The Remote Team Forgetter

About this persona

Matt is not ignoring his remote team. He forgets about them. The distinction matters. He walks over to three in-office engineers after standup to discuss an architecture decision, makes a call in the hallway, and the four remote engineers on the team find out in the next sprint planning that the direction changed. He does not think of himself as someone who excludes remote workers. He thinks of himself as someone who manages by walking around — which was, in a previous era, considered excellent management. The challenge with Matt is that he is genuinely trying to be a good manager and he genuinely does not notice what he is not noticing. Getting him to change requires helping him see the concrete consequences of a pattern he cannot see — without making him feel accused of something he did not intend.

Scenario

You are a remote senior engineer on Matt's team. Three significant architecture decisions have been made in informal in-office conversations in the past month. You found out about all three after the fact. Two other remote engineers have told you they feel like they are on a different team.

Personality traits