Effective Remote Teams

Spontaneous presentation at SoCraCan Las Palmas 2018

Transcript

1. Effective Remote Teams
   @PreusslerBerlin
   SoCraCan 2018
   

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2. Our situation, Android team:
   • 2 in Berlin
   • 1 in Sczcecin, 2 Lublin, 1 Wroclaw
   • 1 dev in New York
   • 1 QA in Minsk
   • Scrum Master, PO, QA in New York
   • Later: more devs from Canada, LA, New York
   

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3. Get to know each other!
   

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4. Tools
   • Slack
   • Customize!
   • Jira + CI integration
   • Screenhero
   

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5. Asychronous communication
   • Don’t expect answer
   • Labels in Github PR
   tiny, big, urgent
   approved, needs_rebase, dont_merge, question, recheck
   

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6. Have a backup plan
   • If Slack video chat does not work, be ready to move to Hangout or
   Skype.
   • Be pragmatic and don’t spend too much time in trying to fix the tool.
   

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7. Feel the pain
   • If larger team in one spot:
   every one needs to work from home once a week!
   

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8. Tech standups
   • Daily between 10 and 45min
   

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9. Face to Face meetings
   • Try to meet every x
   weeks
   • Give isolated team
   members a presence
   in the room!
   • Remote teams need
   this investment!
   

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10. Remember the manifesto
    • Individuals and interactions over processes
    and tools:
    • Dont rely on specific tool
    • Be pragmatic
    • Working software over comprehensive
    documentation
    • Don't write specifications that you would not
    write for a local team.
    

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11. Timezones
    • Split morning standups
    • Document decisions
    • Don’t delay what you would not delay without i.e. PRs
    • Might be hard to follow up on Slack
    • Split teams
    • Trust
    

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12. Have fun
    http://blog.viacom.tech/2017/04/07/effective-remote-teams/
    

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