And its trend was increasingly remote. Members sought this once and as they could, because it increased their effectiveness so much. (And lowered costs and total time demands -- e.g. commuting -- in positions that were already delivering far more than 40 hours / week.)
This team outperformed the other teams by a fair margin. And some of the truly remote members were among the most efficient and effective I've seen.
Throughout my career, I've seen very little evidence that physical presence -- colocation -- makes a significant positive contribution in software development. I am biased, I will say, in that I both prefer and need a quiet work environment. I feel validated or "justified" in this need, for me at least, in that I've consistently been one of the most effective employees in the organizations within which I've worked. (And I've had numerous people in all sorts of roles tell me this.)
I don't mind colocation, if quiet offices are provided. However, cubes or worse are largely de rigueur, these days, and even in such open space environments, I've witnessed not just the destructive nature of noise and interruptions, but depending upon the staff member enormous amounts of time wasted on "socializing" of various (very off-topic and sometimes inane) sorts. Doubly bad in that context, in that it invariably distracts surrounding employees who are trying to work. And it builds a conflict between not betraying teammates and one's own need to have them quiet down or take it elsewhere.
As for who tends to "thrive" in such environments? Those who "multi-task", juggling lots of things shallowly to the point of making many mistakes and oversights. Those who are constantly "interacting", meaning most often that they are interrupting someone else to solicit knowledge that they should have or be able to look up themselves. Those who use the concept of "team" to disperse and deflect individual responsibility.
Granted, I and the people I've described may be a minority. But in my observation and perhaps in staid corporate environments, those who benefit from colocation tend to be those who need to be herded and hand-held. Those who want and are really able to get shit down, don't mind face to face but are greatly frustrated with pointless and distracting face to face.
(As an example of this latter, we got many of our meetings down to 15 to 30 minutes, when they were necessary. People knew and held themselves responsible for knowing what was up, and the meeting could quickly focus on problem solving and setting a specific course.)
