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2021 | Buch

The Voyage Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Building and Managing High-Performance Distributed Teams

Navigating the Future of Work

verfasst von: Alberto S. Silveira Jr.

Verlag: Apress

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

The age of the distributed team is upon us. Teams can now operate and collaborate from locations other than a central office, and events surrounding the 2020 COVID pandemic have thrown its practicality into sharp relief. Managing a team whose members are distributed across several locations requires a different mindset and will remain a must-have for all areas of business from this point forward.

Building and Managing High-Performance Distributed Teams explains what the distributed teams concept means to the future of your company. Author Alberto S. Silveira Jr. leverages his industry knowledge to explore why the high-performance distributed team model is vital to the future of business, and explains how to build and maintain one through times of change. You will learn to differentiate between distributed teams, remote work, offshoring, and what each means in a modern context. Silveira also weaves in stories from his other life as a boater and sailor, using analogies and lessons gained from humankind’s thousands of years of maritime adventure to illustrate the value of well-managed teams, and to also convey the importance of life-work balance in today’s working world.

The book analyzes team management strategies from some of the great successes and failures in recent years so that you can learn from the experiences of others. Building and Managing High-Performance Distributed Teams is your definitive guide for building a dynamic distributed team, using collaboration technology to attract and engage the most important element of any business—your people. Whether you are a department head, a business owner, or a team leader, this book presents the no-nonsense knowledge you need now to chart your course for success.

What You Will Learn

Understand what the new era of connected business means, and the role distributed teams will play.Differentiate between distributed teams, remote work, nearshore, and offshoring, and what each means to modern business.Discover the true heart of a high-performance distributed team (hint: it’s not the technology).Find out what the era of distributed teams means to existing infrastructure.Uncover what we can learn about team management from some of the great successes and failures of recent years.Appreciate the techniques honed by seafarers, pilots, and software designers combined to create a successful project plan for team management and company navigation.Comprehend the effective simplicity of the “power of three” in building successful teams.Apply proven techniques of measurement and metrics without leaving the human factor behind to improve team morale and productivity.

Who This Book Is For

Team leaders or officers of small-ish companies, with populations in the tens through to the mid-hundreds. It’s also for managers of somewhat autonomous departments within larger companies, and for everyone else in the boat because everyone in a company ultimately needs to know what being in a distributed team is all about.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

The Passion for the Voyage

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. The Voyage
Abstract
For centuries there has been a maritime tradition that when sailors cross the Equator for the first time, they undergo an initiation ceremony. The nature of the ceremony varies from country to country, but suffice to say, the crossing of this vital line of navigation is a meaningful symbol of progress for each crew member. It forms part of the ritual of team bonding for a crew that works hard, as a unit, on a ship. It is something that is overseen by any captain that understands the power of a tightly knit crew, and it signifies a literal crossover into new waters.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 2. My Own Voyage Across the Equator
Abstract
I have spent most of my life thus far as an engineer, specifically a software engineer. I love the profession and its traditions. I even love the word engineer. It has the air of someone who knows—or wants to know—where all the parts go and who has an affinity for the way they move and come alive, whether those parts are mechanical or digital—cogs or code. Everything is an engine of some sort.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 3. Offshore, Inshore, Nearshore, Remote, and Distributed
Abstract
The terms that describe the ways people work off-site are sometimes used interchangeably and incorrectly. Developing an accurate and effective distributed teams model starts with clear definitions.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 4. Seeking the North Star
Abstract
If you get a chance to take some time to look at the night sky, when the air is clear and there are no clouds and especially when there is no moon, you will see a blanket of stars—an awe-inspiring display. The further you get from the lights of a city, the more it reveals to you. It is a truly amazing experience when you get to see the Milky Way for the first time, a hazy but unmistakable cloud that is our actual galactic neighborhood. In these dark nights, some of the stars actually reveal their colors—faint hints of blue, green, gold, or red.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 5. Finding Balance Through the Rule of Three
Abstract
Before there was celestial navigation, there was the rule of marteloio, a technique applied by medieval mariners that essentially used compass markings and basic trigonometry to plot location and direction. This was an early version of triangulation, a term of wayfinding that takes readings from three known points to calculate location or distance. These are not old techniques lost forever in the mists of history. The mechanics behind the GPS app on your phone or the navigation system in your car is all about triangulation. It calculates your location by reading signals from a field of satellites parked in orbit around the Earth. It only needs to read the signals from three of these satellites to do the same thing medieval sailors did with compasses and sextants. Wherever you are on Earth, there are GPS satellites visible for your device to use.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.

Setting Sail

Frontmatter
Chapter 6. Building a Distributed Team Organization
Abstract
I love to crew on large sailboats—40 feet or larger. I like specifically to sign on as a crew member and participate in regattas. One that I regularly return to takes place off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea. This is an exciting place to sail. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea and has Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania on its eastern edge and Italy to the west.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 7. The Importance of Measurement and Metrics
Abstract
All projects and teams need processes and measurements. The quote “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” has been used for decades in business management philosophy. It, along with variations of this quote, has been associated with W. Edwards Deming, who was one of the predominant thinkers and innovators in the fields of twentieth-century engineering and quality management.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 8. Streamlining the Collaboration Process
Abstract
There comes a time in the life of every company or team where things either start to fly apart or at least threaten to. Keeping a team together and riding through this particular type of storm is dependent in great measure on the abilities of the leader to anticipate such challenges, identify the best route forward, and use data and metrics as a guide.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 9. Empowering Team Members to Seek the North Star
Abstract
Building and managing a successful distributed team requires more than communication technology and time management skills. This is also about dealing with a group of people who are physically separate from each other and who need to coexist socially and emotionally. They need to be aware of their company’s North Star as individuals and as a community, and they need to be empowered and feel motivated to constantly follow and contribute to it. The mechanical aspects described in the previous chapter go a long way toward making this possible, of course, but I feel that streamlined collaboration goes at least one step further than this. Streamlined collaboration means making life easier. It establishes and reinforces the process for people to communicate most effectively, so that they genuinely feel part of a community. Remote means being cut off from the main social body; distributed means the social body is the collective of all the distanced members.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 10. Opening the Net: Building a Distributed Team
Abstract
I work in Manhattan, and I live reasonably close by, in the suburbs—Westchester, to be exact. You would think that working in one of the largest and most exciting cities in the world would mean that finding great talent to join a team would be easy. But it’s not, and there’s more than one reason why.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.

Staying Shipshape

Frontmatter
Chapter 11. The Importance of Tracking Mood
Abstract
Some will say it’s not possible for a body of water to display human attributes like anger or joy, but anyone who has spent any time on the water knows it is indeed capricious and full of personality and spirit. How could it not be? It is also full of life, and we humans are 70 percent water. We share an ancient connection that goes far beyond mere sight and touch.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 12. Your Choice of Words Matters
Abstract
There’s a big difference between using buzzwords and establishing a proactive common terminology. In boating, for example, ropes are called lines, sails are called sheets, and of course the left and right sides of any vessel are referred to as port and starboard, respectively.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 13. The Power of Repetition
Abstract
It is extremely important to factor in repetition to a culture; in fact, you really can’t have one without the other. It is the recurrence of activities, words, and principles that forms a culture. Humans crave regularity and consistency. These elements reinforce people’s sense of safety by staying as a known commodity, and they strengthen social bonds.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 14. Developing a Continuous Mindset
Abstract
Many managers and productivity experts like to use the term best practices to describe an ideal that people should aspire to. I understand the spirit behind that term, but I personally don’t like to use it with my teams because it’s not continuous enough.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 15. Learning from Mistakes
Abstract
I was crewing in a regatta once where we failed big time. We failed, not because of any physical defect in the boat or its gear or even because of the weather. We didn’t even fail because of the other teams’ superior strength or talent, but because we made a mistake in not identifying and recovering properly from a team misalignment in communication.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Chapter 16. Setting Sail: Outfitting for Distributed Teams
Abstract
As we have seen throughout this book, when you work as a crew member on a boat, the working conditions must be optimized. Cleanliness and order are vital. Every piece of equipment must be clean, stored, and ready. This is what the term shipshape means, by the way. If you have ever used that term to describe an office or a project that is in good order, you are using a nautical term that has been used for centuries, to describe a vessel that is ready to go to sea.
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Building and Managing High-Performance Distributed Teams
verfasst von
Alberto S. Silveira Jr.
Copyright-Jahr
2021
Verlag
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4842-7055-4
Print ISBN
978-1-4842-7054-7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7055-4

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