ruby and virtual teams

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Ruby and Virtual Teams

Jim Mulholland

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Who is doing this?

Jim Mulholland

• Distributed teams (often global)• Telecommuters• Full spectrum of team roles

• Developers• Designers• Project managers• Knowledge workers• Stakeholders (management and clients)

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Priority #1Audio (and Video) Conferencing

Jim Mulholland

Can you hear me now?- Verizon Guy

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We Use: FreeConferenceCall.com

Jim Mulholland

• Great for ad-hoc meetings• Free unlimited conference calling• Users pay their own long distance• Great for domestic teams• Not so great for global teams

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Most of Us Use: Skype

Jim Mulholland

• Cheap international calls using VOIP• Call quality varies with connection• Conference calling with both PC-to-PC and landline users

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Priority #2Communication

Jim Mulholland

What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't

like it any more than you men.

- Captain from Cool Hand Luke

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We Use: Gmail For Your Domain

Jim Mulholland

• Easy and FREE personalized email: “me@mydomain.com”• Great for asynchronous messaging• Not so great for realtime communication

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We Use: Camp!re (37 Signals)

Jim Mulholland

• Very easy to use web based chat• Archive and search historical messages• Messages from many service hooks (Git, Capistrano, Twitter)

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Other Communication Tools

Jim Mulholland

• IM (Google Talk, MSN Messenger, iChat, etc)• Great for realtime• Not so great for multiple users• Di!cult for sharing "les• Messages are often not durable (not guaranteed the person on the

other end will see it if not at their PC)

• IRC (Internet Relay Chat)• Great for nerds (popular with open source projects)• Not so great for everyone else

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Priority #3Project Management

Jim Mulholland

I love deadlines, I especially like the SWOOSHING sound they make as they fly past

- Douglas Adams

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We Use: Redmine

Jim Mulholland

• Open Source• Issue tracking• Release management• Git / Svn repository integration• Wikis, forums, document management, oh my!

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Other Project Management Tools

Jim Mulholland

• Basecamp• Trac (Open Source)• Lighthouse• Unfuddle

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Priority #4Sharing Your Work

Jim Mulholland

People say New Yorkers can't get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine.

- David Letterman

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We Use: Git / GitHub

Jim Mulholland

• Git -- Distributed version control• GitHub - Makes it easy to host and maintain Git repositories

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Other Sharing Tools

Jim Mulholland

• Subversion• Google Docs

• Mostly Microsoft O!ce Compatible• Real-time collaboration• Documents• Spreadsheets• Presentations (that's how we made this slide deck)

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Priority #5Tracking Time

Jim Mulholland

If YOU'RE here and I'M here, isn't really OUR time?

- Jeff Spicoli Fast Times at Ridgemont High

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We Use: TickStart

Jim Mulholland

• Track Time• Reporting / trending• Invoice / payroll calculations

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Other Time Tracking Tools

Jim Mulholland

• Full Featured (Time / Invoicing / ect)• QuickbooksOnline• FreshBooks• HarvestApp• CashboardApp

• Time Focused• SlimTimer• Toggl

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Also To Consider(Not required but highly recommended)

Jim Mulholland

Ensure that the Asian guy on your team who wants to "nd his roots in China for 4 months works in your local timezone.

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Resources

Jim Mulholland

FreeConferenceCall: http://freeconferencecall.comSkype: http://skype.comGmail For Your Domain: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/index.htmlCamp"re: http://www.camp"renow.com/Redmine: http://www.redmine.orgBasecamp: http://www.basecamphq.com/Trac: http://trac.edgewall.org/Lighthouse: http://lighthouseapp.com/Unfuddle: http://unfuddle.com/Git: http://git.or.cz/GitHub: http://github.comSubversion: http://subversion.tigris.org/Google Docs: http://docs.google.com/#allTickStart: http://tickstart.comQuickbooksOnline: http://quickbooksonline.comFreshBooks: http://www.freshbooks.com/HarvestApp: http://getharvest.com/CashboardApp: http://www.getcashboard.com/SlimTimer: http://slimtimer.comToggl: http://toggl.com/

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Thanks!

Jim Mulholland

Drop me a line: jim@squeejee.com

Web: http://squeejee.comBlog: http://locomotivation.comCode: http://github.com/squeejee http://github.com/mully

Twitter: mully