
How I manage 40 people remotely - ryancarson
http://ryancarson.com/post/24884883426/how-i-manage-40-people-remotely
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rwmj
You don't manage 40 people, even on site.

However my manager gets along managing me and 5 other employees, all remote,
no problem. We have a weekly group call and an individual call every one or
two weeks, and we supply a monthly email giving brief details what we did over
the month (no more than 20 or 30 lines). The rest of the time we chat on IRC
and by email as necessary. We meet together once or twice a year, usually
combining that trip with some other event such as a conference to reduce the
number of extra airfares.

~~~
jvehent
Feeling lonely yet ?

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rwmj
Do you only have friends at work?

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eitally
I manage 85 people (~15% of our global IT organization) in 9 countries and 14
times zones, but size doesn't matter. The ability to build a trust
relationship, hire & develop talent successfully, and delegate well are what
matter most. Face-to-face meetings are still valuable, but choosing the right
tools for videoconferencing (Skype, Gtalk Google+ Hangouts, etc), screen-
sharing (Hangouts, Screenleap), collaboration (Google Apps), and Project/code
management (SVN, JIRA, Confluence, Google Docs, Balsamiq) are more important.

Pro-tip: focus on hiring the right person for the right role, not just the
best-person-you-can-find-but-you-don't-have-a-good-fit-spot-for-them, and
outsource things that are not core competencies (perhaps SEO & marketing,
perhaps UI/UX, perhaps even mobile dev). Use common sense and treat people
respectfully. Make providing an enriching workplace and a good work/life
balance part of your mission statement.

~~~
ryancarson
I was nodding my head in agreement until you suggested outsourcing your UI/UX.
That's basically outsourcing your core product (presuming your product is
delivered via screen).

I'd never do that.

~~~
rfrey
We don't know what business the GP is in. If somebody is in an IT department
that supports the core business, rather than _is_ the core business, doing
things like reporting applications, internal enterprise apps, etc... is the UX
still the core product?

If you're making a maintenance team scheduling app for an oilfield service
company, and you outsource the UX and save hiring on a team of
Javascript/HTML5 devs that would have little work afterward, isn't that
rational?

~~~
eitally
I'm in an IT department that primarily supports the core business. The UX is
an afterthought in a tight margin industry and we generally settle for "it
works and isn't too confusing". I'm not happy about that, but it is what it
is. <banghead>

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jperras
I work at a company of twelve (Fictive Kin, whom you might remember from Gimme
Bar and LeakedIn that were on the front page last week), and every single
employee is a remote employee. We have people on the US East coast, Canadian
East coast, US West Coast, Central USA, the UK and Denmark. So when you factor
in time zones, varying civic/religious holidays and the fact that many of us
attend and/or speak at conferences around the world, you'd think that team
"management" would be a nightmare.

As it turns out, it's not that bad at all.

Having everyone working remote is actually a blessing - it means that all of
our processes are optimized for an asynchronous workflow. We use a private IRC
server for all internal communications, email for conversations that need to
be a bit less ephemeral, a tracker for our various projects (Pivotal, in this
case) that need attention, Dropbox for file transfers and wireframes/mockups,
Google Docs for spreadsheet-y things, Google Hangouts and Skype for
video/audio communication, and our organization Github timeline for all things
code-related.

Additionally, we try to keep the management overhead to a minimum: Weekly
company calls on Fridays where we discuss internal dev/design things that
happened over the week and what movies we saw or what level our Diablo
characters are at, and then project-specific calls as needed during the week.
All but the all-hands call on Fridays are optional; if you don't have anything
to say, then you just don't join the call. We also try to get together for a
more face-to-face gathering once a quarter, and try to pick a fun and
convenient city in the world to meet in.

It's not black magic. It just takes good people and some minimal async-focused
processes for it to work. Hire bad people, stuff goes bad. Implement too many
synchronous (read: obligatory meetings, calls, timesheets, status reports,
etc.), and stuff goes bad.

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jonstjohn
Good summary of tools, but would love to hear more about the process
challenges. Tools are obviously just a small part of the challenge.

~~~
ryancarson
Good idea - I'll try to blog about that soon.

~~~
jonstjohn
Cool, thanks Ryan. I currently work remotely for a small company and lead a
4-person team. We use some of the tools that you mention and a handful of
others to accomplish essentially the same thing. I think figuring out the
tools is a big deal for a lot of companies going fully or partially remote,
but after those are figured out, there still seems to be a very different
management/process angle that I haven't seen addressed much. Definitely
enjoyed reading about the tools, as well, though.

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cphillips
Interesting article with some ideas I'll try to push at my company, but I
think the title is a bit misleading and could potentially cause people who
follow much of what is good advice to end up with big problems.

My problem is with the word "I manage 40 people remotely". Almost no one can
manage 40 people themselves, probably no one can do it well. It sounds instead
that you "run a company of 40 people remotely through managing seven people
remotely". I got seven from the department heads meeting you described.)

Of those seven people you directly manage, how many of them are in the same
location of their direct reports? It sounds like you have an office manager in
Orlando who manages a good sized group of people. What percentage of your
employee's work in that office. Because if its a high percentage, then a large
part of your true solution on how to manage 40 people remotely is to hire
someone who manages them locally.

That's the way I think it could be read and that distracts greatly from the
other interesting tools and processes you discussed.

~~~
ryancarson
Only two of the Managers lead teams that are in their same physical location.

Our VP Sales and Chief Product Officer manage all remote people.

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rubeng
Ryan: I'd love to hear specifics about the problems you're encountering with
being remote at this size?

I have a remote team and we're growing but I would like to stay that way for
as long as we can so I'm interested in hearing about some of the specific
issues.

~~~
ryancarson
Great suggestion. I'll add it to my list of blog post ideas. Thanks!

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pdenya
"My goal is to slowly gather Team Members in our Portland office but leave our
Video Production and Teaching in Orlando (it’s affordable there and the office
is established, so no need to move it). Alan, my Chief Product Officer, is
moving his family to Portland as well so we can work together daily."

So is the eventual goal to just have several different offices but no remote
workers?

~~~
ryancarson
No, we'll always have remote Team Members. It allows us to hire the best
people in the country.

We'll just have a concentration in Portland and Orlando.

~~~
davidw
> Portland and Orlando

Completely off topic, but I always do a bit of a double take when I realize
that from Florida, Portland is a _lot_ farther away than, say Bogotá or
Caracas. I guess you get used to looking at US maps without any context as a
kid.

~~~
noonespecial
Yes, but those 40 feet through US customs all too often turns out to be a long
trip indeed.

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MitziMoto
Thanks for sharing!

I'm just about to start a full-remote schedule at the job I've had for 7
years. I'm extremely nervous about my future with the company. I work for a
big, older tech company where remote working is an afterthought, not ingrained
in the culture like Treehouse.

We're moving from Massachusetts to Tampa, FL to pursue a job opportunity for
my wife (She's an attorney). I am extremely lucky to have been approved by the
corporate chain to continue my responsibilities remotely.

Who knows, if it doesn't work out with them, maybe a job at Treehouse is in my
future!

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daleharvey
I wrote about working remotely a bit more from the employees perspective @
<http://arandomurl.com/2011/09/03/working-remotely.html>

Since I wrote that post I joined Mozilla as the only employee out of Scotland
and I feel like I need to write the post again, Mozilla are superb at dealing
with remote employees which I am sure comes from the foundations as an open
source project.

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tzaman
Never heard of Trinet before but it's definitely a tool to consider.

~~~
sudonim
Most outsourced HR has a lower bound for number of employees. I've seen them
as low as 4 but they really don't like that and don't make any money. You
should switch to one as soon as you can. It's a silly amount of paperwork for
each employee, but all of the administrative stuff they do (including getting
you healthcare plans) isn't something you should be doing in house.

~~~
lazerwalker
Even if you don't care about getting to outsource the administrative overhead,
the healthcare alone may be worth it. Since they're negotiating as a very
large company, they can offer _significantly_ better plans than you would be
able to by negotiating with providers as a small startup.

~~~
mkramlich
This is why I want a national healthcare service. Let's all form one giant
company, one big single pool, for health insurance purposes.

~~~
pcopley
I'm assuming you're in the US, and this is not at all what the ACA does (which
is the closest approximation to a US version of NHS).

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apollo5
@ryan - great tool suggestions!

This process has been on the forefront of my mind quite a bit lately, as I am
growing my company, Canyon Oak Partners (SEO/PPC/Design/Dev) and a supporting
SEO Audit software offering (its in private beta).

At this point, the most important facet I wish to grow is the sales team. My
partners and I are discussing the need and pros/cons of getting an office, as
we all work remote right now. We also gather at my home (I have a spare
bedroom as my office and we set up around the rest of the place) a couple days
a week.

Our thoughts lean toward the social energy an office brings, but I love not
spending the money on an office.

Do you have any advice on managing a remote sales team?

~~~
ryancarson
My VP Sales manages his Team, which is now up to four people. I don't directly
manage the Sales Team.

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wallawe
Ryan, I noticed from past posts of yours that you are probably a very family
oriented guy. Just wanted to get your perspective on moving you and your
family half way across the globe. I myself am considering moving a good
distance from my family (parents and siblings, I'm not married yet) and I
wanted to get your advice on big moves.

------
jsilence
This is the guy Arthur Clarke has been talking about fourty years ago.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIRZebE8O84>

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hansc
Great article! I guess this all start with good hiring. If the people you are
good, then this works great. If you skimp on this: you are in trouble.

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pastaking
We've built a tool called TeamSnippets.com to help keep teams in sync - I
believe it works extra well for remote teams.

On an interval you like, we send out an email to each team member reminding
them to write a status update of what they've been working on. Everyone's
status updates are gathered into a summary email sent out the next day.

We're in our free beta right now and would love some feedback. Give us a try
at <http://TeamSnippets.com>

~~~
rogerbinns
The problem I have with this sort of thing is it duplicates what is already
out there. Between my Github activity and Trello anyone can tell exactly what
I have been doing, and what I'll be doing next.

~~~
gilbertl
Every team is different and in the teams that I have worked in, Git commits
and Task Trackers don't usually contain the same type of information I present
in a standup.

Git commits are way too technical for non-engineers and task trackers either
have too much information (i.e debate on how to do X and Y) or too little
information (i.e just a simple task title).

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Iv
I don't know why outsourcing HR seems like a good idea for anyone. 40
employees, 100 bucks for each every month, that's the salary of an HR manager.

Don't do it yourself if it is not your focus, but don't outsource it. You need
someone in-house who can not only manage the administrative paper works but
also give you advices about what's best for your own company.

~~~
sudonim
The median salary for an HR Manager is $78,000 according to glass door
.[http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/hr-manager-salary-
SRCH_KO0...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/hr-manager-salary-
SRCH_KO0,10.htm)

You're looking at 65 employees at $100 a month to make that pay off.

For most companies between 4 and 65 people, outsourcing HR is a big headache
reducer. Having worked at companies with outsourced HR, I can tell you it's
not amazing, and it could be way better. But HR is a cost of doing business,
and not something you should be trying to do yourself as a young business.

~~~
shuzchen
Don't forget that the cost of an employee isn't just their salary. Insurance,
health, and other benefits all add up (I think I read somewhere up to 30%
more), not to mention that you now have another person to manage.

~~~
cbsmith
A funny thing too: having an HR manager tends to automatically increase this
cost. ;-)

NOTE: Not a strike against HR, just reflecting a reality that salary figures
for HR people probably disproportionately understate their overall cost. HR
people are much more unlikely to work at a company where the only compensation
is salary.

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raheemm
Just curious, why Portland?

~~~
hkarthik
I see a lot of folks fleeing the Bay Area to go to Portland.

Compared to SF, the cost of living is far more reasonable for experienced
folks that have or want to start a family.

The area is attractive with a lot of natural beauty, mild weather, and lots to
do.

SF is only a short plane ride away to meet with VCs and angels, and you're
still in the same time zone as them.

The business climate seems better and the government is pretty amiable for new
businesses.

The one thing it still lacks is diversity. Seattle and SF are still far better
in this regard.

~~~
pcopley
What type of diversity are you referring to? Is this really something that
factors into a decision about where to live?

I would think saying "I want to live somewhere where everybody is different
than me" is almost as bad as saying "I want to live somewhere where everybody
is the same as me"

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xxiao
I was told the remote team can be managed remotely should not exceed 6
employees, more than that you need a team leader or a local manager.

