[netjiro]

I've run distributed projects for a long time. Distributed is significantly more efficient for most situations. The main benefits can be gained in an on site environment as well, but is culturally difficult to implement since on site organisations are already encumbered by ancient hierarchies, egos, communication and decision patterns, etc.

In my experience it's easy to convince top management or company owners/investors, but difficult to get middle management on board. Especially since the requirement for middle management in a distributed project is near zero.

When moving to wfh:

- move to asynchronous, shared, transparent communication. Don't use email.

- trust your people to know what to do, give them more autonomy and responsibility.

- stay in touch, but make sure it's on dev-schedule not management-schedule.

- help your people to eliminate all annoying friction wherever possible. Good audio, soundproofing, temporary walls for their house, good desk, chair, etc. Grocery delivery, child care, errands, and so on. This stuff is cheap compared to lack of time and focus for your devs.

[riskymagemerge]

You mentioned middle management do not normally add value to remote development. How would you fix this? Besides removing the layer :-) is there any model where they could add value?

[netjiro]

Traditionally middle managers are added to facilitate coordination. Today we can expect more of our people, and we have great tools. When moving towards higher autonomy and transparent shared communication most of the coordination and communication traditionally done by middle management is no longer required, and will instead run p2p between the devs while being shared and documented on the asynchronous shared communications platform (not email!).

Many middle managers have been moved into that layer from technical roles. They are often happy to return to more technical work.

In my projects I don't use a middle layer. I have the technical people who have the core scientific/development/production skills and I have a final decision layer of those who by reality have the final say over how money is spent and which goals to prioritise.

This has worked very well up to about 50ppl with exceptionally low overhead. That said, would not try this with people I can't trust. But I would never hire people I can't trust.