Remote Team, Collaboration and Agile 101 @ WeWork Amsterdam

@Nearsoft at WeWork, Amsterdam

Transcript

2. Why Remote?
3. As a TEAM
4. • Access to more and better talent • The Ability To Hire Exactly The Talent You Need • We can respond to "oh shit" situations faster. • Our overhead is lower. Team Benefits
5. • Our employees have lives outside of work. • The Ability To Hire Inexpensively • Talent is easily retained by not requiring an undesired relocation Team Benefits
6. • A great regular employee doesn’t necessarily make a great remote startup employee. • Company culture takes a hit. • Communication gets harder. • It’s (practically) impossible to transition to an office. Team Challenges
7. • Trust • It's difficult to adopt the agile practice of face-to-face interactions. • Coordinating across time zones • Collaborating among different development cultures Team Challenges
8. • Building rapport when everyone is not in the same office • Scheduling meetings or informal conversations when both teams are online at the same time for only a few hours (or less) Team Challenges
9. PERSONAL
10. Personal Benefits Work at your own pace Less costly Flexibility
11. Distractions The challenge of the work/life balance No workplace social life Lack of routine Personal Challenges
12. Remote Agile? Two of the twelve Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto are about people working together in close daily collaboration. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
13. Remote Agile? It is impossible to collaborate effectively on Agile projects in a remote fashion. Tradition insists on co-location of agile development teams.
14. How do remote teams engage in stand up meetings, sprint planning sessions, retrospective meetings, and other Agile ceremonies?
15. You just have to leverage on good practices and the right tools.
16. • Hire the Right People, Great employees are not always great remote working employees • Ensure Team’s Understanding of Project Goals and Objectives • Performance standards for professional conduct Best Practices
17. • Be Sure of Remote Workers’ Comfort • Maintain Up-to-Date Process Documents • Give Feedback and Praise • Allow a degree of flexible work hours but also keep some consistency, Maximize the golden hours (between office) Best Practices
18. Best Practices - Communication • Schedule Regular Calls and Meetings • Keep Communication Lines Open • Which lines of communication should be open • When these lines of communication should be open
19. Best Practices - Communication • Ensure Expectations Are Straight • How to apply for and announce holidays • Encourage “water cooler” conversations • Share everything about yourself with your team.
20. Best Practices - • Turn your webcam on--and leave it on all day. • Wake up at 3 a.m. every morning. Seriously. • Overcommunicate, overcommunicate, and overcommunicate some more. Communication
21. The best time to setup a remote team is on day one because you don’t have to unlearn any old behaviors. Instead you just start working like you naturally would in that environment. -Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier Piece of Advice
22. Embracing remote work doesn’t mean you can’t have an office, just that it’s not required. It doesn’t mean that all your employees can’t live in the same city, just that they don’t have to. Remote work is about setting your team free to be the best it can be, wherever that might be. -Jason and David, the Founders of BaseCamp Piece of Advice
23. Remote work isn’t just a fact of your company, it’s a very specific skill set that you need to hire for. Great employees don’t necessarily make great remote employees, and not everyone has that fire to be productive without being surrounded by co-workers. – Alex, CEO of Groove Piece of Advice
24. It’s important to open up communication channels dedicated to that water cooler type of conversation. We have a channel in Slack labeled ‘random’ where the team can feel free to tell jokes or share things from their personal lives. We also have a tag #personal in iDoneThis where the team can celebrate Dones outside of their work life. - Walter Chan, CEO of productivity app iDoneThis Piece of Advice
25. We have two employees working in Europe. So the time zone difference was a challenge. They’re finishing up their day just a few hours after we’re getting started. We overcame this by practicing ‘timezone syncing,’ which is essentially ensuring that certain working hours overlap and that we’re doing the bulk of our communication in that brief window of time. - Walter, CEO of iDoneThis Piece of Advice
26. BaseCamp’s founders add: We need a good four hour of overlap to avoid collaboration delays and feel like a team. Piece of Advice
27. Tools Communication Tools
28. Tools Agile Tools
29. Real examples at Nearsoft
30. Nearsoft Portal • This project creates a video portal between 2 offices in Mexico • Video and Audio • All the time is on • Explore new ideas...
32. Problems • Give cards to everyone in the team • Get rid of physical cards • Coordinate between remote teams • Keep track of results • Some people shared video calls Objectives • Have more control in our meetings • Create a neutral environment • Keep track of results • Don’t use new tools
34. Problems • Get control of your flow • Keep the format • Tracking of action items Objectives • Have more control in our meetings • Don’t use new tools
35. Slack Standup Bot Problems • Coordinate between timezones • Loose information • Lack of format Objectives • Have more control in our meetings • Create a formal communication channel • Keep history • Don’t use new tools
37. • Overcommunicate decisions across all geographies • Clearly define the definition of done • Create guidelines for filing effective bug reports • Integrate all your Team, not just the developers Culture
38. Don’t make the mistake that some teams make after they experience success and start to feel comfortable. Avoid the temptation to drop off important ceremonies, like the stand-up meeting.
39. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ hbenitez@nearsoft.com HectorBenitez hectorbenitez Héctor Benítez Software Developer Thanks, You were awesome! fhernandez@nearsoft.com fhernandezn Frank Hernández Software Developer