{"id":50670,"date":"2017-07-20T16:36:37","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T11:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/?p=50670"},"modified":"2018-03-15T13:55:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T08:25:26","slug":"12-tips-to-succeed-at-managing-distributed-agile-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/12-tips-to-succeed-at-managing-distributed-agile-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Tips to Succeed at Managing Distributed Agile Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outsourced software development<\/span><\/a> has increased in the recent years. Companies have multiple benefits by outsourcing their product development needs to offshore delivery center or a remote development partner. The two main benefits are cost advantage and technology skillset. Most of these projects have teams that are geographically dispersed and work in distributed manner. Remote development companies have started following <\/span>Agile principles <\/span><\/a>to ensure that the distributed team is well-connected and can accomplish project beforehand.<\/span><\/p>\n

A successful distributed Agile team is able to develop high-quality software, bring business agility and has potential to work in a highly competitive environment. However, most companies find multiple challenges in managing distributed Agile teams. Some of the challenges pertaining to such projects include time zone differences, cultural gaps, language barriers and so on. In this blog, we have outlined tips to succeed at managing distributed agile team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Outlined below are the 12 tips to succeed at managing distributed Agile teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Pre-Sprint planning<\/b><\/p>\n

It is recommended to spend quality time in pre-planning related to upcoming sprints. One needs to identify interdependencies at the earliest stage and this can be done without the help of Gantt charts. Also, backlogs should be planned in advance. Before the actual meeting takes place, it is advisable that product manager and scrum master should schedule a separate meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Usability testing from local teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Usability testing<\/a> is an acceptable, exploratory and verifiable technique to understand how the end user would respond to a product under realistic conditions. It is recommended to go for usability testing in different geographies as the results may vary. \u00a0In case the local team is not familiar with usability testing or is new to this concept, the product owner should take out time to give a brief to them about what usability testing is all about and why is it so important. It is also advisable that the product functionalities should be tested<\/a> with the local audience first and then the full test lab feedback can take place at the headquarters.<\/p>\n

3. Enhance code knowledge through reviews<\/b><\/p>\n

Reviewing codes can help enhance the overall value of the team. It helps in improving the code quality. With co-located teams, \u00a0there might be issues pertaining to some <\/span>Agile practices<\/span> like daily standups, etc. Tools that support code review should be taken into account as they will help bridge the knowledge and information gap between different locations. At the end what is important is to ensure that the code is correct, easy to interpret by every member of the team and is easy to maintain. One should not worry about the styling and formatting of the code<\/a> as there are multiple tools available to do so. This will help in eliminating manual errors and also help to have time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some more data from the Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Klocwork<\/p>\n

\"code_review_data_jul6\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

4. Create testing guidelines<\/b>
\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Guidelines should be created in order to fill bug reports. It is also vital to define the guidelines as they help in identifying the tasks which are actually complete<\/p>\n

5. Conduct<\/b> Distributed daily scrum meetings<\/b>
\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Daily scrum meetings\u00a0are becoming a crucial part of any <\/span>Agile methodology<\/span>. Daily scrum is the time when the entire team comes together for 15-20 minutes, wherein they can address three essential questions
\n<\/span>
\n(a) What was all done yesterday?
\n(b) What all that is needed to be done today?
\n(c) Are there any blockers?<\/p>\n

One of the best ways to keep everyone focused is to answer the question mentioned above in the meeting itself. The team should know about obstacles during daily standups. The product manager can make use of project management tool, Scrum board or Kanban board for better understanding among the team about the tasks accomplished.<\/p>\n

6. Follow test driven development<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n

Unit tests are written by the developers and the small unit tests fail first<\/a>. An early detection of any problem in the case will help the developer to fix the bugs as quickly as possible. For better understanding, the developers can share working samples of codes with other teams as well. A test driven development can be of help in multiple ways like improve the quality of the code and easy adaptability of Agile methodology.<\/p>\n

\"Test<\/p>\n

Source:businessanalystlearnings<\/span><\/p>\n

7. Mid Sprint \/ End of sprint reviews:<\/b><\/p>\n

The project can be further broken down into sprints<\/a> wherein each sprint should have more than one objective. Focus on every objective individually in order to make sure that the decisions are in the right direction.\u00a0After every sprint, the project should be reviewed, making sure that the there is an overlap of time zone between offsite and onshore teams while conducting the review.<\/p>\n

8. Retrospectives<\/b><\/p>\n

Effective participation of the entire team in retrospective is sometimes challenging. For exchange of information, a tool is a must for retrospectives of distributed teams. Some of the free tools are following:<\/span><\/p>\n