distributed teams: a quick survival guide

@Sarah_Tabrizi1

Distributed TeamsA Quick Survival Guide

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Are you in a distributed team?

Distributed Teams

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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You are when …

• Your company has an office overseas• Your company has an office in Sydney• Your company has an office on the other

side of Melbourne• Your office has two floors• You have work from home arrangements• Your office is organized in cubicles• Or …

Distributed Teams

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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… you know this guy

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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“

”

The key point is the point where you find it easier to send an email than walk over to talk.

Martin Fowler

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Why?

• Hiring talented people • Getting closer to customers / partners• Covering more time zones• Getting cultural insights• Reducing costs ??

Distributed Teams

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Challenges

• Strangers or teammates?• Building trust• Mentoring juniors• Technical alignments• Communication across different

• Time zones• Languages• Cultures

Distributed Teams

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Ideas for successful team

• Inter-personal level• Team level• Technology level

Distributed Teams

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Inter-personal level

• Build relationship and renew it• Get to know others as real people• Convey emotions as much as possible• Get to know the other culture

Distributed Teams > Ideas for successful team

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Team level

• Have shared activities • Organize a Boot Camp• Send and Ambassador• Have remote pair programming• Plan for and Minimize the dependency• Create full-stack teams• Do frequent demos and retrospectives

Distributed Teams > Ideas for successful team

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Technology level

• Continuous integration• Enforced coding standards• Test Driven Development• Process automation• High bandwidth communication• Rich offline communication• Virtual boards

Distributed Teams > Ideas for successful team

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Offline collaboration example

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Question?

@Sarah_Tabrizi

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Thank you

• Useful Resources• Remote versus Co-located Work, Martin Fowler (

http://martinfowler.com/articles/remote-or-co-located.html)

• Successful Distributed Agile Team Working Patterns, Monica Yap (http://www.solutionsiq.com/docs/successful-distributed-team-working-patterns.pdf)

• How Atlassian does it: 3 tips for remote teamwork, Dan Radigan, (http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/07/how-atlassian-does-it-3-tips-for-remote-teamwork/)