distributed agile patterns

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Distributed Agile Patterns-ShriKant Vashishtha

©2015 GlobalLogic Inc.

About Me!• Agile Coach at Globallogic Noida • 16+ years of IT experience • Trainer on Agile, Agile Testing, Continuous

Delivery, Specification by Example or

BDD, Continuous Inspection • Singer, counsellor, self-help thinker • Twitter - @vashishthask

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Blogs on agilebuddha.com

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Distributed Agile Failure Points

• Not actually doing “Basic” Scrum in the first place.

• Inadequate tools and governance mechanisms to make asynchronous communication successful

• “We vs they” or “Vendor vs Customer” mindset

• Unbalanced distribution of work and ownership

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Distributed Agile Success Factors

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Don’t Distribute in First Place

Scrum Team

Product

Owner

GEO1 GEO2

Scrum

Master

Sprint

Backlog

Function1

(e.g. Dev)

Function2

(e.g. Test)

Function

Lead

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Trust

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Courage to Change

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Innovation

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Communication

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Patterns Types• Structural

• Implementation

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Structural Patterns

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Local Control, Distributed Team

Scrum Team

Product

Owner

Function1

(e.g. Dev)

Function2

(e.g. Test)

GEO1 GEO2

Scrum

Master

Sprint

Backlog

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Local Control, Distributed Team

• Most useful when

• Total team size is small:for example, a single team 4 to 8 person Scrum team

• Team members are peers; little or no mentorship required

• Natural overlap of about 4 to 5 “core” working hours per day in all timezones

• Continuous Communication channel open between all team members during core hours

• Good tool support

• Frequent face to face contact between team members to maintain team identity

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Local Control, Distributed Team

• Problems to watch out for

• Non-peer developers or too large a team

• Limited face-to-face communication

• “Remote” team members will eventually start to feel detached.

• Limited natural overlap in working hours

• Team members will get burned out

• Lack of good real-time tools and asynchronous communication tools

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Remote Functional Team

Scrum Team

Product

Owner

GEO1 GEO2

Scrum

Master

Sprint

Backlog

Function1

(e.g. Dev)

Function2

(e.g. Test)

Function

Lead

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Remote Functional Teams• Most useful when

• Strong functional expertise and ownership in remote geography

• Disciplined Scrum implementation with artifacts available globally in real-time

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Remote Functional Teams• Problems to watch out for

• Remote team members cannot attend full kick-offs, retrospectives and team meetings

• Remote team will be missing the context and fall behind the on-shore team

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Remote Self-Contained Teams

Self-

Contained

Scrum Team

(4 - 8 people)Product

Owner

GEO1 GEO2

Scrum

Master

Sprint

Backlog

Self-

Contained

Scrum Team

(4 - 8 people)

Scrum

Master

Sprint

Backlog

Proxy

Product

Owner

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Remote Self Contained Teams

• Most useful when

• Coupling between product components and interfaces is or can be defined well enough that each can separately evolve.

• Domain and product expertise exists or can be developed in the remote site(s)

• Frequent face-to-face visits between team members

• “High trust” culture exists or can grow

• Effective governance model in place so that cross-team, cross-geography decisions can be made with full buy-in

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Remote Functional Teams• Problems to watch out for

• Product components too tightly coupled, or no domain expertise remotely

• Too much synchronous communication required to support full effectiveness

• Lack of face-to-face visits, or “low-trust” culture in place

• One team may feel threatened by the other and attempt subtle sabotage

• Lack of effective, inclusive governance model

• Remote team will become disempowered

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Implementation Patterns

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Implementation Patterns For…

• Distributed Teams on two locations

• Distributed Teams on Two Locations with opposite time-zones

• Fully Distributed Teams

• Distributed Teams on Multiple Location

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Distributed Collocated Teams

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Remote Pairing

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Virtual Collocation

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Local Retrospective

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Pseudo Product Owner and Specs By Example

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Acceptance Criteria (Executable Spec)

Customer who buys 2 albums gets an album free

Number of Albums Gets Free Album1 No2 Yes

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Nut-Bolt Pattern

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Backlog Grooming and Definition of READY

source: http://www.solutionsiq.com/images/definition-of-ready.gif

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Definition of Ready

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PO Kanban Board

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One Team Multiple ProjectsTi

me/

Stor

y Po

ints

0

20

40

60

80

Time

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10Week 11

No work available

Work Available

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Distributed Collocated Teams with Opposite Time-zones

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One TeamCommunication

Shared Vision

Active Participation

Shared Goals

Shared Ownership

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Create Overlap

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No Local Meetings in Overlap Hours

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Scrum Meetings Attended by Whole Team

source: http://www.infoq.com/resource/articles/dutch-railway-scrum/en/resources/image2.jpg

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Continuous Backlog Grooming