I found it extremely interesting to read the conclusions in this study: Risks and risk mitigation in global software development: A tertiary study. This passage in particular.

the offshore context was more vulnerable to some traditional risks such as communication issues, poor change controls (scope creep), lack of business know-how, and failure to consider all costs. Communication in the offshore context can be especially risky due to the effect of language and cultural differences between the onshore client and offshore vendor: poor change control figures prominently in both contexts.

This is a paper from 2014, several years before the pandemic that forced companies to adopt a distributed model. Even in 2022, with all the restrictions lifted worldwide, 15% of Americans work fully remotely and only 55% work fully on-site. In 2023 a survey (Scoop, 2023) estimates that 8% of American companies work fully remotely and 23% more give full flexibility to employees. Obviously, the technological sector is the one with the highest flexibility. In 2021 GitLab debuted on NASDAQ and raised $650 million (Levy A.,2021) becoming the largest full remote company in the world with 1.200 team members in 65 countries (Sijbrandij, N.D.).

I have a broad experience in remote work. I worked remotely for the first time in 2013 as an offshore contractor, then as a full-time employee first with a hybrid model, then fully remotely, and now again I work fully remotely as an offshore contractor. I also have experience directing different types of offshore contractors.

I recognise all the risks mentioned by Verner et al., such as:

• Vendor’s poor infrastructure
• Lack of protection for intellectual property rights
• Problems because of differences in legal systems such as jurisdiction, patents, and International laws
• Language and cultural barriers
• Vendor country instability such as political instability, corruption, peace problems, terrorism threats and uncertainty relating to trade and investment can cause project difficulties
• Vendor’s behaves opportunistically
• Limited face-to–face meetings caused by geographic distance impact trust, decision quality, creativity, and general management
• Temporal and physical distribution increases complexity of planning and coordination activities, makes multisite virtual meetings hard to plan, causes unproductive waits, delays feedback, and complicates simple things
• Limited possibility for informal communication due to dispersion of sites
• Inability to communicate in real time) causes collaboration problems
• Lack of team cohesiveness causes problems as some members feel isolated from other team members

Some of these risks, with particular reference to legal risks relative to offshore contractors in different legal systems, are risks that are indeed taken into account during the recruitment phase. For example among the places where I worked, the airport of Amsterdam requires background checks that are incompatible with anyone who lives or has been living outside the EU in the latest eight years (including Dutch nationals), while the British fintech where I work now, self-imposed a EU+UK-only restriction to reduce exactly this kind of legal risks.

Problems such as poor infrastructure or isolation sound plausible, but I think they are rare, if not purely theoric risks.

Communication-related risks are real problems instead, but not for the reasons mentioned in the paper. I am familiar with most, if not all, the best practice suggested as a solution, such as:

• Deploy evaluations and reward structures which encourage group related behaviour, to create cohesion – individual rewards are not advised
• Prioritise face-to-face meetings to develop trust and shared identify easier and faster
• Use mentors to integrate new participants. The mentor is responsible for social adaptation and communication the project and group’s history and values

These are the way to address issues by the book and are certainly consolidated in a traditional work environment, but are very unlikely to be successful in a fully remote setup. The communication between team members changes dramatically while working remotely. There is the common assumption (also in Verner et al.) that communication slows down and becomes fragmented when the team is no more colocated, but this is not necessarily true.

During the peak of the pandemic, I was working in a “traditional” team that was very similar to the team I joined later when I moved to a fully remote company. If I compare the communication model in those two setups, there are major differences even if the profile of team members and the type of work were absolutely comparable.

When my “traditional” team was forced into full-time remote work, there was an explicit attempt to recreate remotely the same meetings and same routines we had in person. The management introduced an agile coach (a form or mentor mentioned in Verner et al.) to impose more structure. They chose an expert with MBA qualifications and a very traditional approach who started reorganising the communication and the work following best practices that caused quite a lot of confusion and frustration in that context.

With my fully remote team, traditional meetings did not exist at all. A traditional meeting with quick exchanges between participants and occasional interruptions does not work in a remote context where it is impossible to have natural and fluid exchanges in large groups. Most meetings become 1-to-1 and it is rare to be in more than 4 in the same call. Larger meetings are typically presentations with a 1-to-many model or report meetings with team members taking a turn to report events to the group.

Management changes dramatically as well. Since employees become invisible, it is essential to have trust, set clear goals, and measure outputs instead of attendance. With my “traditional” team it was very stressful to have a bad day and not be able to show progress in the daily standup meeting. I was constantly wondering if they would question my productivity. With my fully remote team, a bad day was never a problem and nobody ever felt guilty about taking a long break as long as they met their deadline. The management’s mindset of having employees “at their desk” is very radicated also in fully-remote contexts, but I started to see a shift now that the hybrid and full remote model proved to be valuable.

References

Levy A. (2021) GitLab jumps 35% in its Nasdaq debut after code-sharing company priced IPO above expected range. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/gitlab-jumps-in-nasdaq-debut-after-pricing-ipo-above-expected-range.html

Scoop (2023) Q1 2023 Flex Report. https://www.flex.scoopforwork.com/stats

Sijbrandij S. (N.D) History of GitLab. Available from https://about.gitlab.com/company/history/

Verner, M., Brereton, P., Kitchenham, A., Turner, M. & Niazi, M. (2014) Risks and risk mitigation in global software development: A tertiary study. Information and Software Technology 56(1):54–78. Available from https://www-sciencedirect-com.uniessexlib.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S0950584913001341