Ben Cotton

It's heartening to see this (and not just because my career is heading in that direction). My experience with smaller self-directed teams (de facto, there was a management structure on paper, but it was ineffective) is that they tend to go off on whatever the group finds interesting, not necessarily in what's in the best interest of the organization. The best managers at any level are the ones who can walk in the both strategic and tactical worlds without missing a step.

I'm convinced of the importance of face-to-face, but how can projects better simulate that sort of environment when face-to-face meetings are rare or impossible?