The main difference between working in a co-located or distributed environment is how we communicate together. Experiences show that miscommunication is always a part of any failure and good communication is the basic for all successful teams. Main success factors are:

• Built in flexibility
• Alignment on common goals and work culture
• Empowerment of the team
• Transparency of work being done

 Translating these into doables gives us the following prescript:

1. Communicate all decisions to everybody several times. It is never over-communicated
2. Make sure everyone has proper technical environment including good bandwidth, wireless Bluetooth headset and large screens at his location/home
3. Clearly define common collaboration time and when it is expected to be available. We define these as the golden hours when everybody can reach everybody.

• Plan long meetings outside of these hours

1. Record and share recorded important information
2. Reviews must be intensified (Code, Requirement, specifications etc.) to ensure both correctness of work and distribution of knowledge
3. Build rapport:

• Talk one to one and get to know each other, give special attention to new team members
• Build trust cross all contributors
• Use video communication as much as possible and not less than twice a week

1. Each team member working from home should

• Prepare herself as if she was going to office (including clothing)
• Sit in a quite place, preferably own room if possible
• Start at usual working hours if possible
• Take breaks at least each 50-60 minutes
• If there kids at home, consider working fewer hours in the day time and compensate for that in the evening
• Do not arrange private appointments during the agreed working hours
• Understand the cost of not asking a question. The longer time you wait the higher cost of delay we get