Agile2018

Abstract:
Many surveys indicate that more organizations are practicing agile in distributed environments. Yet, agile is optimized for collocated people who can huddle around a problem space and closely collaborate on best solutions that will deliver value. But is collocation the only option these days? Does distributed always imply “dysfunctional”? Maybe the problem is how we think about the “working environment”. In this talk, we will share how we have experienced different work environments, principles and practices we have discovered after working for years with distributed agile teams in these environments and how re-thinking “distributed” and “co-located” allow these teams to thrive in an agile environment.

Learning Outcomes:

• What are distributed agile principles? How can these new principles be derived from original agile and lean principles and the distributed context?
• Seeing the principles as a spectrum and how being outside of a “sweet spot” on the spectrum puts distributed teams in difficult environments.
• What are different types of distributed agile teams? In what conditions do they work well and where are there pitfalls?
• Understanding “hours of overlap” rather than time zones.
• How to be aware of the richness of your distributed team communications.
• How your distributed team communications is influenced by synchronous/asynchronous communications, hours of overlap and communicating beyond work.

Attachments:

• Agile Distributed Teams - Option or Oxymoron Agile2018.pdf
• Kilby Worksheet - What is your Distributed Team’s Environment - Agile2018.pdf