It really depends on the communication styles of people. I had a manager I loved that would drop by every few days and just ask “how’s it going”? Then I’d fill him in. It was fun and low key and highly productive.
Also had managers that were basically invisible but kept a great crap umbrella for us. Loved them too. Ended up working a ton and getting enormous amounts of work done because trust and autonomy are huge.
I think the worst situations are when managers are too insecure to be honest with direct reports. That’s decidedly uncool and super ineffective.
Also, it seems managers get so overloaded that 1 on 1s and stand ups end up being mostly a waste of time because it’s too hard to remember all the little details.
So remote or in office isn’t really the issue. In my view, remote is superior due to productivity, flexibility and happiness, but it does require everyone to do regular video chats and pair programming.
Ironically, the in office folks have the hardest time with this because they feel they need to get up from their desk and find an overly booked conference room as you mentioned.
Simple solutions are context dependent, but could be along the lines of a) work remote if you have the discipline, b) asynchronous slack based standups, c) report status as you go in your tickets, d) every day or two peers and managers sync up 1 on 1 or in person depending on their preference, e) have clear goals as a company and a team, f) have good technical product people writing 1-3 day user story tickets including completed designs if it’s ui work, g) have good tech leads writing 1-3 day technical improvement task tickets, h) vote as a team on contentious technical decisions, then disagree and commit, i) generally chill out a bit and let work be enjoyable.
At least that’s a start...
