Presentation: TweetBetter, Faster, Stronger

It's been a long time since I worked in a team that wasn't distributed. The Selenium team is spread throughout the world, with members in the UK, several states in the USA, India and Norway amongst others. My old team at Google once spanned the globe, with members in Sydney, London, Boston and New York. At Facebook, I work with teams in Menlo Park, Seattle and London. In this presentation, I'll share some stories of when working as part of a distributed team went horribly wrong, the lessons I learned, and how those have been applied in later projects. I'll present some of the patterns (and anti-patterns!) that have been used effectively to help keep the projects on track.

But work isn't just about writing code, it's also about enjoying what we do. How do you build a team culture across international boundaries? How do you create a sense of fun? So, as well as the dry lessons on working effectively, we'll also be covering how to bring some joy into the process too.