Working with remote teams
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This document discusses challenges and approaches to implementing Agile practices in IT organizations in Nepal. It notes that Nepal has a small but competent IT community, with most companies ranging from 7-100 employees. One large organization, Verisk IT, has 350 employees serving US clients, including 260 certified Scrum Masters. While there is enthusiasm for Agile among younger workers, challenges include a strong hierarchical mindset, lack of self-organization, poor communication skills and infrastructure, aversion to escalating issues, and "misconceptions" about Agile processes. The document advocates making values like communication and self-organization a priority over rigid processes, and establishing an environment that supports techniques like test-driven development. It emphasizes aligning onshore
Working with remote teams
- 1. Brian Dsouza April 25, 2012 1
- 2. •My Nepal experience • Team Values
- 3. About Nepal • Landlocked country •Home to the Himalayas • Very warm and welcoming people • Severely lacking in basic amenities
- 4. Information Technology in Nepal •IT companies range from 7 employees to 100 employees •Small but competent IT community •Tremendous interest in Agile among Professional and Student community • Agile IT event - over 80 students and 100 plus professionals •Agile Leadership Network in Nepal
- 5. Verisk IT •Largest IT Organization in Nepal • ~350 employees •Serving clients in the US •260 Certified Scrum Masters
- 6. My experience with Agile Rollout in Nepal •Tremendous enthusiasm for Agile •The latest fad •Younger workforce •Open to change
- 7. Self Organization •Challenge: •Strong hierarchical mindset •Guru-shiksha – culture of obeying •Sense of helplessness •Ready to take orders •Impact: • Design is an ongoing daily process between onshore-offshore teams within a Sprint • Lots of activity, no progress •Approach: • Make your team responsible for „failure‟ • Help them to challenge everything •Design •Architecture •Process •Even your Agile Coach
- 8. Communication •Challenge: •Good communication is NOT a value •Best speakers are not the ones that speak at meetings •Self assertion is not a virtue •Language skill improvement is not a career goal •Impact: •Creates a wrong impression of team‟s technical capabilities •Turns people off – communication frequency is reduced •Collaboration suffers – lets just design and give tasks to offshore •Lots of activity, no progress •Approach: •Use the best communicators on meetings •No local languages to be used except „English‟ within the organization •Make Good Communication a career goal •Encourage “pecha kucha” sessions to gain experience
- 9. Escalation •Challenge: •Escalation is looked upon as being non-cooperative and difficult •Fire-fighting is a virtue – I save the day, team and organization •„Work-around‟ over a solution •Wrong sense of team •protect a member/team that is failing •Calling out a superior is sacrilegious •Impact: •Inefficiencies abound •Failures are repeated •Team velocity significantly impacted •Approach: •Make the team responsible for failure, irrespective of where the issue is
- 10. Development Process •Challenge: •Mostly home-grown •Agile „misconceptions‟ are easily adopted •No documentation •No analysis-design-build/test approach •Impact: •Further erosion of development process quality as a result of „adopting‟ agile •Approach: •Introduce Development processes along with Project Management Processes •TDD needs Automation •Environment to support Agile development techniques must be available
- 11. Communication Infrastructure •Challenge: •Communication infrastructure quality is not a priority •Poor communication infrastructure exacerbates language skills and accents •Impact: •Loss of productive time especially on large meetings •Creates an incorrect perception of a low quality team •Reduces open and extensive collaboration •Creates a wall – throw work over rather than collaborate •Approach: •Make good communication infrastructure a critical organizational goal • Infrastructure teams need to be held accountable •Institute metrics to measure the quality of communication
- 12. Values over Process Inculcating Values is a key step to creating an environment that becomes Self-improving
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- 18. Courage 18
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- 22. Discussion
- 23. Key Considerations for remote Agile teams Feedback: Feel much more connected to the business in the US Now see meaning in what we do Enjoy coming to work as I see myself moving forward -Communications (Tools and Technologies) -Adapting the right approach (Language and Culture) -Aligning on-shore and off-shore teams on Agile Principals -Communicating by value rather than effort