Enabling Distributed Agile TeamsScrum Gathering

May 5th, 2014

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Shameless Self Promotion

• I have been in and around agile for years and I’m an Enterprise Agile Coach

• Been a CSM, CSP• Blogger on LeadingAgile.com• Blog: agiledude.blogspot.com• Twitter: @timswise• Link up with me on LinkedIn

Here’s what we will do

• Have fun!• Talk about distributed teams (5 minutes)• Discussion about complications of distributed

teams (5-10 minutes)• Negation exercise for distributed teams (20

minutes)• Debrief and form a set of working

agreements (10 minutes)• Quick wins that you can take home (5 mins)• Discussion (Time Permitting)

Distributed Teams

Definition – Distributed teams are teams that have something preventing them from collaborating in person and face to face

Complications

Let’s talk about them and identify a few more

Complications

Time - Time zones

By TimeZonesBoy (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Complications

Teanga or translated from Gaelic to English, Language

By Seahen (Gnome-globe.svg Globe of letters.png) [LGPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Complications

Trust – Breeding ground for Us vs. Them

By Voir les pages liées (Modification de File:Collaboration logo.svg) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What did I miss?

• A bunch of things• Your turn!

The Negation Exercise

Description - This is an exercise of discovery.  

Instead of asking how we can make things better, we'll ask how we can make things horrible.  

Negation Example

How can we make our pair programming partner better?

Negation Example

How can we make our pair programming partner better miserable?

Negation Example

How can we make our pair programming partner miserable?

• We can refrain from taking a bath.• We won't brush our teeth.

Negation Outcome

Our original horrible ideas…• We can refrain from taking a bath• We won't brush our teeth

Become good working agreements…• We will take a bath• We will brush our teeth

Negation

After Negation• Establish “working agreements”• Try to get to a state of shared

understanding• Prioritize the shared understanding using

relative impact• Could produce action

Exercise Agreements

• Name a read out person• Be respectful• Take turns  • Time boxed to 20 minutes…ish  • Write big!• Only 1 “dragon in a spaceship” answer

allowed

Line up Line up Everybody Line upArrange yourselves from 1 to 10• 1 means that you would never use

distributed teams• 10 means that you would always use

distributed teams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzlyQYn-BZE

Let’s Do Something Together! Sample from the presentation below

The Negation Exercise - Results

Ideally we will have a working agreement for different perspectives on how we want to treat others.

• We have been the distributed person• We have interacted with the distributed

person• We have all been distributed• We have had a distributed “twin”

Enablers

Think About why you are Communicating?

• Privacy• Team Collaboration• Collective Wisdom

Higher Bandwidth is Better

Voice

F2F

Email

Think About how you are Communicating?Since face-to-face may be out. Let’s try some alternatives.• Always on “window” for the teams• Wide angle web cams for team rooms• Flat Screen TVs for both locations• Small webcams for every person• Online white boarding• High quality conferencing• Skype or another alternative• Asynchronous alternatives (i.e. Basecamp)

Think About Who you are Communicating With

Second Class Citizen

Building Trust

• Focus on Value not Time• Visits with social activities• understand realities of life in other locale

• Deliberately get over communication gap / fear

Goal of reducing the time it takes to hold a distributed meeting

• Before you start find a buddy

• Time box to 4 minutes• Begin: Schedule a

video conference with audio

• Call in• Share your screen• Share an online

whiteboard

• You draw• They draw• Save the drawing• Shut down the call• Shut down the video

The Communication Kata

Quick Wins

• Put the distributed team members on every speed dial for the home team

• Using Outlook? Display multiple time zones on the calendar

• Have a clock with each time zone on every desktop and in the taskbar

Working Agreements

• Use the Negation Exercise with your team to generate working agreements.

• They are much more powerful when they come from the team.

Some Cool Tools – Real Time

• Screen Shares – Webex– Join.Me– Lync

• Video Share– Google Hangouts– Skype– Facetime– Lync– Webex

Some Cool Tools – IM’s

• IM– Hipchat (kind of instant)– Lync– Yammer

Some Cool Tools - Collaboration

• Synchronous– Google Docs (A mix of office products)– Noteapp (Note taking)– Mural.ly (A mix of many things)– Coggle.it (mind mapping)

Some Cool Tools - Collaboration

• Asynchronous– Basecamp– Dropbox– Drive– Sharepoint– Box– Onedrive (Skydrive)

Resources

• http://www.goodagile.com/distributedscrumprimer/

• https://37signals.com/remote/• Your experience – Go get it.

Questions/Discussions

Session Feedback

• Please give us your real time session feedback -

1.Click on the session – Enabling Distributed Agile Teams

2.Follow the link to provide session feedback.

3.Rate the session based on your personal experience