Distributed Agile

Distributed Agile : Bridging Communication Gap with Virtual “One Room”

ShriKant Vashishtha · September 18, 2011 · Leave a Comment

While working in distributed Agile, one of the repeated patterns is “2-dimensional (2D) communication”. Distributed communication generally happens with Skype video and Mikogo desktop sharing tools. Skype kind of video-chat solutions help in bringing distances closer as team members can look at body language of their distributed partners while talking. At the same time, distributed desktop-sharing tools (Mikogo, yuuguu, Skype screen share etc) enable distributed pair programming as developers from both sides can look and use their own machine. Sitting posture is much more comfortable than collocated pair-programming.

Initially communication mode works well but after a while (say after 2+ months) it becomes monotonous, technical in nature and less focused on soft-nuances of communication. People talk when they need to and only to fix technical issues. Human touch goes down as time elapses which is a usual phenomenon of distance communication. Discussions on personal life, things beyond project scope and fun talks cannot happen in an environment in which your sole purpose of talking most of the times is resolving a technical issue.

Things Without Which Distributed Agile Won’t Work

ShriKant Vashishtha · August 7, 2011 · 7 Comments

From my experience while working with multiple distributed Agile projects, following things are very important:

Frequent collocation (every quarter at least) with clearly defined goals to achieve from each side. At the end of collocation it’s important to do a retrospective on the effectiveness of collocation based on goals achieved or over/under-achieved.
Scrum Master at customer location
Distributed standup every day on Skype or with some other video-conferencing tool
Good microphones for distributed group conversation (for instance http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=2010)
Good bandwidth for Skype video conversations
Good headphones for each individual for distributed pairing
Distributed pair programming and if required distributed knowledge sharing sessions
Pre-planning meetings to understand user-stories better
Peer to peer communication between distributed teams
Local retrospective if required.
Prepare for distributed retro and demo before doing it
Define a slot for technical discussion after standup is over.
Some time overlap ( due to timezone difference ) between distributed teams for better communication. This increases productivity for sure. If time-zones are completely different, teams have to shift their work timings.

"Missing Roles in Scrum" and "Holistic Success of the Software Projects"

ShriKant Vashishtha · May 3, 2011 · 6 Comments

Recently I had a discussion with one of my colleagues over the definition of Agile Architect role. Scrum doesn’t have any room for such role. The whole idea behind that is – just by labeling a person with a role named Architect, the person doesn’t become Architect. Also architecture creation should be a collaborative effort instead of defined by just single person. That’s why by definition, any/all developers can contribute to shape the architecture of the application depending on their competency.

So the question is – why am I still talking about it? The answer lies in some scenarios I encountered while executing Scrum based projects where I felt the need of having a person with certain responsibilities and competency. In this blog, I am not just talking about the need of Agile Architects but also about some other roles which become very important for holistic success point of view.

Knowledge Sharing Between Distributed Teams

ShriKant Vashishtha · June 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

One of the key USPs of pair-programming is – it provides value which is more than simple typing. That includes ACTIVE participation in code-review, knowledge sharing on continual basis, frequent design discussions with minimal distractions etc. If you primarily focus on knowledge sharing, pair-programming essentially provides true form of knowledge sharing as instead of looking at some bulky heartless documents you sit together with a person who has already worked on the subject and can have conversations and design discussions.

Augmented Distributed Agile Teams – The Need of Local Retrospective

ShriKant Vashishtha · May 21, 2009 · 1 Comment

World is becoming a global village especially in form of communication and the dissemination of information. In context of current economic turmoil and lack of enough trained software professionals locally, distributed Agile is becoming a norm for software project execution.

Earlier, most of the times, entire distributed software project used to be executed completely at offshore because of time-zone differences and communication issues. Now because of communication revolution, you see a new trend where software companies like to extend their teams (augmented Agile teams) with different vendors. Recently while working in such a project from a distributed location, we realized the need of local retrospective.