High Performing Distributed Agile Teams

Mark Spitzer,  Agile Coach, presented at the San Antonio Agilistas meeting.  In this presentation, he addressed common challenges for distributed agile teams.   Common scenarios are covered along with practical suggestions that have been successful for many organizations.  This presentation debunked the agile myth that it can’t work when an organization has distributed teams.

Once upon a time, there was a team of individuals who interacted daily. They found the most efficient and effective method of conveying information is face-to-face conversation. They lived together in one place and they called it pangea. Everyone was happy. Then one day they noticed everything had changed. Everyone was LOST. Agile clearly won’t work here. This is the end of Agile. Why do companies have distributed teams?

Takeaways:

• Create a virtual team room to foster communication through the day
• Investment in travel opens communication channels
• Host Scrum of Scrums using video to address inter-team dependencies and alignment
• Keeping teams co-located within an office helps team cohesion
• Invest in network infrastructure to support richer communications
• Online collaborative tools make retrospectives and planning more effective and fun
• When most of the team is remote, make periodic trips to see them

View the slide deck by clicking on the image below.