TechEd 2014: Building and managing a global engineering team made simple

Evans said that when it comes to working with separate teams of engineers most of the time it comes down to communication and documentation.

"As you grow, communications gets more complex. There are a lot of different tools out there, but engineers will have their own opinions on what they want to use. Run a couple of different tools at the same time, and allow them to make their own decisions on what they want to use. Let them run with it. You also have to enable discussions and ideas that happen by serendipity, both online and offline.

"This has to be supported by documentation. I don't mean technical documentation, but a record where people can refer to about who to ask, where to find answers and explanations for processes that exist in the firm. All good documentation comes from the idea that there is a question at heart. And keep incorporating questions and answers constantly," said Evans.

Liberally peppering his talk with examples from his time working at Xero, he encouraged managers to give engineers time to work on their own projects, while protecting them from distractions and meetings that can affect their productivity.

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