YDS: Is Remote Work Coming to an End with Google?

Is Remote Work Coming to an End with Google? Let's explore the options this situation presents. All of this and more are discussed in today's episode of Your Daily Scrum with Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley.

Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley built this course to help those interested in Scrum get up and running quickly using the Framework. They've partnered with Daria Bagina from ScrumMastered to bring practical materials and guides to the course.

Todd and Ryan also co-authored a book - Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems.

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[MisterAwesan]

I don't mind the office every now and again but I will never work fully in office again willingly. If my boss forces me I'll start looking for another job that respects me.

[Daerdor]

My Team has been mainly working remote for +10 years, with some people even +20 years.
We are spread out in different countries and people live too far away from the Offices which makes it impractical to come there.
When covid hit, it was for us 'business as usual'. A big improvement however is that since then we are actively using webcams.
We are in contact daily through the Scrum events, have calls to discuss development, pair bugfixing etc.
I can honestly say our remote Team works like a charm, there is no need to be physically together in the same room.

For me personally, working from home saves me a 2hr commute per day and brings a much healthier work/life balance.
The few days I go to the office are rarely productive since we all start having small talk :)

[ckmahato]

Agree to Ryan. So much was explored and loved from WFH.

[Elmusiico]

I have to be back at the office soon and none of my colleagues are in the office where I have to report to. I will go to the office to work remote.

[veccher]

between remote, on office and hybrid, i actually think "hybrid" is the worse option, you go to office but end spending most of the time in calls with people that couldn't go to the office, there's no advantage of being in the office for this case, and having half people in the same room actually makes the conference worse, since you will inevitably hear some of the people multiple times. About productivity/team work, my team worked in office pre pandemic, it was good for bonding but was actually worse for productivity in our case since people stayed making jokes all day long nonstop, my office seemed like a lot of teenagers partying, i still think meeting in person is important for bonding and our company promotes meetings every now and then (they even pay to bring people that live in other cities), but our only expectations on these cases are bonding, usually there's no producing at all.

About my expectations to the future, i also expect bosses to try to bring office back, but at least around here i see a really strong preference for remote from devs, with a lot saying the would quit if asked to go back to office, so i don't think office will won this war so easily

[amaphis]

My company is already doing the 3 day a week in office process, has been since January. One of the reasons they gave us was better team collaboration, even though most of our teams are multi-city distributed teams therefore we are still meeting via zoom.

[jameslloyd]

Not sure if the guys already did this, but would have loved to hear which is "better": office scrum or remote scrum? Also, does effective scrum negate a lot of the management's concerns around remote working?

[paulcasanova]

"It's today!" - never a truer word said Ryan! 😅
I think you've hit the nail on the head: economics is what will drive people back to the office. We had a Melbourne property developer a year ago declaring that CEOs who permitted their staff to continue working remotely, were parasites! 🤯
The reality is that business operating costs would be reduced if orgs exited their office leases and went fully remote, but that would collapse CBD real estate markets I guess.
Interestingly, there's no content on main stream media about the benefits to the environment from reduced commuting for the past 2 years 🤔
And as you said Ryan, the home life benefits have been immense. I'd like to see remote continue.

[DerekMahlitz]

I think post pnademic will offer more options for remote work so its up to us

[randidolan]

I love working from home. But, now that we're going back to the office a few days a week, I really do feel like my team works together better. It's easier to have conversations in person than online. My team would hardly ever turn their cameras on when on a Teams call. I think seeing people makes a big difference in communication. So, as much as I would prefer to never leave my house to go to work, I think it's good for our team.

[tomaszniemiec]

Companies look at Google, Netflix, Spotify as the guidance lights for what they do, so I can imagine that when Google moves into an office, more will follow. Interested in your perception on this.
If you asked me 3 years ago if a fully remote team can be efficient I would say NO, but the past few years have shown me that it is 100% doable - thanks to stuff like Slack, Miro/Mural (I love this tools) and so on....BUT probably the problem is scale....or is it.... I think everything can be managed remotely, it just might be expensive as some tools cost A LOT.

[CS-mqgd]

Hybrid is OK as long as I get to decide. Remote should be the norm though. I agree with the shame part if we go all-in on the office 5 days a week. Nobody needs that!

[krod]

I disagree that remote is not optimal. It's just the mindset of bosses that think this way. Remote is the future of software development work. Google is not a leader (idea software dev environment) any more. It used to be 10 years back.

[marymiller]

My environment is now hybrid although there are some exceptions. I think what works really depends on how technology is being used.

For example: going into the office is okay where I am. However, most of the people I work with are in different parts of the country. So, if I have a meeting, I am going to end up on a conference call anyway. The folks in my location are Scrum Masters and Project Managers who work on other initiatives. Being in person is good if you want to network with managers. Those accidental conversations can make it easier to move around. Although, if one went in (at least at the end of 2022), it still felt like a ghost town unless there was a meeting of Scrum Masters and Project Managers or some big event. The problem with remote is then everyone has so much time blocked off that scheduling a meeting is quite challenging.

Prior to the pandemic, a client organization already embraced hybrid. The way they did it worked. There were agreed upon days when people worked remotely vs. in office. It was set up in such a way that you never entered the building feeling like you entered a ghost town.

For a people focused organization, it can be "meh" at times. I think the problem here occurs if people think communication is happening on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is great for initiating a conversation, working out a time to talk, sharing an accomplishment, or sharing information. It's not so good as a medium to use when coaching people or finding out what is there for someone. Coaching and facilitation still needs to happen via voice (TEAMS, phone call, Zoom) or even in person.