Working Across Multiple Time Zones: Tools and Strategies That Help Connect

Working Across Multiple Time Zones: Tools and Strategies That Help Connect – I’m not working in a distributed team yet, but we are already using some of the tools mentioned here.

John Schnatter on management

I don’t think you can control people. I don’t think you manage people. I think you give people a direction, you give them the resources, you lead by example. That goes from top to bottom, then I think people will manage themselves, they will motivate themselves.

John Schnatter, the founder and current CEO of Papa John’s International Inc.

Management by wandering around

Management by wandering around

The term management by wandering around (MBWA), also management by walking around, refers to a style of business management which involves managers wandering around, in an unstructured manner, through the workplace(s), at random, to check with employees, or equipment, about the status of ongoing work. The emphasis is on the word wandering as an impromptu movement within a workplace, rather than a plan where employees expect a visit from managers at more systematic, pre-approved or scheduled times. The expected benefit is that a manager, by random sampling of events or employee discussions, is more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of organisational purpose, productivity and total quality management of the organization, as compared to remaining in a specific office area and waiting for employees, or the delivery of status reports, to arrive there, as events warrant in the workplace.

Who knew that was a thing?

On managing Linux kernel development

The Linux kernel is one of the largest collaborative software projects in the history of the world and has almost nothing in the way of formalized management structure. We have people who have a strong operating systems background who have been contributing code, and then we have people like me. I have a background in fruit fly genetics and yet someone lets me get close to the Linux kernel; this seems wrong. And then we have people who are genuinely kids in their bedroom. It’s a miracle it works as well as it does. We should be astonished that we’re able to get it so right so much of the time.

Matthew Garrett