I prefer to use email rather than real-time interactive comm's for the reasons I stated. However, it's quite easy to be just as inefficient as a face-to-face meeting once you implement video conferencing, and, in fact, you can waste even more time that way if you like.

For me, the key has been to keep the team as small as possible, selecting only the hardware guys who can "do the whole thing in their heads" and the firmware guys who can be relied upon to produce 1000 lines of fully documented, debugged and therefore "bug-free" (snicker) code per week, rather than have a half dozen guys to do what one or two can do, and have one or two do the work and the rest fight over who takes credit. This significantly reduces time wasted in meetings. It doesn't hurt if your team members can walk on water, too, without creating too many ripples.

RE