In the past, I've talked about the advantages of telecommuting. Today, I'd like to talk about the mechanics of telecommuting. Specifically, how to communicate when none of the members of the project are colocated.

In the past, I've participated in projects conducted almost entirely by email, with phone conversations as needed and, if you're lucky, the occasional face to face meeting. This can work, and it has the advantage that much of the project communication is recorded electronically during the process.  However, when you have more than two people involved in a conversation, it can be difficult figuring out who agreed to what and when.

Instant messaging tools have been around for many years, and pretty much from the beginning tools like Microsoft Messenger (or Windows Live Messenger, as it became) have supported conversations that included multiple parties.  However, for some reason those tools don't seem to have acheived the traction that Skype is gaining among far-flung teams.

The Upside

With Skype, you can easily hold "group chats," where all the principals involved in a discussion can come together and really hash out an issue. In some versions of Skype, the record of these chats will be held on the users' computers indefinitely.  If users can find the conversation and exploit this feature properly, they can avoid having to bother their team mates with questions that were already covered in a previous chat. This can really up the productivity of a team.

If the chat is created through "New Group Chat," then the host of the meeting has a lot of control over the meeting, and can even remove participants that are disruptive or not contributing.

The Downside

Let me preface this by saying that this section is going to be longer than the previous one.  That doesn't mean that the down side of using Skype is more than the up side, but just once you've said "it helps get lots of work done," there's not much more to add.

Most of the disadvantages of Skype come from users who abuse it. One of my pet peeves is users who don't know how to manage their Skype windows, who are constantly opening new windows on a topic that has been under discussion for a while.  This makes finding a particular remark in history very difficult, since Skype doesn't provide a full text search of history, or even a search for a particular person who participated.  This can result in a situation where you remember Jodi said what directory should contain the code for a particular project, but you can't find the discussion where that comment was made.  That means you have to go back and ask, which negatively impacts Jodi's productivity.

Another facet of this same problem is that, with 20 rooms going on the same subject, all containing slightly different people, it's not uncommon to have people assume that you were involved in a discussion where a complicated problem was discussed, or for you to think that someone else is fully up to speed when they aren't.

Another disadvantage is that the default for all discussions in Skype is for it to make an annoying popping bubble sound and for the "thing" in the task bar (more than an icon, but less than a window, you know what I mean) to flash.  This can really interrupt your train of thought, particularly when someone is pursuing a nonproductive or unrelated line of discussion.  You can change your notification settings to help alleviate this problem, but then you run the risk of missing something important until after the fact.

Finally, there are the social implications of how people choose who to include or exclude from discussions. If not done wisely, the "clique-ish" nature of some discussion rooms can result in a feeling that is "so junior high".  Some hosts also use their power to remove participants from chats to punish and humiliate rather than simply to ensure the productivity of a discussion, and this can negatively impact morale.

In particular, I have to say that I don't like the Skype 4 client.  No matter how wide you make your window, you only get so much width for your discussion.  If you feel the same way, you can download an older Skype client (I use 3.8.0.188).

The Challenge

Well, this is InsideRIA, after all, and Skype does have an API. We, the community, could work to correct some of these issues by building a new client that corrects some of the problems that prevent Skype from being ideal for use by serious developer teams.  We could:

1. Develop a way to "dock" discussions by subject, kind of like how Tweet deck allows you to group people you follow by why you're following them.
2. Insert discussions into an off-line database, allowing for full-text and participant searches.
3. Provide tools for migrating the most relevant points of a discussion into a Wiki or Blog, reducing the need for searches.

What do you think?

Read more from Amy Blankenship.