Perceived Pros and Cons
Perceived pros and cons (light opinions) on remote collaboration
Pros
- Remote collaboration dramatically improves the life quality of those who cannot afford to live close to their office.
- It has a positive impact on the environment by reducing travel related co2 emissions
- A well established format work well equally for low resource environment as the overall organisational cost can be reduced by not having to deal with on site expense
- Distributed team format attracts people from different time zones or those who work best with flexible working hour arrangement.
- This can lead to innovative way to establish social interactions and social dynamics in general
- It will help us learn about more colleagues from different parts of the world and make us more educated about our cultural differences and how to accommodate in our work environment
- It will make it convenient to have decision making efficiently by involving every stakeholders irrespective of their locations, given the meeting is done in a mutually convenient time
As someone who used to commute 4 hours per day for 12 years, I can sum my experiences in two words: remote working reduces inequality. Pablo Rodríguez-Sánchez (GitHub: PabRod)
Cons
- Developing camaraderie might be a bit challenging - as we are used to developing those within in-person relationships.
- It would be hard to separating working hours from the time that should be used for personal life and relationships.
- If running an online meeting, allocated time might not be enough for arriving to a conclusion and may sometime lead to misinterpretation of decisions made by the team.
- Conflict resolution maybe difficult if most interactions happen in an allocated time slot.
- Sometimes such interactions may lack body language, or tone (online chat) and may lead to misunderstanding or unnecessary conflict.
- May lose the possibility of chanced interaction or water-cooler-effects and innovative ideas that they results.
- People will have different working condition, for example, limited access to hardware, that can lead to wrong assumptions regarding replication of certain task
- May lead to distractions if working from a busy co-working space or home with not sufficient arrangement for work that can make it difficult for some people to focus and have disciplined work practices.