If you want a high-performing remote engineering org, you need to invest in social capital

This recently clicked for me. This article relates findings on how remote work alters the shape and strength of our connections to research on knowledge sharing, innovation and productivity, and proposes ways to strengthen networks at work.

Microsoft's 2021 Work Trend Index reported that remote workers feel more isolation and less connection. The shift to remote work shrunk people’s networks. Interactions within close networks increased, while interactions with distant networks diminished.

Connections aren't optional - they are social capital. People connecting establishes psychological safety, proliferates tacit knowledge and breaks silos. A strong network creates innovation and productivity.

But people still have strong connections - just keeping fewer people closer. Why worry? According to the "strength of weak ties" theory, information flows better when the social link is weak. For example, this study from Linkedin found that users are more likely to find a job not from close connections but more distant ones.

The theory of tacit knowledge established that knowledge can be explicit - written down - or tacit - hard to verbalize and write down, and offers different strategies to go between tacit and explicit.

And the vast majority of knowledge is tacit:

However, engineering cultures tend to overemphasize explicit knowledge sharing like documentation. We need personal socialization just as much. And thus networks.

As an example, Software Engineering at Google (Chapter 3: Knowledge) shows the importance of accompanying tacit-explicit-tacit knowledge sharing like code reviews and documentation with tacit-tacit mechanisms like mentoring.

The State of DevOps Report 2022 reported decreased top performance, hypothesizing that the shift to remote hampers the ability to share knowledge and practises across teams and organization. With fewer opportunities to gather and know from each other, innovation slows.

On a team level, I think we need to design for more personal communication (yes, synchronous) and collaboration (like pair programming or lunch & learns). That's at least as important as system architecture, scope, capacity and roadmaps. Use DORA's insights and Conway's law.

On an org level, I think we need to bring more serendipitous interactions - with people outside your day2day, slightly uncomfortable, not worth a zoom but sometimes ignite a spark. I'm betting on virtual offices like Gather Town, Workadventure or maybe even metaverse-like spaces for having a lower bar to connect.

Avoid a tool-centric view and treat your digital communication & collaboration as an experience and space where people go. Like you don't leave your physical office to the construction company but dedicate people & time to making it a stimulating environment that employees like to go to, don't leave this to IT only. Multiple functions need to collaborate to create spaces that employees like to go to and connect, for example HR, Office Management, community ambassadors. Or would you expect that your physical office turns out as a stimulating, attractive environment if you stopped after the construction company is done?

Be aware that social capital and connection building is subject to our biases and systemic inequalities, and access to it is limited by power hierarchies. If you design for diversity and inclusion, you'll get richer, more equitable interactions, boosting innovation.