Two weeks ago we decided to address an ongoing issue in the IT community. The issue is with the remote agile teams. Many experts on the subject would say that the term “remote agile teams” is a bit contradictory, as the Agile Methodology was created for teams that share the same physical space. Therefore, can we make Agile work in the new normal? Yes, we can. By providing dedicated teams for our clients, commonly known as staff augmentation. We have more than ten years of experience in shaping remote agile teams. Furthermore, we asked our colleague Maja Dimitrovska, who is an important part of the Bookmark team, how she succeeds on a daily basis with the aforementioned issue. 

As mentioned, these are strange and challenging times to lead agile teams. Can you tell us your secret? How do you manage to keep track of everybody’s tasks on Bookmark?

We are often told to confront unexpected changes, that we need to be agile and resilient. This is most accurate, as we try to respond to the changes brought by the coronavirus pandemic. As our world turns upside down, most companies are reacting rather than responding. In times like these, business agility provides stability, a way to manage change and respond productively. 

Agile is a framework that approves professionals and companies through developing high performing teams. In an Agile environment, changes are welcome; the client is the epicenter of the work and development is aligned with business needs. Company owners need to work on “enabling the best in their employees, rather than commanding it from them”. Leaders should empower employees to be self-organized.  

Remote working entails many challenges, one of which is knowing how to always be connected with other colleagues on your team, how to maintain an overall team culture, morale and motivation, how to run engaging meetings, how to track and communicate progress within the team, how to exchange ideas and share experiences (good and bad) and, last but not least, how to help the team focus on priorities. By communicating a clear vision, encouraging frequent communication and providing clear boundaries, team members feel better connected and remain focused and productive.

No one said that leading remote agile teams was going to be easy, and just like many other leaders faced with the sudden change to virtual team environments, we are also reorganizing our activities and the way we work. Some of our activities during these challenging times are:

• Following the team’s principles
• Clear team delegation and prioritization of tasks
• Communication, communication, communication
• Daily standups with the team via collaboration tools, such as Slack or Zoom
• Random chats (one-on-one) and co-working tools (Trello, Jira)
• Short-term goals
• Ensuring qualitative results

Even though the working environment has changed, the quality and quantity of our deliverables have not. Frequently sharing our achievements with the team and further improving are our regular activities.

During this crisis, leaders need to learn new ways to care for their people. Connect with them to detect unforeseen issues, respect and value team skills, personal needs and differences, encourage them to do their work remotely with less supervision. This is the beginning of a new way of leading.

According to you, what are the benefits of using Trello for project management in an agile environment?

Task management is the core and soul of every project. First, we divide the project into smaller pieces, then decide what needs to get done and which team member to do it. Trello excels at task management and it is considered as one of the platforms that employees can learn the quickest. Tasks and projects are systematized by using a three-part hierarchy: Boards, Lists, and Cards. You can create and organize these elements in any way you want. By assigning cards to specific users, due dates and files. Trello is a fantastic Scrum and Agile solution. It’s easy to use and it works like a traditional whiteboard, in digital form. 

Boards: The flexibility of Trello boards is perfectly aligned with the Scrum framework; it gives you full visibility into project stages, roles, deadlines and assignments. After you sign up on Trello, you can create multiple boards within your personal or team workspace.

Lists: Boards contain lists, which are grouped tasks. You can choose to rename or reorder any of the lists to match your team’s current needs for the project you are working on.

Cards: The same goes for cards. You can also move the cards from one list to another with just one click. Each card may contain a description, a checklist with subtasks, additional attachments, assignees, due dates and labels. Furthermore, team members can discuss aspects of the task by commenting. Every new person added to one of the cards gets access to previous discussions.

Power-ups: You can use Trello’s power-ups to connect to the card applications like Slack, Github, Jira, Google Drive, and many more. There are many items on the list of power-ups, and this only guarantees that Trello is a tool that easily integrates into one’s workflow.

Notifications: You will never miss important developments from the tasks that you are included in; you will be updated regularly by receiving a notification.

These capabilities make Trello great in terms of flexibility and how intuitive it is to use. Trello is distinct from other tools, thanks to its simplicity. Trello project management makes a great tool, whether you need to organize a whole team’s work or just your activities.

What other project management software do you prefer?

Project management software tools have become widely popular in recent years; there are plenty of options to choose from. Some of those tools are free to use with limited features, while others with advanced copy have more functions. Some require payment after a few days of the trial period. Choosing which tool to use can be quite challenging and also engaging.

Whether you want to find a simple way to organize tasks or need a powerful, enterprise-grade system, there is a PM tool for everyone. The project management software helps project managers and teams to collaborate and meet goals on time while managing resources and costs. Functions may include task distribution, time tracking, budgeting, resource planning, team collaboration, and many more.

Choosing the right approach for managing a project is crucial for successful project delivery. The way that managers manage work is defined by techniques that you use, tools that they use, and project scope activities on which they are working.

The process of leading Agile teams can be challenging at times because there are countless moving parts and evolving processes to manage. However, it is especially difficult if you do not have the right software behind you. Project managers should choose a project management tool that best suits their management style. Choosing the right tool for managing the Agile development team has not always been an easy decision. Certain factors must be evaluated as you’re assessing/shopping for different tools:

• Agile Framework Preferences
• Collaboration Features
• Team Size
• Project Type
• Reporting
• Usability

Some of the best agile project management tools available on the market are Trello, Jira, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Smart sheet, etc. I have worked with different project tools during the past years and I can say that when choosing the right tool, you need to make sure that the options that the toll provides are the best fit for your team and future project plans.

Currently, we are using Trello, but we are open and exploring possible solutions on the market. To organize and achieve better integration, alignment with other company teams, and cover future planned project activities, we are also considering starting using Jira. Jira is a platform that allows teams to handle issues throughout the life cycle of the problem. Jira can be tailored to fit different organizational structures and is highly customizable. Jira also works great for smaller teams, as well as larger ones. The reasons why we are considering to switch to Jira are the following main features:

• Transparency 
• Flexibility
• User Experience
• Commenting
• Cost management
• Categorization
• Custom Workflow
• Knowledge management
• Integrations

In the end, no matter which project management solution you are going for, agile tools are sure to improve the way you streamline your workflow and team productivity.

In the end, quick question (that provokes a long answer): Kanban or Scrum? Or maybe Scrumban?

Agile is an enormous umbrella term that covers several different approaches, two of which are Scrum and Kanban. Scrum and Kanban apply agile principles in their own way to empower effective delivery cycles. Scrumban is a term for a hybrid approach making use of both Scrum and Kanban principles.

Agile is all about experimentation. Scrum, Kanban or Scrumban are not competitors; they can be experiments every team should run to find their best fit. The goal of using an agile approach is to deliver more value for the business in the quickest way possible. I think it is always a good thing to experiment and implement new processes that will enhance the way the team works and how project activities are organized.

From my experience with managing teams, I would say that Scrum is great for any team that can work on incremental delivery: a product, reporting, hardware, etc. Out of the three methodologies, Scrum is probably the hardest to adopt and the most complex and strict methodology. Scrum sprints can set clear goals and deadlines, thus giving full-control to the project manager. The Scrum framework is appropriate for experienced teams working on a product or a project which is longer than a year.

Kanban gives more freedom at the start. It is the most simple and most comfortable to adopt the method. It uses a Kanban board on which it visualizes the work and the work process, ensuring that everyone in the team is on the same page. It also reveals who are the bottlenecks in the workflow without losing its flexibility in production. Kanban is a good fit for supporting and maintaining teams. I love Kanban’s way of thinking to stop starting and start finishing.

Our team is using Scrumban. It combines the benefits of both Scrum and Kanban methodologies by using Kanban’s visualization and Scrum’s systematization while not introducing extra complexity. Scrumban is flexible in production and functions pretty good in large projects. It allows teams to have the agility of Scrum and the simplicity of Kanban while requiring no role updates.

Scrumban is a good fit for smaller teams, startups and loyal teams bringing more efficiency and freedom, teams who manage projects and work alongside keeping the business operational. Like in the process of choosing the right tool to manage the project team activities, the same approach should be used for adopting new agile methods or implementing changes in current that are used. Research each agile method, rescan the processes and bottlenecks in the team activities and then decide what you will implement as a new process for the Team. Strategies need to be revised and will be a matter of change until the best fit for the team is defined.

Discover why many Canadian and USA companies prefer hiring remote teams from Serbia and Macedonia. Tell us your needs and we will help you build an agile remote team. Arrange a free consultation today and we will get you started.

The post Remote Agile Teams Management – Success Story appeared first on Cosmic Development.

As we are walking in the last quarter of the notorious 2020, we can state one thing for sure: Remote work and distributed teams are here to stay. However, companies can be skeptical about moving their agile processes online when it comes to working remotely. At first glance, why wouldn’t they be? Especially having in mind that Agile was initially intended for teams that are physically located together in the same workspace. Even according to the 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation“––the first agile teams were intended to work together physically.

Some challenges arise for distributed software teams:

• Synchronizing teams in different time zones
• Building rapport without face-to-face contact
• Collaboration between different cultures
• Coordinating stand-ups and meetings considering that team members are online at the same time for a limited amount of time

These are genuine problems, but they are far from unsolvable. With almost ten years of experience in staff augmentation and software development services, we can share some insights and strategies to help you narrow the gap between working on-premises and remotely.

Structure Your Teams

Think of your team from a software engineer’s point of view: quality software architecture needs modular design, so design your software accordingly. The same goes for building teams. Every team should be able to develop a single fraction of the project, and by that, successfully reduce the dependence between your teams in different time zones or locations. You will actually make teams autonomous parts of your project or company. When a project requires team members to take part from different locations, they can focus solely on their integration points and APIs.

Code reviews are considered as an important part of the development process for remote teams. Since your people are working at different times, sharing knowledge of the code between teams makes maintenance easier.

Building and Maintaining Rapport

Agile teams need to build solid rapport between team members. This brings trust, reduces misunderstanding, makes self-organization easier, and builds morale and motivation. Take time, as much as possible, to get to know everyone within your distributed teams. A personal touch is a must. Creating strong rapport will lead to smoother communication between teams, which in turn leads to better workflows.

After all, who said that face-to-face meetings have to be offline? Especially these days, when Zoom and Google Hangouts have become our new-normal offices, we encourage using them in order to minimize the gap between distributed agile teams. At Cosmic Development, we are avoiding strictly scheduled Hangouts meetings for intra-team communication. Instead, we strive to create a culture of using video chats even for spontaneous informal conversations and ad-hoc meetings. Needless to say, instant-messaging tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams are very helpful in solving small issues or in simply keeping in touch. 

To help address some remote communication challenges within the team, you need to stimulate team members to have one-on-one video sessions whenever possible. These should not be formal, but they still need to be focused on work and oriented around knowledge sharing in a casual way.

Structuring a United Development Culture

Here are the four simple rules our teams follow in order to make remote work easier:

1. Overcommunicate decisions and procedures
2. Minimize the onboarding friction
3. Clearly define terminology
4. Create reporting guidelines 

Now, let us discuss each of them more thoroughly:

1. Overcommunicate Decisions and Procedures

When members of a distributed agile team make decisions, they need to communicate those decisions thoroughly. That sounds a bit obvious, but it is very easy to forget. Important decisions are often made in informal conversations; they are brainstormed between individuals or discussed spontaneously on calls between individuals. In contrast to this, small decisions are often dismissed as unimportant, especially if we focus on another part of the conversation. 

When working in a remote culture, everything, even the minute details, need to be communicated until the whole team starts moving in the same flow.

It is easy to lose meaning or essential information if you announce important decisions via email. Everyone in your dispersed teams needs to understand the decisions, the reasons behind each decision, and how they will be implemented. Team members that are working on outdated information can lead to major setbacks, hitting a blockade, and then re-communicating the whole process costs the team more time than accuracy sharing information in the first place.

2. Minimize the Onboarding Friction

You can tame the “first-day-friction” by utilizing a good onboarding procedure. Remote team members should feel at home right off the bat, which helps build cohesion between team members of different cultures. 

3. Clearly Define Terminology

While working with remote teams, clear standards around simple terminology like “complete” and “done” help manage expectations and ease communication. A clear definition of task completion eliminates ambivalence in work. For example, when sending a release that involves work from multiple teams, make sure to make it clear what “complete” means in this particular context: (a) the code needs to be written, (b) pull request created, (c) code needs to be reviewed and tested, (d) and finally integrated into the main codebase.

4. Create Guidelines for Reporting

Distributing the development process means that not everyone is online and ready for work when problems come up. We recommend setting systems and guidelines for troubleshooting, but reports and issue tracking. You will not believe how much easier such systems and guidelines make it for anyone on the team to track down and resolve issues. Code reviews and automated tests should be part of this process as it enables the remote team to make changes and validate them so they will not have any unexpected side effects.

Maximize the Mutual Online Time

The golden hours for remote agile teams are when most of the team members are online at the same time. This is the perfect time for stand-ups, coordination meetings, or one-on-one calls.

For teams that work in different time zones, a stand-up meeting is an excellent opportunity to share their issues, obstacles, or decisions. Having the stand-ups via video calls makes it easy to coordinate and catch-up with the flow, so everyone is up and running as soon as the meeting is done.

Instruct the project manager to closely monitor the entire team’s engagement during the stand-up. If there is an undue tension, or communication is becoming unfocused and counter-productive, your team members will quickly disengage.

Stand-ups do not have to be strictly daily meetings. You can have them a few times per week and use the other days for informal communication. Thus, a stand-up does not have to be just a morning routine, but you can organize it at the most convenient time for everyone that forms part of your remote agile teams. 

We all need to adapt and learn how to work within remote teams, communicate efficiently, and grow a cohesive culture. Many large companies have successfully implemented distributed agile workflows long before the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to cut costs and work more efficiently. On the other hand, remote work is very easy to implement for small teams that have previously worked together in a common office. Such teams can significantly benefit from the advantages of working remotely.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where we will talk to Bookmark‘s Project Manager about her hands-on experience with managing a remote team.

Sources:

• agilemanifesto.org/
• agilealliance.org/resources/experience-reports/remotely-agile/
• blog.stormid.com/distributed-agile-working/

The post Remote Work and Agile Teams are Here to Stay appeared first on Cosmic Development.