“If anyone is remote, you’re all remote.” At Atomic Object, we value co-located teams. But not every team member can always be co-located. Larger project teams may have members from multiple offices. Some projects might involve working closely with other vendors. I experience this “remoteness”…

Based on my 10+ years experience of working remotely, I agree 100% with this article. My observation has been that distributed teams work well when the majority of the team is remote. It makes written communication inevitable. However when I was the only remote person in a team of 4 or more people, I felt left out. Conference calls with everybody else on one side and me on the other were quite frustrating. I missed out on the informal watercooler talk and conversations in the team office. I never felt that remote work works well in an asymmetric situation.

On the other hand, I think every team benefits from clear written communications. Having a remote team enforces this best practice where having a co-located team lets communication practices slip and become sloppy.

Link: Remote-First Communication for Project Teams via spin.atomicobject.com