I agree but isn't there always something wrong?
I'm in that spot, I worked mostly remote for the past 4 years and at every company it would have helped a lot to have a casual hallway conversation from time to time.
It shouldn't be necessary but in reality it often is. It seem to me like you need well thought out, light weight processes to make this work. I think it should work, but I never saw it working myself..
Text chat is a poor replacement to in-person conversation as it is occasionally async and a lot of meaning is lost. Video conference is better, but is less spontaneous and makes it harder to pull someone else into the conversation. Above all, text and video eliminate serendipity - I won't overhear the the conversation my colleagues are having about a pain-point I solved 2 days ago. I don't think channels on slack can ever replace this for me - following a text discussion takes my full attention, unlike people talking within earshot.
That is ridiculous. If you solved something like that, post it on some channel everyone is subscribed to, instead of trying to "overhear" problems people are having, not to mention you are willing to be distracted perpetually, listening for problems your colleagues might have...ridiculous.
Listen, I agree that this happens. But in my experience it happens so rarely that it does not outweigh all the negatives of having to drag a bunch of people to the office against their will day in, day out.
As for slack and such being a poor replacement to face to face, I'd say that it's because not all people are cut out for remote work. For me personally, I don't like it when somebody chats me up about things that are better suited for a slack (or even email) conversation. Things like getting the spec details buttoned down (which is actually the bulk of shop conversations, unless you're at a very early stage in your project) - you'd want to have a paper trail/reference to go back to once you start implementing. And remembering details from hallway conversations is hard, so you have to distract people from their work again or get blocked.
Making software that should integrate with a business (either as a product or internal tool) has different communication requirements. Also, developers tend to understand each other better than non developers understand them.
My experience with "open office" arrangements is that most of the conversation (important and casual) takes place in chats anyway--even between people sitting right next to eachother--because generally people don't want to distract uninvolved parties.
Sure they do. But you're going to miss adhoc conversations that people in the same physical location have. Remote people aren't left out on purpose, but many times this chatter doesn't warrant saying "Hold on, let's not talk to each other's faces. Better do this on Slack.".
Source: Worked remote for about four years, really missed these kinds of random chatter.
[1] My favorite post on the subject is Holman's: https://zachholman.com/posts/remote-first/
Even without that though, it's less about not being able to discuss things but more about not being 'casually included' in what is going on which leads to general misunderstandings.
I have never seen hallway conversations helping. Face to face, desk to desk conversations do indeed help, sometimes. In my case, according to my estimations, the time lost by not having those conversations (about 30-60 minutes per week) is very small compared to the time lost in: office distraction, office small talk, commuting(!), all the untold stuff you have to do to get ready for the office, nervous energy lost in all these, which easily sum up to 3-4 hours per day! So I can use part of the extra, say, 16 hours per week (that's like 2 work days!) that are free, to write detailed chats, e-mail, and pick up the phone.
Totally. Not to mention people getting sick during the flu season just because they can't work remotely due to the company policy.
