conclusion. Like it was a good 323 00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:13,480 discussion, but like, let's, let's make a decision and move forward. So good for, you know, like 324 00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:18,780 well-facilitated meetings, well-facilitated decisions, all of those things, being intentional 325 00:29:18,780 --> 00:29:23,100 about those things can help prevent those, those spin outs. But to your point where I think you're 326 00:29:23,100 --> 00:29:26,700 going is like, some of that stuff just is, is harder in this world, especially when a lot of that 327 00:29:26,700 --> 00:29:31,600 communication is moving asynchronously and we're, and we're building new muscles to, to be better 328 00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:39,240 at it. Yeah. I think that, yes, something I've definitely seen are a few things along 329 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:44,140 with like, you know, communication challenges, asynchronous communication challenges. And 330 00:29:44,140 --> 00:29:53,100 I think one of them is kind of a fear of missing out aspect of, well, we're using Slack and I've 331 00:29:53,100 --> 00:29:57,460 got, I'm in a thousand channels and all I do, you know, all one does, I'm not saying I do this, 332 00:29:57,460 --> 00:30:02,540 but like all one does is like cycle through all the unreads and all the channels. And by the time 333 00:30:02,540 --> 00:30:07,660 you get done, you have to go back to the beginning and, and start over to make sure you don't miss 334 00:30:07,660 --> 00:30:14,160 anything because you're not all together or there's maybe you're just getting exposed to a bunch of 335 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,360 stuff. And that's another thing I've seen that, I don't know if the pandemic, how much the pandemic 336 00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:23,720 has, has impacted, but sort of has forced maybe in a particular way is, is that a big company like 337 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:28,960 ours, you know, different, you know, the culture has evolved in different plate parts of the company 338 00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,880 in different ways, maybe through acquisitions and things like that. And, and there might be things 339 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:39,120 that are sort of holdovers from certain lineages. So I've had an experience where I thought I was up 340 00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:43,980 in the know about a particular topic. And then finally somebody said, Oh no, they, they don't use Slack 341 00:30:43,980 --> 00:30:48,120 for that. They use teams. You got to go over to teams to learn all about that and get involved 342 00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:54,880 in that community. And I get over there and I'm, and I find out like, Oh, wow, I'm, I had no idea there was 343 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:59,960 this huge community of people over here. Or maybe there's a split community, almost like two clicks or 344 00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:04,640 something like that, that are sort of communicating in their own little bubbles. So I think that's the way you 345 00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:09,780 put it. And, you know, I think we're still working through that. Like, I think that's going to be a challenge 346 00:31:09,780 --> 00:31:16,620 probably for, for a long time, unless there's sort of like a unilateral forcing by companies to say 347 00:31:16,620 --> 00:31:22,080 like, you know, these five technologies are out and you all have to use this sixth one or something 348 00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:22,540 like that. 349 00:31:22,540 --> 00:31:27,860 Just a really practical question. You've mentioned several tools. So you've talked about Slack and, 350 00:31:27,860 --> 00:31:35,220 and teams and zoom and Miro. Those are all really powerful tools for working remotely. And I'm wondering 351 00:31:35,220 --> 00:31:44,380 if there's anything else, anything else, people should know about my favorite hack is there's a 352 00:31:44,380 --> 00:31:53,480 little Mac tool called meter and it lists all your zoom meetings in it. And then there's another 353 00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:59,900 at little applet called keyboard maestro, where you can map your keyboard quick keys to different 354 00:31:59,900 --> 00:32:07,780 actions. So I've got like mute video off, end meeting, you know, joy, automatically join my next meeting. I've got 355 00:32:07,780 --> 00:32:12,240 those buttons all on my keyboard so I can just kind of like jump in and out of meetings. And there's something 356 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:19,260 super satisfying about slamming the F17 button and it closing zoom entirely without having to do anything 357 00:32:19,260 --> 00:32:19,740 else. 358 00:32:20,940 --> 00:32:26,020 You need, you need to, to map that. So there's also like the sound of like slamming an old school 359 00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:33,820 telephone rotary telephone. Yeah. It doesn't work so well with that touch bar. Yeah, exactly. It's not, it's not, 360 00:32:33,820 --> 00:32:35,740 it's not, you don't get the, it's not quite as satisfying. 361 00:32:36,940 --> 00:32:43,900 Yeah. Those are great hacks. And I'll admit that for myself, I leave the zoom, uh, app window up all the time. 362 00:32:43,900 --> 00:32:50,680 And I've, I've set up a integration between zoom and outlook because our company uses outlook, Microsoft outlook for 363 00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:56,360 calendars and stuff. And it pulls all that stuff in. So I, instead of using the tool you mentioned, Paul, I've, 364 00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:02,360 which maybe I should go and check out. I just have zoom's app up there and it is telling me all the next 365 00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:07,800 meetings that are coming up and such, but something that is, that is super handy just in general, but it's 366 00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:15,960 becoming, I think more handy is, these, these extra tools and apps that integrate with these major. 367 00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:21,760 Communication platforms, like, like, like Slack, I think generically they're all called like add-ons or 368 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:29,160 extensions or sometimes bots. So. One of the things that we might've relied on a lot as a, as a software 369 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:35,080 development project team, you know, a while back was something called like a build monitor, which would 370 00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:40,440 be, you know, a bit, literally a big television that would show you the status of a whole bunch of 371 00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:44,760 stuff. You know, this, you know, these things are all the color green and that means they're up. 372 00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,720 This thing's the color yellow. And that means that maybe it's had some outages and maybe this other 373 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:57,960 system is a, is a down and that represents as a big red, you know, star, you know, box on the screen 374 00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,560 or something like that. What, what I'm finding is a lot of teams are saying like, well, we're not all 375 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:07,320 together to be, to look up at this giant monitor hanging above our heads, radiating information out 376 00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:13,640 at us. So we'll wire that into a Slack bot. So we'll have our team Slack channel or Teams channel or what 377 00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:18,200 have you there, there, all these things that are great with all these chat and communication systems or 378 00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:24,040 even email. And if something has a bunch of errors and you want to be notified about that, you tell 379 00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:28,600 it to do so. And it'll just chime in as like, almost like a little robot in your, as a member of your 380 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,880 channel saying, Hey, this thing just went down. This thing crashed. This thing is, uh, was down, 381 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,600 but now it's back up and it was down for five minutes or something like that. So I think those 382 00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:42,520 kind of integrations, which I think is kind of what you were talking about, Paul, like these, 383 00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:47,880 these tools are kind of like optimize your, the way you interact with them. And they're 384 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:53,000 either like radiating information back at you and saying, Hey, here's some stuff, do something or 385 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:58,200 letting you communicate with them in the way that you want to do to tie that back into some of the 386 00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:06,040 more social activities. There's a, there's a Slack ad in called a donut, which will set up me. Well, if you 387 00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:11,400 opt into it in a channel, it'll set up a one-on-one random with someone else in that channel. So it's a 388 00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:17,560 good way to spend 15 minutes. The concept is you'd go get a donut, but I don't think anyone's getting too many donuts these 389 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,200 days, but, and you get to spend, you know, you set up a one-on-one and you get to spend time with it, 390 00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:26,120 with a random person. So like in some of the channels I'm in that have, you know, dozens or hundreds of 391 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:31,000 people, like, you know, the design practice channel, for example, where I like to lurk. It's great. 392 00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,680 It just, every once in a while, I just get a random one-on-one with a, with a designer I never met before. 393 00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:39,320 It's cool. It's like a targeted chat roulette. 394 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:39,960 Yeah, exactly. 395 00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:46,440 A little more, a little more controlled. I want to ask just kind of in closing you two is like, 396 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:50,840 and I think this has been alluded to, but I don't know if we've discussed it expressly is 397 00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:56,920 like, are there aspects, are you seeing aspects of remote, especially with regard to programming 398 00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:01,640 and, and kind of software development that are actually superior to working on site? And that, 399 00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:06,840 you know, again, I mean, whatever happens when, when offices start opening up again, but do you expect to 400 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:10,360 see some of these things sticking around just because frankly, they work better? 401 00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,200 Yeah. I, I, I've had some conversations about this recently and I think the answer is, 402 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:22,760 is definitely yes. You know, not that people are going to jettison, you know, every way they worked 403 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:28,520 before and adopt something new, but there were, there have been some sort of surprise wins that 404 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:34,680 everybody being remote again, with the technology to support everyone being remote kind of converging 405 00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:40,760 at exactly the same time. I think it's no secret that, you know, VMware Pivotal Labs and, and, and 406 00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:47,480 the, and Pivotal, the history of the, that company that kind of VMware acquired that we were very much 407 00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:53,160 about pair programming, you know, two programmers working together on the same problem to, to implement 408 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,880 the best solution together, literally on the same computer. And then remote pair programming, 409 00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:02,360 you know, is doing that same thing, but across some kind of screen sharing and, and audio, 410 00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:07,400 video, video technology, and that worked well for years. And it's keep gotten, it's gotten better 411 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:12,680 and better over time, but something that's happened recently. And I think that COVID and we've talked 412 00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:18,440 about, you know, the, the flexibility people, not just want, but need people with kids at home, 413 00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:23,640 people with elderly parents, just the, the, the increased demands that the pandemic has put on 414 00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:29,960 people being at home. It has meant that, you know, people might have, there might be, people's schedules 415 00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:35,160 might be all over the place. And something that has been observed recently is that the, the idea of 416 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:39,880 mob programming, or some people call it like party programming, because mob can have sort of a negative 417 00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:46,040 connotation of, you know, you might have three or four people collaborating together on a problem. 418 00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:50,840 Maybe there's a really hairy problem and people are stuck or they can't decide on a solution. 419 00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:55,640 So they all join a programming session, four or five or more people all at the same time. And they're 420 00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:01,960 all working on the solution together. Some kind of in the backseat, suggesting things, other people, 421 00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:08,680 literally sharing a virtual keyboard, so to speak, writing code at the same time and the seamless 422 00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:15,160 nature of which you can kind of jump between pairs. And this is my, my last project. I was in this role 423 00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,600 a lot where I would just sort of rotate throughout the day, dropping in to other groups, helping unblock 424 00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:25,960 them if they were stuck or just kind of seeing what they were doing. And, and I can kind of jump in 425 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:31,560 and out of those scenarios a lot easier than I could if I was pulling up a physical chair and 426 00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:37,560 literally trying to L we were all, you know, bumping elbows or something like that. So that's something 427 00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:41,720 that we're getting two people that are in person to join a zoom. So you can go in, you know? 428 00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:46,040 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And echo and all that kind of stuff. So like the seamless nature of being able 429 00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:54,520 to jump between groups has been the sort of, it's been a nice benefit to everybody learning. I mean, 430 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:59,160 if there could be a benefit, it's everybody learning how to do that. And I think that that's going to be 431 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,360 something that it's going to stick around. Yeah. And I wonder about some of the foundational 432 00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:08,520 things too. Like is Joe on a cold winter's day, is Joe going to be a better software engineer because 433 00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:12,760 he's, you know, in his slippers and didn't just spend an hour in traffic. I think those are the types of 434 00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:18,920 things we're going to learn about as things that people start to make decisions about how and where 435 00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:21,240 they're going to work when things start to open back up again. 436 00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:27,880 Yeah. There's definitely a mental health benefit that comes with, with being at home in terms of 437 00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:32,360 sleep and time and stress, all those things. And sometimes just shutting stuff off, frankly. 438 00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,760 Yeah. And it depends on the nature of the task you have to do. 439 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,360 Yeah. I do not miss the New York City subway system one bit. 440 00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:44,120 Right. There's an interesting, you know, in this, you know, who knows what's really going to happen, 441 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:49,240 but I can imagine the converse to an extent of, you know, you know, Paul, you spent an hour in the 442 00:39:49,240 --> 00:39:53,960 New York City, you know, subway system one way or something like that. And when you get to the office, 443 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,800 you know, you might have an attitude of like, you know, darn it. I went through all this effort. 444 00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:03,560 I'm going to like, I'm not going to waste this day. Whereas, you know, Joe at home in his slippers, 445 00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:07,640 you know, not this Joe, some other Joe at home in his slippers on a cold winter's day, 446 00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:15,400 might find himself, you know, you're not quite as engaged, you know, as the roaring fireplace fire 447 00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:20,200 is going next to me. And, you know, there's a dog with its head on my lap. And, you know, 448 00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:27,400 am I really ready to like crush this like crazy algorithm I'm trying, trying to write? You know, 449 00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:33,000 I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if people stay as engaged for as long 450 00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:38,840 versus the stress that something like a commute, you know, might have, might have imposed. 451 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,840 If you're saying that people in New York are tougher than people in Colorado, I'll take it. 452 00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:46,920 Well, we're tough because we have to ski. 453 00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:55,880 Oh, well, on that note, it's really been a pleasure to speak with both of you. Thank you so much for your 454 00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:02,520 time. And I also just want to mention that we have a bunch of resources on remote software development, 455 00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:08,760 tips on, on remote work. And I'll be sure we post those in the show notes. So thanks again. 456 00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:14,360 Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. 457 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:44,340 Thank you.