You make a compelling argument for RTO.
I've been in tech since 1990. My first job at IBM, my entire product team of ~100 people was on one floor of one building. We knocked out projects at an insane rate.
Today, trying to lead teams over zoom, across multiple time zones, means it takes weeks to solve problems that took a few hours over a whiteboard.
If I was a CEO I would mandate RTO, but I would also make sure to colocate my teams, otherwise there's very little point to RTO when you're just calling into a Teams meeting.
Of course, the downside no one is talking about: camaraderie is real. If you're an engineer with <5 years experience you probably don't see it, but a very large part of team success is how they work together, and in-person collab is priceless.
I've been in tech since 1990. My first job at IBM, my entire product team of ~100 people was on one floor of one building. We knocked out projects at an insane rate.
Today, trying to lead teams over zoom, across multiple time zones, means it takes weeks to solve problems that took a few hours over a whiteboard.
If I was a CEO I would mandate RTO, but I would also make sure to colocate my teams, otherwise there's very little point to RTO when you're just calling into a Teams meeting.
Of course, the downside no one is talking about: camaraderie is real. If you're an engineer with <5 years experience you probably don't see it, but a very large part of team success is how they work together, and in-person collab is priceless.