Agile

Distributed Agile Teams Achieving the Benefits

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving 8 Benefits

The Agile Manifesto values individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Accordingly, a project in which everyone on the team works from the same location is a favored best practice, and the Agile community recommends avoiding distributed teams.

However, it’s just not feasible for many, if not most, organizations to run projects exclusively with co-located teams. Doing business in today’s world demands being part of the world, employing talent and resources wherever they may be located.

Distributed teams are here to stay. And the ability to enlist distributed teams that also follow Agile principles is a huge competitive advantage.

So how do you do it?

In January 2012, ProjectsAtWork.com surveyed over 340 people to investigate how Agile project teams work in a distributed environment. We also interviewed Agile coaches and consultants to find out how they recommended achieving the greatest benefit from distributed Agile teams.

We identified eight key benefits to working in a distributed Agile environment.

This report looks at each of those benefits – and how you can achieve them.

This report, compiled and written by ProjectsAtWork research analyst Elizabeth Harrin, is the first in a series of Agile surveys we will share with you. These reports provide data that hasn’t been gathered anywhere before, but they offer you much more. We go beyond the numbers and give you insights and tips that you can apply to your projects today and in the future.

Your success is our project.

We hope you will find this report valuable, and that you will join our ongoing exploration of how Agile can work for you.

Aaron Smith Director of Editorial, ProjectsAtWork

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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What is a distributed team?

A distributed team is one where the project manager, product owner, developers, system testers, end users and any other team members, including third-party consultants and vendors, are working at more than one location.

Survey Results

1: How old are you?

Most survey respondents – 71% – were aged between 35 and 54. Only 16% of respondents were between the ages of 18 and 34, and only 13% were 55 or older.

18 –34 16%

35–54

55+ 13%

71%

An experienced Agile professional: Is aged 35-44 Is male Uses Scrum Has worked on over 10 projects, but most of them have not been with distributed teams Works in IT Works in the largest or smallest companies

2: Male or Female?

Survey participants were 62% male. By comparison, 70 percent of respondents to a recent PMI’s salary survey were male (PM Network magazine¹).

Considers himself an Agile practitioner but does not have a formal qualification Believes the greatest challenge for distributed teams is poor communication

FIG 1. MALE AND FEMALE RESPONDENTS BY AGE 140

Works in a company where less than 20% of the project managers are Agile project managers

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 18–34

35–44

45–54

55+

¹ September 2010

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3. Where are you in the world?

Individuals from over 40 countries participated in the survey. 56% of respondents were from the United States, which is in line with ProjectsAtWork membership. India, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and South Africa (in order) were the countries with the next highest response rates.

United States 56%

India 8%

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

South Africa

5%

4%

4%

2%

4. What job do you hold?

The individuals responding to the survey held jobs that covered a wide range of roles and responsibilities. Over 60% of respondents were project or program managers, with the remaining participants working as IT managers (10%), developers (5%), change practitioners (1%) or in other PMO roles.

Project or Program Managers 60%

IT Managers

Developers

Change Practitioners

10%

5%

1%

5. What industry are you in?

As you may expect from a survey about Agile project teams, the majority of respondents – nearly a third – work in IT. Finance, Banking and Accounting represented the next largest group, with 10%. The remaining participants came from sectors as diverse as utilities, pharmaceuticals, construction, aerospace and publishing. Federal, state and local government was also represented by the 7% of respondents working in those areas.

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6. How big is your company?

People responded to the survey from all sizes of companies. Nearly 30% of respondents worked in companies with more than 20,000 employees.

Companies with between 1,000 and 19,999 employees represented 35% of respondents while the largest group was people working in companies with less than 1,000 employees – 38%.

The size of the company might not seem significant: after all, project teams can be any size and the overall size of the company doesn’t automatically mean that there are more people on the team. However, it’s interesting to see how the size of the company relates to the number of Agile projects that they work on. Overall, most companies use Agile methods for up to 20% of their projects.

But smaller companies have proportionally more Agile projects. Half of all projects in companies with fewer than 100 employees use Agile.

>20,000 30%

1,000 –19,999 35%

>1,000 38%

7. How Much Revenue Does It Generate?

54% of respondents reported that their company made over $50 million in revenue annually. This may reflect the fact that the survey has a high proportion of IT workers and over one in five respondents working in large companies.

$50,000,000+ 54%

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8. How many Agile project managers work in your company?

The number of Agile project managers was relatively low. Over 60% of respondents said that there were 10 or fewer people acting as Agile project managers in the organization. In over half of the cases, this reflected less than 20% of the entire project management population.

<10

Agile Project Managers

Top Tip Build an internal career path for Agile practitioners so you have a growing pool of experienced, qualified professionals to work with.

Over 60%

14% didn’t know how many Agile project managers were in the company, and 64% of these were in organizations of more than 20,000 employees. Agile communities are either not as large as other professional groups, or not as visible.

It can also be difficult to attract the right sort of people to work on a distributed team. “It’s a challenge every time and we are still finding our way,” said one respondent in the entertainment industry. “It means the need for an Agile Project Manager as well as Product Owner and Scrum Master to coordinate the logistics, so in terms of efficiencies I am not able to downsize my project management team and build the Scrum Master staff with the same budget. Finding qualified Scrum Masters and Product Owners is very difficult so we are building an in-house Scrum Master career development program to attract external hires as well as internal hires from other functions in IT.”

9. How many PMPs work in your company?

47% said that 10 or fewer people held the PMP credential, with a further 15% reporting that they didn’t know how many PMPs worked in the organization.

In 39% of cases, the number of PMP credential holders reflected less than 20% of the entire project management population at the company.

One in five respondents in companies with over 20,000 employees said that their organization had more than 500 PMPs, but 22% said they didn’t know.

PMP credential holders are not as visible a community as might be assumed.

<10

Project Management Professionals

47%

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10. Are you an Agile practitioner?

Nearly three quarters of the survey respondents consider themselves Agile practitioners, but over half of the responses overall were from people who do not hold Agile credentials. The Scrum Alliance was by far the most popular body for obtaining certification, with 29% of people holding Certified Product Owner, Certified Scrum Master or Certified Scrum Professional credentials.

Overall, Certified Scrum Master was the most popular certification, with 23% of respondents holding this certificate.

Only 1.5% of respondents said they were a PMI Agile Certified Professional, and another 1.5% reported holding the Agile Project Management Certification from APMG. The low numbers here reflect that these certificates have only recently been available and have yet to reach popularity or perhaps acceptance amongst the Agile community and employers.

Fig. FIG 2. DO2 YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AN AGILE PRACTITIONER?

No

14% Yes, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m certified by The Scrum Alliance

29%

15%

Yes, I have another credential

No, but I plan to get certified in the next 12 months

12% 30%

Yes, but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a credential

11. Where do the Agile practitioners report to?

Given the high proportion of IT respondents, we expected most Agile practitioners to report working for an IT PMO, or at least the IT department.

However, 39% of all Agile practitioners report across all business areas, which shows that Agile is breaking out of the IT department and adding value across other teams. A further 14% reported that they were affiliated to a corporate PMO. The remaining 47% said they reported into IT, with nearly 20% of these reporting to the IT PMO. Even in the IT industry, fewer than half (46%) of Agile practitioners report into IT. The majority report either to a corporate PMO or across other business areas.

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12. How many of the company’s projects use Agile?

Over 50% of the respondents reported that less than 20% of their company’s projects use Agile methods. Only one in 10 reported that over 80% of their company’s projects use Agile.

Fig. 3MANY OF YOUR COMPANY’S PROJECTS USE AGILE METHODS? FIG 3. HOW 60%

Number of responses

50%

Top Tip Move Agile out of IT for increased visibility in the organization and executive support.

51%

40%

30%

20%

18% 13%

10%

8%

10%

0% 20 –39%

Under 20%

40 – 59%

60 –79%

80 –100%

Number of projects using Agile methods

When we looked at the results by the top industries represented in the survey, they were not that different at the lower end of the scale. IT has more projects using Agile methods, which is to be expected given its roots in software development.

FIG 4. NUMBER OF AGILE PROJECTS BY TOP INDUSTRIES Industry

< 20%

20 – 39%

40– 59%

60– 79%

>80%

Business Services Consulting

59%

18%

0%

9%

14%

Finance, Banking and Accounting

56%

17%

12%

3%

12%

Healthcare

48%

14%

14%

14%

10%

Insurance

61%

19%

10%

5%

5%

IT

35%

19%

21%

10%

15%

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13. What Agile approaches does your organization use?

The most commonly used Agile approach is Scrum. Nearly 40% of all respondents said they used Scrum, and it is the top method in use across all sizes of companies.

However, Scrum is not used as widely as other methods when it comes to distributing teams over the most locations. Companies using Feature Driven Development report 22% of their project teams are split over six or more locations. Lean is also used more frequently than Scrum in highly distributed teams: 18% of companies using Lean run project teams split over six or more locations. In contrast, only 14% of organizations split their Scrum teams over six or more locations.

FIG 5. WHAT AGILE APPROACHES ARE IN USE? What Agile approaches are in use?

All responses

Companies over 20,000 employees

Scrum

39%

34%

Lean

18%

21%

Kanban

12%

13%

Feature Driven Development

10%

8%

AUP

8%

7%

XP

6%

10%

DSDM

2%

2%

Crystal

2%

2%

Other

3%

4%

14. How many Agile projects have you worked on?

The most common answer, given by 54% of respondents, was between one and four projects.

The most experienced participants were male, with 76% of those people involved in more than 10 projects being men.

1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4 54%

Agile Projects

5 â&#x20AC;&#x201C;10

Agile Projects

13%

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15. How many of the Agile projects have distributed teams?

As we expected, our research showed that distributed teams are not uncommon. Over 60% of respondents reported more than one in five of their Agile projects are run with distributed teams.

>20%

of Agile projects are run with distributed teams

Over 60%

16. How many locations is your team distributed over?

The majority of distributed teams work out of two or three locations.

Fig. 6MANY LOCATIONS DOES YOUR AGILE PROJECT TEAM WORK FROM? FIG 6. HOW Over 10 locations

6%

6–10 locations

3–5 locations

8%

18%

Only 1 location

Top Tip Use enterprise wide tools for Agile development so that team members in every location have access to the same information.

21%

47%

2–3 locations

Some project managers and Agile project team members are doing nearly all their project work with a distributed team, as about a quarter of those surveyed said that over 80% of their project teams are made up of colleagues in different locations.

“With time and effort, you can significantly reduce, though not eliminate, the impact of distributed teams,” said a US-based executive who plans to take a qualification in the coming year. “I was a Program Manager for a program of over 140 resources, including 10 Scrum teams and four teams using traditional project management. We had resources in Belarus, Toronto, India, and various U.S. locations. We used an enterprise Agile development tool and I think that was one of the key success factors.”

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Project managers who are working in an environment where more than 80% of the project teams are distributed are facing a further challenge: they also have to deal with the greatest number of locations. Over 40% of the projects where the team is split over six or more locations are done in organizations where more than 80% of the teams are distributed.

One way of explaining this would be that the more distributed projects you run, the better you get at managing multiple locations, so you feel confident enough to deal with Agile projects over a greater number of locations.

A leading provider of Agile ALM platforms and products was not surprised by this. “Almost every customer we’ve transformed or worked with as part of their Agile adoption has been distributed,” he said. This provider has certified over 2,500 Scrum Masters, so the comment is more than anecdotal.

17. What’s the greatest time zone difference in your team?

“Time zone differences are the biggest challenges in my opinion,” said one IT project manager from the United States who has been working in Agile teams for a couple of years. “The flip side of that is there is someone working on the project almost in a 24-hour cycle.”

Time zones are probably the first thing that people think about when they consider the challenges of working with distributed teams. What time will we have meetings? What happens if someone needs me while I’m not actually at work?

Top Tip Compromise. Someone is going to have to work unsociable hours for real time communication. Don’t let the burden fall on one location every time.

In reality, the results of our survey show that while the team may be based over several locations, most of them are in the same time zone. Nearly 60% of respondents had either no time zone difference or less than four hours difference, which makes scheduling meetings practical for all parties.

0–4

Hours time difference

60%

When scheduling is a problem, some team members have to make compromises. “Many personal sacrifices are being made to communicate real time with team members on the other side of the world,” said one R&D manager in a company where nearly all of the projects run with distributed teams. “But it appears to be somewhat sustainable at this point in time, and quality is improving because of the early involvement of QA resources in iterations, as opposed to the waterfall approach.”

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Having said that, nearly a quarter of respondents (24%) were working with a time difference of over nine hours. And that’s difficult. Nearly 90% of people who work with a time difference of over nine hours said that it was harder than working with a co-located team.

Notably, 35% of people who work with a time difference of over nine hours claim that cheaper resource costs are the main benefit.

That looks like the trade off: it might be more difficult to manage a team with such a large time difference, but you do get the benefit of cheaper resources.

Fig. 7

FIG 7. WHAT’S THE BIGGEST TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS? 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 9+ hours behind

5 –9 hours behind

1– 4 hours behind

None

1– 4 hours ahead

5 –9 hours ahead

9+ hours ahead

18. What tools do you use?

Despite all the advances in technology and the uptake in social media tools, conference calls are still the most common way for team members to discuss projects. Web conferencing is used by just over one in four project team members, and 15% of respondents use video conferencing.

“With distributed teams, the notion that you can use a story card board goes out the window, you are pretty much forced to use some type of tool,” said one practitioner in federal government. “The good news is that there are tools that do a decent job in this and from my perspective as a Product Owner, I prefer to use the same tool to manage my Product Backlog as the team uses to manage their Sprint Backlog and tasks. The challenge is getting the team to go into the tool and record their progress and ‘to do’ estimates frequent enough (daily hopefully) to glean any useful data from it.”

Top Tip Use the same tool to manage the Product Backlog as the team uses to manage the Sprint Backlog and tasks.

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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Fig. 8 TOOLS DO YOU USE? FIG 8. WHAT Blog Agile software

Voice over IP

Wiki

Video conferencing

7%

4%

Top Tip 27%

10%

Conference calls

Use webcams for the daily standup meeting.

12%

15%

26%

Web conferencing

Surprisingly, only 7% of people are using dedicated, specialized Agile software tools, showing that these have yet to be widely adopted. A recent survey by a leading software vendor showed that Excel was the most used software product. While there are specialized Agile software products available, most people have not turned to these to help them manage distributed Agile teams.

Nearly 60% of respondents said that face-to-face meetings were the most effective way of communicating with distributed team members, so there is a really strong desire to get Agile project teams together at key points in the project.

If you can’t get them physically together, webcams are the next best thing.

“Agile teams can be very successful if everyone on the team follows the methodology correctly and uses all the tools available,” said one ScrumMaster.

“One area of improvement I intend to make is the use of webcams for the daily Scrum. Since you can’t force a virtual team member to ‘stand up’ during the scrum, requiring them to be visible on the webcam will serve the same purpose – stay focused, on point, and not multitask.”

After face-to-face meetings, conference calls were rated the next most useful tool, with blogs and electronic tools such as online Kanban boards cited less often.

19. Are these tools in use across the organization?

56% of the tools identified were in use by all departments across the organization. About a third of tools were in use by all project teams, and only 11% of people reported that their tools were only used by distributed Agile teams.

Of these, 36% were using electronic tools specifically designed for Agile teams, such as online Kanban boards, and 28% reported using other tools such as Jira for bug tracking, Microsoft SharePoint and VersionOne.

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20. Is it harder working with distributed teams?

Unsurprisingly, most people say it is harder to work with distributed teams.

FIG 9: IS WORKING WITH A DISTRIBUTED AGILE TEAM HARDER THAN HAVING Fig. 9TOGETHER? EVERYONE

Top Tip

Easier

Motivate and inspire the team so they share the project vision.

5% No different

Harder

15%

80%

“The biggest problem is not the distribution but the lack of motivation and vision in the product,” said one typical Scrum professional. “Teams that are distributed require a bit more attention in keeping everyone on the same page, but if you allow people to get motivated and inspire them with the right vision then the geographical distance is not an issue.”

People who report that distributed Agile teams are easier or no different from co-located teams have typically worked on less than four Agile projects.

In contrast, 90% of people who have worked on over 10 Agile projects report that working with a distributed team is harder. Maybe you wise up to the challenges with experience.

90%

of people who have worked on

10+

Agile projects

report that working with a distributed team is harder

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21. What is the greatest challenge of working with a distributed Agile team?

Working across multiple locations makes communication difficult. Not only may you have to deal with different time zones, you also may have to manage a team that speaks a number of different languages. As expected, communication came out on top of the challenges faced by distributed teams.

Fig. 10 THE GREATEST CHALLENGE OF DISTRIBUTED AGILE TEAMS? FIG. 10: WHAT’S

Top Tip Spend more time than you expect on communication, and check everyone has heard the same message.

35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Access to Poor communication expertise

Technical management

Planning overhead

Lack of training

Cultural differences

Team morale

Lack of support

Poor communication was an issue regardless of how experienced the project manager: we saw the same pattern across all age groups, with people of every age responding that communication was the biggest challenge.

“I have been working with distributed teams around the globe for 13 years,” said a Program Manager from a manufacturing firm. “The greatest challenge is aligning people to each other, what their roles are, and how they collaborate to jointly deliver specific project deliverables. Tools and media are always changing and improving and that is the place for most improvement. Project leaders need to be sensitive to multicultural teams and also be more vigilant in checking everyone heard the same message.”

On a geographic note, only 3% of respondents from the United States considered lack of support for Agile methods a problem at work. This was not the case in Australia, where 27% of respondents reported that this was a significant issue.

After communication, cultural differences were the greatest challenge for respondents from India, with 19% saying that this was a problem.

In contrast, only 5% of respondents from the United States reported that cultural differences were a concern.

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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22. What is the greatest benefit of working with a distributed Agile team?

The survey looked at eight benefits that distributed teams offer: • Greater flexibility • Opportunity to use cheaper resources offshore • Increased productivity • Shorter project timescales • Opportunity to engage diverse group of people • Better visibility at higher organizational level • Improved team morale • Improved quality of deliverables Improved flexibility came out top of the benefit list, both across all respondents and those working in companies where over 80% of their projects are Agile.

FIG 11. WHAT IS THE GREATEST BENEFIT OF A DISTRIBUTED AGILE TEAM? What is the greatest benefit from Agile in a distributed team?

All responses

Companies where > 80% of projects are Agile

Flexibility

24%

25%

Can use cheaper resources offshore 22%

14%

Increased productivity

19%

22%

Shorter project timescales

11%

8%

Input from diverse people

11%

11%

Visibility at a higher level in the organization

7%

14%

Better team morale

3%

3%

Improved quality

3%

3%

Over the next pages we’ll focus in on each of these eight benefits and show how you can get the same results.

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Flexibility

Quality

offshoring

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Successful Distributed Agile projects happen because of collaborative teams that drive to define a methodology for themselves.â&#x20AC;?

morale

productivity

visibility

timescales

diversity

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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Focus on: Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to respond to changes in requirements and the project environment.

Agile techniques are by their nature flexible and iterative, and distributed teams offer the opportunity to work flexibly.

If you want to reap the benefits of flexibility, use Lean or Feature Driven Development: flexibility is the biggest benefit seen by these practitioners.

It’s also the benefit rated most highly by small businesses: 32% of companies with less than 100 employees said that working with distributed Agile teams gave them the option to work more flexibly.

Distributed teams also have the advantage of being able to apply Agile methods in a flexible way.

“Distributed Agile is all about implementing Agile principles through Agile best practices in project teams spread across multiple locations or sites,” said Raja Bavani, Technical Director of software services company MindTree’s Product Engineering Services Group.

Bavani has the role of Product Engineering Evangelist and Agile Coach at the company. “This happens through much collaboration and coordination among teams.

One cannot take a named Agile methodology and apply it step-bystep in a distributed ecosystem.”

The model in use at MindTree is called Distributed Agile and has been adapted to work for the company’s

needs. “The essence of Distributed Agile is all about collaborating and putting together the way we want to execute a project by means of leveraging Agile best practices and fine-tuning existing methodologies,” said Bavani. “In many of our projects we have followed Scrum and leveraged the engineering practices from other methodologies such as XP. It means collaboration among distributed teams to collate processes that follow Agile principles and to put together a methodology that works for them. More importantly, a methodology that works for one distributed ecosystem may not work for another distributed ecosystem.

This is because for any methodology, while the basic tenets remain intact, the implementation details vary across ecosystems.

“Agile software development in a distributed environment does not mean step-by-step implementation of any specific Agile methodology such as Scrum with high expectations on on-time, high-quality delivery.

It means collaboration among distributed teams to collate processes that follow Agile principles and to put together a methodology that works for them.”

The benefits from flexibility are greatest: In companies with under 100 employees In Telecoms and Federal Government Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For Feature Driven Development and Lean users In the United States

“The essence of Distributed Agile is all about collaborating and putting together the way we want to execute a project by means of leveraging Agile best practices and fine-tuning existing methodologies.”

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Bavani warned that you can’t stop being flexible, even between groups of people working on the same project. “Projects that follow Distributed Agile suffer when a methodology accepted by a sub-team drives the rest of the team,” he explained. “Successful Distributed Agile projects happen because of collaborative teams that drive to define a methodology for themselves. The definition of such a methodology happens by means of open communication and ongoing minor adjustments to make things work as expected.”

Software development company Bizodo is another firm that has adopted Agile methods to work for them. The team is split over several locations: three offices in the US, and other offices in the UK and India.

Team members based in the United States work regular hours Monday to Wednesday, 10am to 10pm on Thursday and then a half day on Friday. Weekly goals are decided each Monday and Friday is reserved for final bug fixes and the push to production. This means that the team can update their cloud-based form software straight away and customers

see the improvements immediately.

“We have shaped our processes and software over the last two years,” said Jonathon Ende, CEO. “I don’t believe it is necessary to have standups any more.”

Philip Black, Chief Operating Officer at Agile professional services firm Emergn, agrees that the ‘standard’ methods around Agile have to be adapted to suit the team environment.

“What really doesn’t work is sticking to the rules of daily standup if there is nothing to actively collaborate around,” he said. “Just having a task board isn’t enough. You have to visualize the overall workflow and discuss the real impediments of the team.”

Black believes that flexibility in an Agile environment means that the focus should be on examining the flow of work for issues and not ensuring that the daily standup covers the standard three questions. In this way value can be incrementally delivered. “There are many examples of how technology, process, people and interactions have been used to improve the agility without strict adherence to Scrum,” he said.

Flexibility Top Tips Let the team tailor Agile to suit themselves Create an environment for collaboration Fine tune the methods as you go Don’t assume what worked on one project will work on another

“Successful Distributed Agile projects happen because of collaborative teams that drive to define a methodology for themselves.”

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Focus on: Offshoring

For many people, distributed teams mean using outsourcing to firms overseas. Our survey shows that more than one in five people believe that distributed Agile teams enable them to benefit from cheaper resources abroad. Reducing costs was also the main reason that 52% of respondents in research conducted by CIO Insight chose to use outsourcing partners.

Forrester research² concluded that companies can save between 15% and 40% of staff costs by moving development offshore.

If saving money through using cheaper resources is the benefit you are after, don’t spend time putting staff on training courses to certify as Agile professionals. By far the greatest number of people reporting this as a benefit did not hold an Agile credential.

way of delivering projects and Scott Ambler, Chief Methodologist for Agile and Lean at IBM Rational says that it is “reasonably common” to see teams that include at least one external partner. Distributed teams that include third parties have their own challenges.

Mid-sized IT and insurance firms will find the greatest benefit from offshoring, so if you work for an organization like that, consider choosing an Agile partner overseas.

“A lot of teams get into trouble with distribution,” said Ambler. He explained that there is a difference between a distributed team who all work for the same organization and one that incorporates a number of different organizations, for example third party consultants or vendors.

“Outsourcing some work or bringing in partner organizations adds similar but different complexities.”

Work collaboratively with partners While you might be able to find cheaper resources offshore it also often means integrating a third party provider – the outsourcing company – into your team. Agile partnership efforts are becoming an accepted

The benefits from cheaper resources are greatest: In companies with 5,000 to 9,999 employees In IT and Insurance For XP, Kanban and Scrum users In Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom For people without Agile credentials People who have completed over 10 Agile projects

“Outsourcing some work or bringing in partner organizations adds similar but different complexities.”

Different corporate cultures and the fact that a contractual relationship

² Offshore Outsourcing and Agile Development, Stephanie Moore and Liz Barnett, Forrester Research, Inc, September 2004.

Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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exists means that team members are motivated to work in different ways.

The third party is most likely working in a way that allows them to make the maximum profit. “The customer, on the other hand, is often trying to minimize cost and push risk to the outsourcer,” explained Ambler.

“So you see a tension. Then the issue becomes, how do you choose to address the tension, through the contract, or through partnership?

How much does the customer drive the project?”

Jimi Fosdick, a certified Scrum trainer and Agile process coach at ALM firm CollabNet, agrees.

“Having distributed third party vendors is risky,” he said. “They are not really committed to your organisation because they are committed to billable hours and they may have multiple clients.”

If you have to use third parties, Fosdick recommends that each location maintains a multidisciplinary team. “One thing that is extremely harmful is offshoring individual disciplines,” he said.

“Try to distribute pods of crossfunctional teams; don’t have all the QA in the Ukraine, for example.”

Ambler recommends that everyone on the team uses the same tools, including those individuals from outside organizations. “You can start seeing the results of the development if you get everyone accessing the

same tools,” he said. “You can check whether they [the partner organization] are following corporate coding conventions or delivering secure code. If the customer organization thinks through what they expect of the relationship and how they intend to manage it then there is a much greater chance of success.”

Budget for travel There is one sure-fire way to deal with time differences – budget for holding face-to-face meetings. That means travelling, even though this seems to go against the purpose of having distributed teams in the first place.

“Put annual (semi-annual if you can get it) meetings in the budget,” said J. Lance Reese, President of Silver Peak Consulting, Inc., a technology strategy consulting company based in Idaho. He has implemented distributed Agile development teams across the United States, Asia and Australia. “Bring the team to a central location for a week to train, discuss innovative opportunities, work on the processes, and build relationships.”

Offshoring Top Tips Use the same tools as your partners Keep all the locations crossfunctional: don’t offshore individual disciplines Minimize the time difference if you can Budget for face-to-face meetings for Sprint Zero and at least once a year

“One thing that is extremely harmful is offshoring individual disciplines. Try to distribute pods of cross-functional teams; don’t have all the QA in the Ukraine, for example.”

Scott Ambler agrees. “I suggest you fly people around,” he said.

“At the beginning get the key people together to talk about the vision, scope. There is a greater level of trust when they have gone out and eaten a meal together.”

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“A good time for this is the ‘pre-game’ or Sprint Zero,” said Jimi Fosdick.

“Get the team members together for that first iteration if possible. They will have a better understanding of how they will work together.”

Ambler recommends getting together at key milestone events and at any point that the team are struggling with the detailed specifications. “If you struggle with detailed specifications then fly the business expert to be with the developers,” he said. “A lot of information being passed occurs over the phone. Real requirements are dealt with over the phone.

What’s really going on is that a

lot of teams don’t rely on the detailed specification documents, especially if they don’t change.”

The challenge with travelling is that it costs money. “A lot of organizations don’t want to hear the need to put people on planes,” Ambler said. “It is easy to measure the cost of travel but not so easy to measure the benefit of doing so.”

“Get the team members together for that first iteration if possible.

They will have a better understanding of how they will work together.”

The compelling case for travel is that it helps the team develop good working practices, build trust and understanding and ultimately it leads to a faster project and better quality deliverables. It’s exceptionally difficult to quantify though, so good luck with your business case for a travel budget.

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Focus on: Productivity

Increased productivity was the main benefit for 19% of our respondents, rising to 22% in companies where more than 80% of their projects use Agile methods. With one in five people reporting that distributed teams improve productivity, there are some serious benefits to be had in this area.

The largest companies gain the biggest productivity benefit from distributed Agile teams, so if you are a large company based in India, or with a large presence in India, then you could benefit in this way.

Productivity benefits are generated in a number of ways. Software development firm Journyx improved its productivity by formalizing the approach to sprints. “We were Agile-like for a long time before adopting Agile; we used to say we did ‘Agile-but’,” said Curt Finch, CEO of the Austin, Texas based company. “We had short release cycles and an iterative process, with strong customer involvement.”

With only 30 employees and 90% of all their technical projects using Agile methods, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Journyx had cracked the productivity problem. But with all their projects being run with distributed teams across four sites in the United States, a test team based in Russia, and a presence at the client site as well, the company realized

there were areas that they could improve. About three or four years ago Journyx adopted a more formal approach to sprints. “Our daily stand up meetings help the most,” Finch explained. “We do these on the phone and there has been an enormous improvement in productivity as a result of introducing these meetings.”

Journyx has seen a jump in productivity by changing the way it manages distributed Agile teams, but Finch believes they can deliver even more. “There are some areas where we are not doing so well, for example, document collaboration with remote teams,” he said. The next challenge for his team is how to improve the process for documentation on projects. “It would be better if we could standardize on Google Docs or Dropbox but these also have their problems,” he explained. “Google’s approach of making a big pile and searching for it later is not useful if you want to be organized. We have an internal wiki but you can’t see

The benefits from increased productivity are greatest: In companies with over 20,000 employees In Education Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations Seen by those using Crystal In India

“Our daily stand up meetings help the most. We do these on the phone and there has been an enormous improvement in productivity as a result of introducing these meetings.”

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this if you are outside the company, so the main challenge for us is successful cross-team collaboration.”

Once you have a pattern for cross-team collaboration, you can really start to reap the productivity benefits. “You end up with a more effective team through having it distributed,” said Mik Kersten, CEO of Vancouver-based ALM integration firm, Tasktop Technologies, Inc. Tasktop has not noticed a difference in productivity or effectiveness between distributed and co-located teams, which shows that you can maintain productivity even across distances.

“Software projects are peopleintensive missions that require a lot of communication, coordination and collaboration,” said Raja Bavani, Technical Director of MindTree.

“Agile projects need team members who are self-motivated and leaders by themselves. Agile teams need to be self-organized. In order to become self-organized, team members need to imbibe values such as commitment, openness, focus, respect, courage, simplicity, feedback and integrity. Above all, it is essential to understand the vision of software projects. This is what helps engineers appreciate what they do and do it better to make a positive impact on end users. Without this engineers

may tend to work in silos and miss the big picture.”

Individuals can be more productive when they understand what the team is working on overall, and that can be difficult when you can’t overhear the conversations at the next desk. “The key is to ensure people understand the way of working, and understand how to make the work that the team need to achieve is visible across different sites,” said Philip Black, COO at Emergn. “A key enabler is to ensure everyone understands how ‘working software as the primary measure of progress’ is articulated and made available within the distributed teams.”

Black believes there are different ways to deal with this depending on how the team members and their responsibilities are distributed, including training, coaching and mentoring at each site and across the wider group. “The lack of face-to-face engagement does make the transformation [to Agile] harder, and people need to spend more time on the softer skills,” he added.

Productivity Top Tips Have daily standup meetings over the phone or via video conferencing Use a document management tool Ensure your tools are accessible to external partners Create a self-motivated team Ensure everyone understands the project vision

“The key is to ensure people understand the way of working, and understand how to make the work that the team need to achieve is visible across different sites.”

People who report that working with distributed teams is easier than co-located teams are also the group who report the biggest benefit in increased productivity: they must be doing something right!

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Focus on: Timescales

Agile approaches to planning focus on delivering small chunks of the project and building up functionality incrementally over time.

Consequently, Agile project teams are able to deliver benefits for their stakeholders faster than traditional project approaches. But do projects themselves actually take less time?

More than one in 10 of our respondents reported that shorter project timescales are the top advantage they see from distributed Agile teams.

If you want to shorten your project timescales use DSDM: it’s the biggest benefit seen by these practitioners.

Smaller companies – but not really small companies – also report the greatest benefit, so you may not be so successful at cutting the duration of your projects in larger or very small companies.

GlobalLogic develops software products for small to medium sized software companies and uses Agile with distributed teams around the globe. Mike DeVries, CMO of GlobalLogic explained that the company created its own methodology that they call Velocity, which is based on Agile principles with a platform of open source and commercial tools. It has a proven track record for getting products to market faster.

“We have adapted and integrated Velocity into a remotely deployable and manageable platform on which we can develop quality software products quickly,” he said.

“By their nature, Agile processes are collaborative – they work well only when there is high degree of involvement between users and developers. The process assumes time boxes that result in frequent intermediary deliverables that users review and provide feedback on. The advantage of this approach is that all users are almost fully informed of what they will get at the end of the exercise, and there are no surprises. At the same time, they also need to commit time and effort to join in the reviews and give relevant feedback.”

The benefits of shorter timescales are greatest: In companies with 1,000–4,999 employees In Education, Aerospace and Retail Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For DSDM users In the United States

“Overall, Agile methods have repeatedly demonstrated getting quality products to market faster.”

By fully involving the users, wherever they happen to be based, the team at GlobalLogic are able to deliver software in incremental chunks. “Overall, Agile methods have repeatedly demonstrated getting quality products to market faster,”

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said DeVries. “Agile’s intrinsic nature of considering and planning for varying requirements with real time and constant communication between users and the development team make this possible. It thus offers a sound alternative to developers desiring to develop market-ready and superior products in quick time.”

Using a distributed team also improves the project timescales

for the Bizodo team. All of the core tasks are done by the core team in Southern Florida and the less time critical tasks are done by others in the wider team. “The turnaround time as a result is even quicker,” said Jonathon Ende, CEO. Even the team members who are based in the same office use instant messaging tools to chat to each other. “Instant messaging is really important,” he added. The team also have a weekly meeting.

Timescales Top Tips You can deliver faster if you involve the customer Work collaboratively Use tools like instant messaging to stay in touch in real time

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Focus on: Diversity

If you aren’t tied to the office, then you can pick and choose the talent on the project from a much broader pool of potential resources. One of the big benefits of using a distributed team is being able to draw on resources from a number of different places.

Project managers that benefit the most from diverse teams are based in the United States – maybe because this group has wide access to outsourcing and offshore partners, as well as the diverse local populations.

If you want to benefit from building a project team from the widest possible talent pool, then you should work in the largest companies.

These organizations see the greatest advantage, perhaps because they have the largest internal employee base to draw on.

“Since we’re not situated in a larger metropolitan area, we’ve found the need to have distributed teams in order to have the right number and mix of resources on the team,” said one Certified Product Owner in the automotive industry.

“Knowing this has to be the case, we’re committed to seeing success with the distributed teams. The vast majority of team members are committed to making it successful!

We have found that we employ a hybrid Agile process incorporating various disciplines of Scrum, Lean,

Feature Development, and Kanban which makes it quite interesting!”

“You can’t find all the great people in one place,” said Todd Olson, VP Products at Rally. “Great teams, great individuals, produce great software.

Great people are a scarce resource.”

Distributed teams give you the opportunity to choose the right person for the job, not just the person who happens to work in the same office. “Levelling the playing field allows you to create talent matches,” he said. “You get to put together the best team for each project.”

Manage the cultural differences

The benefits of input from diverse people are greatest: In companies with over 20,000 employees In Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Services Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For Scrum users In the United States

“You can’t find all the great people in one place. Great teams, great individuals, produce great software.

Great people are a scarce resource.”

Distributed teams split over many locations – and the opportunity to offshore work – often means that Agile project teams are made up of a mix of different cultures. Cultural differences between team members can be acute and present very specific challenges for the project manager.

The survey showed that only 8% of respondents felt that culture was the greatest challenge when dealing with

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distributed teams. This relatively low figure may reflect the fact that ‘poor communication’ was another choice given, which took the top spot on the list of challenges. A third of respondents opted for that as their greatest challenge. Communication difficulties can also be down to culture, so there could be some overlap in the responses.

“The main issue for distributed teams, in my opinion, is culture,” said Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx.

“I used to live in Japan, so I have a good appreciation of how different cultures can be. When I was in Thailand, for example, no one ever wore a seatbelt because they don’t think about death in the same way as Western cultures.”

Many project professionals who have worked overseas or with people of different nationalities at home will have similar stories of things that struck them. “Eastern cultures also have the concept of ‘harmony over truth’, so in Japan there is no way of saying no,” Finch explained. “The closest thing they have is ‘I just don’t understand what you said,’ or ‘It’s difficult.’ In the West we would not interpret these responses as no.”

Finch pointed out that when people talk about cultural differences and difficulties, they are often talking about understanding the different definitions of ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

Raja Bavani, Technical Director at MindTree, believes that empathy is a key skill in building successful teams. “Product Owners need to understand that Agile projects progress over iterations,” he said.

“This means that the results of distributed Agile projects optimize over the first three or four iterations.

During these early stages, teams require lot of support and coaching.

So, the culture of encouraging team members to progress during the initial stages yields positive results.

We promote team bonding through planned visits of team members across sites. This helps team members build rapport and realize the power of diversity.”

It’s not just the team members who work overseas that have ‘culture’.

Understanding your own culture is an important factor in being able to understand that of others. You can encourage a positive team culture through your actions leading the team. “A major factor in success of an Agile project is each member of the team making an individual commitment to delivery,” said one Scrum Master from the UK. “Provided the distributed teams each have a culture that encourages the personal freedoms and responsibilities required, then distributed teams can be a success.”

Diversity Top Tips Research cultural differences between your culture and that of others Pick the right people for the team, not the ones who work locally Check the message has been understood when dealing with a language barrier

“Provided the distributed teams each have a culture that encourages the personal freedoms and responsibilities required, then distributed teams can be a success.”

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Focus on: Visibility

As we saw in Question 8, 14% of respondents don’t know how many Agile project managers work in their companies. This level of visibility for Agile practitioners is particularly bad in organizations of more than 20,000 employees.

Despite this, increased visibility for your projects is one of the benefits that distributed Agile teams can offer.

If you are struggling getting recognition for your Agile project teams, especially those working odd hours to fit around the time zone requirements of a distributed workforce, take heart. You’re not alone, but Agile methods can help you get the attention of those higher up in the organization.

Users of Agile Unified Process report the greatest benefit from increased visibility. However, don’t expect it to be easy.

“It takes a constant high level of effort to make distributed projects successful,” reported one PMI Agile Certified Professional from the United States. “Agile helps with communication and visibility.”

MindTree is one company that has successfully raised the profile of the work that its distributed Agile teams are doing. They use an in-house method called Distributed Agile, and it works successfully across a number of locations including Bangalore,

The benefits of visibility at a higher level in the organization are greatest: In companies with over 20,000 employees and companies between 5,000 and 9,999 employees In Telecoms Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For AUP users In the United States

New Jersey and regional offices around the world.

“With our experience in executing projects in onsite-offshore models, we found ways to apply Agile principles and best practices in distributed teams,” said Raja Bavani, Technical Director at MindTree.

“In order to make this work at the organizational level, we created subject matter experts and Agile coaches in our organization. Also, we facilitated training programs on distributed Agile to build capabilities in our organization.”

The MindTree team know that executive level support is really important to the success of distributed Agile teams. “We promote Agile to our organization through MindTree Agile Council and Agile Community,” Bavani explained.

“The MindTree Agile Council, a team of Agile experts, focuses on nurturing Agile capabilities at MindTree and facilitating competency building programs in Agile.”

“In order to make this work at the organizational level, we created subject matter experts and Agile coaches in our organization.

Also, we facilitated training programs on distributed Agile to build capabilities in our organization.”

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As well as that, MindTree wanted to make sure that Agile practitioners felt part of a wider group. Everyone working in an Agile way, regardless of where they are based, can be part of a community of practice. “The Agile Community is a Knowledge Management community that provides a common platform for all practitioners and promotes knowledge sharing,” explained Bavani. “In addition, we contribute to external conferences and online media by sharing our success stories, presenting white papers and participating in discussions.”

The MindTree team use the same principles of good communication, mutual support and collaborative working with a community on their projects. “We use communication mechanisms such as email, phone, chat and video conferencing,” said Bavani. “Also, we suggest alternate work hours to project teams so that there is considerable overlap with other teams. For example, in one of our projects, our offshore team in Bangalore worked from 11am to 8:30pm IST in order to have a reasonable overlap with our onsite team based out of Boston.”

Visibility Top Tips Use the company magazine and conferences to shout about what your team is achieving Create an Agile Community of Practice to link practitioners in your company Offer to write up project success stories as white papers

“We use communication mechanisms such as email, phone, chat and video conferencing. Also, we suggest alternate work hours to project teams so that there is considerable overlap with other teams.”

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Focus on: Morale

It takes time to build a team, and creating an environment with good team morale, excellent communication and a sense of camaraderie isn’t easy when your team members are scattered all over the world. The impact of distributed teams on morale was flagged as both a challenge and benefit in our survey.

Communication has a huge impact on ensuring that the team feels like a success. The communication skills of the team members as individuals and the communication channels on the project have to be top class in order to make distributed Agile teams work well. As we’ve seen, a third of survey respondents reported that communication was the biggest challenge facing their team.

At the other end of the scale, distributed Agile teams seem to have cracked the problem of team morale.

Only 4% of survey respondents commented that this was the greatest challenge for them.

Building a team is a challenge for all project managers, and you would imagine it to be an even harder job to do so over distance. It’s great to know that Agile methods can actually help to improve team morale, even if the survey results showed that this benefit did lag behind the others.

“There is a tremendous benefit co-located teams have that cannot

be experienced otherwise,” said one Certified Scrum Master.

“The camaraderie that comes from people working in the same space, having hallway conversations about non-work related items and getting an opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities goes a long way towards building a strong and resilient team. A worker in a remote location, especially those who work from home full time or are part of a very small offshore team never truly get plugged in to the core team at a level that extends beyond the project at hand. As a result it’s harder to keep these off-site resources for long periods of time. This and similar side effects are a ‘tax’ that we spend as a result of some of the benefits enjoyed by having distributed teams.”

A positive team environment is one with excellent communication – which comes through building a strong team. It’s a vicious circle: how do you get the team to communicate well when you struggle to build the team across the distance?

The benefits of improved morale are greatest: In companies with between 500 and 4,999 employees In the 35–44 age group Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For Lean and Scrum users In the United States For people holding Certified Scrum Master credentials

“A worker in a remote location, especially those who work from home full time or are part of a very small offshore team never truly get plugged in to the core team at a level that extends beyond the project at hand.”

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Let the team socialize together Jimi Fosdick, a certified Scrum trainer and Agile process coach at CollabNet, has many years of experience working with distributed teams in an Agile environment. “Distributed people who have to collaborate is not a problem with Agile; it’s a problem for teams,” he said. Co-located teams spend their leisure time together, for example having lunch, or a drink at the bar after work. Distributed teams don’t have the opportunity to do this so there is the challenge of how you can get all the team members involved in activities that help build a sense of team spirit, community and shared experience.

Fosdick recommended creating opportunities for social interaction to help create a team environment.

He recalled setting up an online gaming environment so that the team could play games together in their down time. He once paid for a subscription to a sports channel on TV so that everyone on the project could watch a cricket match in which their national teams were playing.

“Have a movie night,” he said. “The time difference means some people will watch it during the day, but watch it together with a channel for open voice conversations.”

Agile, Scrum and XP teams all rely on teams being self-managed, and it’s hard to do this if you don’t feel connected to other members of

your team. You may have to think more creatively about how to make those connections, but whatever you do, make it fun!

Make sure everything is fair “Double standards do not work,” said Raja Bavani, Technical Director of India-based software services firm, MindTree. “By this, I mean differences in the way engineering practices and other practices are followed by different teams. There has to be a same level of focus and adoption. We cannot afford to question one team and ignore one team when it comes to a broken build, for example.”

Developers will soon realize if team members in one location are being treated differently to those in another location. Equality of process and clarity of decision making across locations is essential if the whole team is going to feel as if they are able to contribute equally.

Morale Top Tips Don’t favor the co-located team Be fair Think creatively about socializing: what can you do even with the distances involved?

Celebrate birthdays and holidays Make the project fun

“Distributed people who have to collaborate is not a problem with Agile; it’s a problem for teams.”

This is particularly difficult if you have several team members in one location and others scattered around the world, as Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies, Inc., explained.

“We started with XP but we moved to Scrum for products with a release plan and we use Kanban for nonproduct projects,” he said. The company works across six major locations and partner sites including Germany, Canada and Israel. “The teams are almost all distributed in

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some form,” he added. “The biggest challenge is dealing with partially distributed teams.”

Scrum teams at Tasktop typically have five to seven members, and Kersten said that it is hardest to manage when there are four team members based locally and two or three at other locations. “It is really difficult to find a balance, for example ensuring the backlog is always up to date,” he said. “We also have to provide some outlet for day to day coffee machine chat.”

Kersten has been working with Agile methods since 1999: “Since before it was called Agile,” he said.

He and Tasktop are extremely familiar with the challenges of partially distributed teams and 10% of their project managers have Scrum Master certification. They have a mature attitude to the techniques they have adopted to overcome the challenges.

“Don’t overly favour the co-located team,” Kersten advised. Many of the projects the company manages don’t

have face-to-face meetings and rely on the weekly call. Some internal projects do have a sprint planning meeting and a daily planning meeting but Kersten advises that these should not be biased towards those people physically present.

“Use tools to facilitate meetings,” he said. Teams at Tasktop use an electronic backlog and open source Agile planning tools. “We don’t have physical task boards; it’s all in the tools,” Kersten explained.

When teams work with a partner organization they choose a tool and everyone uses that. “We always have a shared task board and issue tracker.”

Distributed teams work successfully at Tasktop. Having said that, Kersten acknowledges that it takes different ways of working to make distribution a success. “The best way to deal with a distributed team is not to distribute it, but that isn’t reality anymore,” he said. “I’ve never found a good way to replace coffee machine chat.”

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Focus on: Quality

Credentials aren’t necessary to see improved quality in your Agile projects. 50% of people who report quality as the top benefit do not have an Agile certification, but nearly half of them plan to get certified in the next 12 months.

Quality is also one of the few benefits that is seen by men and women equally: something the sexes can agree on. It was also called out as one of only two benefits reported by people from the United Arab Emirates, with the other being flexibility. Quality really is global.

If you want to benefit from improved quality, it helps if you work in the distribution industry or for a very small company. It’s also important that you choose the right tools for the job.

“Make sure that you have a centralized development source control, code review, testing, and project management system,” said J. Lance Reese, President of technology consulting firm Silver Peak Consulting, Inc. “It is critical that the entire team is working on the same platform or the code base will take unexpected forks.

Top quality software development tools oriented around the SDLC will make a significant difference in the success of the distributed Agile development team.”

Scott Ambler, Chief Methodologist for Agile and Lean at IBM Rational, said that if you don’t know how to make Agile work with a co-located team, then you have little chance of scaling it to distributed teams.

“Technologies that work phenomenally well for co-location work poorly for distribution,” he said. For example, a small co-located team can use a whiteboard for modelling. A team split across several locations can’t use a whiteboard, so you have to take the concepts you’d apply to a co-located team and scale them with appropriate technology. If you’re not really good at doing local development then you have no hope of being a success at distributed development. If you aren’t good at governing a team close to you, how are you going to be effective with people you don’t see, never meet and never will?

The benefits of quality are greatest: In companies with under 100 people In the 45–54 age group In Supply Chain businesses Where project teams are split over 2 or 3 locations For Lean and Scrum users In the United States

“Make sure that you have a centralized development source control, code review, testing, and project management system.”

The Agile Manifesto says ‘Individuals over tools’ and, according to Todd Olson, VP Products at Rally, some people interpret this to mean that you shouldn’t use tools. “But the reality is how do you manage a

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backlog without a tool?” he said.

Distributed Agile teams need to pay special attention to version control to enable them to have one version of the truth.

“Agile has significantly increased the quality of our deliverables,” said a Scrum practitioner in the IT industry.

“I attribute the majority of this to the collaborative nature of Scrum.

Our process is one of constant communication. We did not have that interaction when working in waterfall mode. One of the biggest drawbacks is that it makes it difficult to use simple visual tools in the workspace (burndowns, charts, task boards etc).

We use an Agile tool to do this and share the info but it is not quite the same as having it physically available.”

Part of the challenge of having a project team in several locations around the world is the management process, according to Jonathon Ende, CEO of software development company Bizodo. “It’s not just about getting development done but also about management and decision making,” he said. Top quality results rely on top quality decisions as well as excellent coders.

At Bizodo, each programmer is responsible for creating low level to do lists which provides the management team with an oversight into what is going on. “It is easy then to manage the process even though everyone is all over the world,” Ende added, “as it gives us more visibility about progress.”

Increased visibility leads to better decision making, which in turn enables project teams to deliver better quality results.

Make expertise available when required Quality can be improved by making sure the team has access to experts when they need them. “One of the greatest failings of distributed Agile teams is responsiveness,” said J. Lance Reese, President of technology consulting firm Silver Peak Consulting, Inc. “If someone in a remote location asks a question or needs assistance, provide the help as fast as you are able. Make it the top priority of the entire team to respond rapidly.”

Reese, who has implemented distributed Agile development teams across the United States, Asia, and Australia, believes that a Project Management Office (PMO) has a role to play in ensuring the team delivers a quality result. “Involve the PMO with the process as much as possible,” he said. “If you don’t have a PMO, implement one. If you have a PMO and they are not involved, put a PMO member on the development team. The PMO will help ensure that communication is facilitated, the objectives are well understood, and that the process becomes more structured. Those issues are typically difficult for software development professionals, and the problems are compounded by distance.”

Quality Top Tips Centralize source code: have one version of the truth Get tools that help, not hinder Make responding to requests for help a priority Share expertise freely Get good at managing co-located teams before you try to manage a distributed team

“If someone in a remote location asks a question or needs assistance, provide the help as fast as you are able.

Make it the top priority of the entire team to respond rapidly.”

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Can distributed Agile teams be successful?

Our survey results and panel of experts show that Agile teams can be successful even if they are distributed across multiple locations.

However, if you are going to start using distributed teams for your Agile projects, be warned that some people are going to take convincing. Here are some of the responses from our survey respondents.

• I would say a distributed team is only about 60% as effective as a co-located team.

• Distributed teams are roughly 10-15% less effective than co-located teams.

• I think that we could be successful, but it is going to continue to be a lot of work. Most importantly, we will need buy in not only from managers, but from the developers who will be doing the work. If we don’t have their buy in, I believe there will be people who are subconsciously (or consciously!) waiting for any new method to fail. Change is hard.

• I think you can be almost as successful as a non-distributed team, but it requires more effort.

• My main experience was in the private sector where I ran several projects over five time zones and all were very successful. I feel that an Agile team needing to be in the same room is a myth and find that productivity can drop due to the distractions of other conversations, etc.

• A team can be successful, but it takes constant communication.

• You can be as successful as you want to be. Distributed teams are only another hurdle that needs to be adequately managed by the Scrum Master/ Project Manager.

As experienced project managers and Agile practitioners will know, you can make almost anything successful with enough support and enthusiasm.

“Active participation from each location is necessary,” said Philip Black, Chief Operating Officer at Emergn, “and sometimes it really is the will of the participants to make it work that is the real key.”

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Our recommendations

Recommendation:

Best for:

1

Don’t act like your project is co-located – pay the tax for distribution

Partially distributed teams

2

Don’t distribute unless you have to

Teams with more than 9 hours time difference

3

Create a shared team environment: share recipes, birthdays, pictures etc.

Teams in multiple countries

4

Have a local proxy product owner

Teams where individual disciplines are offshored

5

Have one version of the truth

Teams where coding is happening in multiple locations

6

Create an Agile community of practice

Companies with over 26 Agile practitioners

7 Tailor Agile methods for every project

Teams dealing with different stakeholder groups or products every time

8

Budget for travel

All teams, especially those with offshore contributors

9

Choose the best people for the job, not the team members who work locally

Companies with over 20,000 employees

10 Be good at the basics

Everyone!

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About ProjectsAtWork Publishing since 2001, ProjectsAtWork is the only online business-to-business magazine for the project and portfolio management industry, addressing professionals who have frontline responsibility for projects, programs and portfolios in a range of environments and positions, including Project Managers, PMO directors, Senior-level Executives and Agile Teams.

About Scrum Alliance The Scrum Alliance is a not-for-profit professional membership organization created to share the Scrum framework and transform the world of work. The Scrum Alliance’s mission is to increase awareness and understanding of Scrum, provide resources to individuals and organizations using Scrum, and promote the iterative improvement necessary to succeed with Scrum. The Scrum Alliance hosts Scrum Gatherings and supports Scrum User Groups, providing a forum for interactive learning throughout the world.

Acknowledgements In developing this report, ProjectsAtWork interviewed vendors specializing in Agile implementation, coaching and tools, as well as end user organizations who are working with Agile methods.

We’d like to thank all the people who completed the survey on ProjectsAtWork and were interviewed for this research.

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Distributed Agile Teams: Achieving the Benefits

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