Remote work challenges

The global coronavirus pandemic has forced many institutions to think seriously about remote work. The first idea that comes to mind is make people work on laptops. If the work place had to use a local network isolated from the internet due to security concerns, the following challenges have to be faced:

• A lot of laptops have to be reconfigured by the IT department so that they cannot be connected to the internet. Software needed for daily work have to be installed. That's a lot, depending on the number of laptops and the number of software to be installed on each laptop.
• Many software products needed for development rely on local license servers. How are you going to make them work on laptops that are neither connected to your LAN nor the internet? You may have to obtain standalone licenses (extra cost) and install them on each laptop. In my case, I need licenses for two different products. May be existing license servers can be made to work on a virtual machine on the laptop.
• Complex projects require multiple people to work on the same software components. How will you prevent merge conflicts when the oubreak has calmed down and everybody wants to push their work to the local repository?
• Embedded software projects require multiple people and hardware working together. You might take your hardware home but you won't be able to get your colleagues and their hardware/software due to social isolation requirements to prevent the virus spread.
• If you have kids at home, how will you prevent them from constantly interrupting you? By having a schedule and clear visual indicators that you are working (like a sign on the door).

If your software/hardware were highly modular, if you had abstractions/simulators, you could take only the parts that are suitable to work at home. But true modularity is almost never the case. In my opinion, during the remote period it is not realistic to expect work to be done as usual. The main areas to focus are:

• Limited development with only your hardware and software (if standalone licenses can be purchased).
• Improving documentation of existing software/design. Documenting the system will show you clearly where the design is too complex and needs improvement.
• Self education. Example subjects for me: Blockchain, real time operating systems, embedded software development.
• Daily physical exercise.

02.08.2022: TopTal The Suddenly Remote Playbook