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Challenges and success practices for agile dispersed team

Presenter: Thang NguyenScrum Master, Coach @ DEK

Technologies

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AgendaAgile dispersed teamChallengesSuccess practices

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Agile dispersed team

Co-located team

Distributed team

Dispersed team

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Why do we need dispersed team?Look for talent all over the worldSpecial skills in another location Cost-savingsAccess to new market

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Agile Values Individuals and interactions over processes and toolWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

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12 Agile Principles…The most efficient and effective method of conveying

information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

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Challenge #1: Time zone differencesConflicting work hoursParallel workWork allocation and scheduling

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Challenge #2: Cultural diversity Iceberg model

◦ External culture is easy to understand and change◦ Internal culture is more difficult to understand

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Challenge #3: Communication Is a challenge in traditional agile environmentEven more difficult in distributed team

◦ Most of communication is non-verbal◦ Lost or misunderstood information◦ Difference in language

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Challenge #4: Technical alignmentsMisalignment in engineering best practices can also

create conflicts between team members.

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Challenge #5: Managerial issuesHow to engage all members in the development

process?Difficulties in status monitoring, management

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Challenge #6: TrustEasy to blame and criticize the other groups and the

team can break down into competing tribes.

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Practice #1: Overlapping Work HoursDocument the time zone differences and rangesDetermine a core-time range for all geographically

dispersed team membersOverlapping working hours needs to be established as

much as possible.

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Practice #2: Exchanging programRegular visits by sending members to other location will

foster collaborationEnhance understanding and also creates personal trust

between team members

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Practice #3: CommunicationVideo conference should be used as much as possible

Communication tools:◦ Instant message: Skype, hipchat, …◦ Desktop sharing: Lync, Bluejeans, …

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Practice #4: Transparent informationSingle source for information across all teams to foster

greater understanding among team members.The knowledge base should be accessible online in real

time by all locations◦ Wiki◦ Shared mailing list and folder◦ Online project management tools

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Practice #5: Remote pairingPair with another remote team member which can lead

to great knowledge transfer.The understanding was much deeper and an immediate

bond was created between the two who paired

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Practice #6: Engineering best practicesEstablish a set of common best practices across all

remote teams.Scrum Master must facilitate and ensure agreement

from all remote teams.Reinforce the trust and shared values between team

members.

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Practice #7: No class systemNo distinction should be made between team members

at different locations.With a class system, it will lower the trust relationship

between teams.The ‘lower’ class will always feel that they are left out.

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Practice #8: Individual retrospectives

Conduct individual sprint retrospectives at the end of each sprint at each location and then will conduct a joint retrospective

Members at each location looks individually at what needs to be improved and how, by who.

In the joint retrospective, only focus on those things that are of interest for the whole team.

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Q&A