Working in distributed environment

Posted on 2 mins read

In the last years I worked mainly in distributed environment, with a company based in Milan (Italy), We have a development group distributed along the nation, and I would share my opinion and experiences about such a particular environment. First of all I wish to enlist the good and bad thing based on this experience.

Good:

  1. I work mainly at home, no need to get machine to go to work, I do no waste time in physically  move my person to an office, my house is my office.

  2. I work with less distraction, I can play my music when I want to listen music, I can work in completely silence when I’m in the middle of a debugging session.

  3. You are not forced to change the place you live to work, it is important because even if I often work for 11-12 hours day, when I stop working I can see my friend, play guitar with my group, being near my parent and so on.

  4. You work in a personalized environment, If you like to have poster on the wall, three monitor, big desk, plants or cats around you it is difficult to have them in an office, it is important to work in a pleasant environment.

Bad:

  1. working at home makes sometimes you feel alone, in an office you can smile, talk with other, make a break for a coffe, when you work in a room alone you only work. You are more productive, but sometimes being in touch with real humans it is a good thing.

  2. It is more difficult to have a strong feeling with the group, we are all friends, but listening people with skype is different from talking directly with them.

  3. It is more difficult to share ideas, when you are in the same room it is simpler to draw sketch on paper, discussing about the architecture and other thing.

  4. you need to make particular care in communication, because there is the risk of lack of communication

Despite all these things I feel quite comfortable to work this way, I spent really few money on fuel, and last year I lived without a car :D it was really a strange thing, but I realized how the car is important only to go to work, and you can live without with no great problem.

alk.

Tags: distributed developement