mirror of https://github.com/zulip/zulip.git
117 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
117 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
## A distributed team
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For the past 20 years, iDrift AS has been offering infrastructure and security
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support for small businesses. iDrift AS is a distributed organization, operating
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from six offices across Norway. As such, this 30-person company has always
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depended on team chat to coordinate and support each other’s efforts.
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iDrift AS co-founder and owner Gaute Lund had long been frustrated with the
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limitations of the company’s collaboration tools. “When I learned about Zulip it
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was an absolute revelation,” says Gaute Lund. “Zulip’s threading model makes it
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so much easier to manage my team. As a leader, in just a few minutes I can get
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an overview over what's going on and see where my attention is needed.”
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## Async communication is a challenge
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From its founding, iDrift AS relied on IRC for internal communication, but the
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lack of a modern user interface proved to be a barrier for participation for
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management and non-technical members of the team. iDrift AS therefore moved from
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IRC to Slack in October 2016.
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“In terms of functionality, Slack is just souped-up IRC — there is no conceptual
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difference,” says iDrift AS owner Gaute Lund. “It doesn’t add anything
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significant other than the UI.”
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While Slack worked reasonably well for real-time communication, the busy Slack
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channels at iDrift AS were not effective for asynchronous discussions. “It was
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almost impossible to catch up on a conversation, or get an overview of what you
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missed while on vacation,” Gaute Lund says.
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> “Slack is just souped-up IRC — there is no conceptual difference.”
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>
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> — Gaute Lund, co-founder and owner of iDrift AS
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## Easy transition to Zulip
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When a team member recommended Zulip, Gaute Lund understood the potential of
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[Zulip’s threading model](/why-zulip/) to dramatically improve
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async collaboration at iDrift AS. The company evaluated Zulip in the summer of
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2020, and decided to make the move.
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The team took easily to Zulip’s topic-based threading paradigm. “Once people
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start using Zulip, it quickly becomes obvious why it’s better,” says Gaute Lund.
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The transition also went smoothly from a technical perspective. “It was not a
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lot of work to move everything over from Slack to Zulip,” says Gaute Lund. “The
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export/import tool worked really well to ensure that we had logs of all the
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prior conversations.”
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Chat integrations for operational systems and alerts are a crucial part of the
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workflow at iDrift AS. Zulip offers a [Slack-compatible
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interface](/integrations/doc/slack_incoming), so many integrations could be
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simply moved over. “For a handful of integrations where Zulip didn’t meet our
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needs, it was easy to [create our own
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integration](/api/integrations-overview#write-your-own-integration) or improve
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the existing one. It wasn’t a problem,” Gaute Lund says.
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iDrift AS decided to self-host its own Zulip server. Because Zulip is
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[100% open source](https://github.com/zulip/zulip), this option offers
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the same functionality as a [Zulip Cloud Standard](/plans/)
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subscription. “Zulip is very stable, and easy to run and to upgrade,”
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says Senior IT Consultant Tor Hveem.
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> “Once people start using Zulip, it quickly becomes obvious why it’s better.”
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>
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> — Gaute Lund, co-founder and owner of iDrift AS
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## Zulip helps leaders scale
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The move to Zulip transformed Gaute Lund’s day-to-day experience as a leader.
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“Using Zulip significantly increases the size of the team for which a manager
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can meaningfully know what’s going on,” says Gaute Lund. “There are 25 people
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for whom I have a very good grip on their work, whereas previously it was no
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more than a handful”.
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> “Using Zulip significantly increases the size of the team for which a manager
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> can meaningfully know what’s going on.”
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>
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> — Gaute Lund, co-founder and owner of iDrift AS
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As a Microsoft shop, iDrift AS uses Microsoft Teams for file sharing, scheduling
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and video calls. Would they use it for team chat? “For technical people, the
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chat experience in Teams is abhorrent,” says Gaute. “It’s almost impossible to
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get an overview of what’s happening. Only a small number of messages fit on the
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screen, and the discussions hidden inside threads make it even harder to see
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what’s going on.”
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In contrast, Zulip’s topic-based threading lets Gaute review conversations in
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batches, without being constantly interrupted by chat messages. Every few hours,
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Gaute looks through the list of recent Zulip topics to find discussions that may
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require his attention, and offers feedback as needed. Catching up is fast:
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“Updating myself on an incident might take a few seconds,” Gaute Lund says.
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## Efficient team communication
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With Zulip, the team can discuss everything from customer issues to major design
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decisions. “Zulip lets people focus on conversations where they can contribute,
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whether or not they happen to be online when the conversation starts,” says
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Gaute Lund.
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The Zulip chat also serves as a knowledge base for the history of the
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organization. “We have a very stable customer base, and Zulip search makes it
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easy to review past interactions,” Gaute Lund says.
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> “Zulip lets people focus on conversations where they can contribute.”
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>
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> — Gaute Lund, co-founder and owner of iDrift AS
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---
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Check out our guide on [using Zulip for business](/for/business) to
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learn more!
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