Adapting Agile for Distributed Teams

Chuck LewinSeptember 25, 2014

Intermedix

We help health care providers optimize

• Emergency Management

• Healthcare Delivery

• Revenue Cycles

Intermedix International

Intermedix Lietuva

• 200 employees

• 30 technology staff

• 20 open technology

positions

• Developers, Business

Analysts, DBA,

Support

Intermedix Lietuva

My Distributed Teams

My Experience

Agile projects are more successful.

Traditional

Ad-Hoc

Agile

Iterative

Lean

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Successful Challenged Failed

Copyright 2014 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Why do projects fail?

What does success look like?

• Agile

• Smaller teams

• Clearly defined goals

• Widely distributed domain knowledge

• Good communication

• Self-organizing teams

Distributed Team Communication Challenges

Challenges

• Communication Tax

• Time Zones

• Language Barriers

• Communication Technology

Solutions

• Scheduled Meeting Times

• Written Communication

• Instant Messaging

• Video Calls

• Ambassadors

• Travel & Time Together

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's

competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter

timescale.

4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get

the job done.

6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face

conversation.

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a

constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Globally distributed teams don’t need to adapt Agile much.

We just need to follow Agile and communicate well.

User Stories

• As a user, I want to register for a session.

• As a conference attendee, I want to register for a session,

so that I am guaranteed a spot in my preferred session and

I can receive updates about that session.

• As a user with registration privileges, I want to click on a

16x16 pixel cyan (#63A7BC) Font Awesome icon that

triggers a JavaScript event to reveal a modal dialog from

where I can submit an AJAX request to register.

Ron Jeffries’ Three C’s

• Card

• Conversation

• Confirmation

Acceptance Criteria (Tests)

As a seminar attendee, I want to register for a session, so that I am guaranteed a spot in the session I

want and I receive updates about that session.

1. Speakers also can register (they are attendees too)

2. I can choose from all available sessions, but

3. I can’t register for more than one session at the same time (as an attendee or speaker)

4. I can’t register for a session that is full, but

5. I can request to be put on the wait list for a full session

6. I can see the pertinent information, so that I am more likely to pick the one I really want: session

name, time, speaker, abstract, track

7. A message informs me how I will be notified of updates, if I have entered a preferred contact method

in my profile. If not, I will be notified that I must enter a preferred contact method to be notified of

updates. Nice to have: easy way to update preferred contact method from here.

8. I can see my progress towards signing up for all time slots (low priority)

9. I can sign up in less than a minute, excluding time spent reading abstract and pondering options

10. I can filter by language / track

INVEST

• Independent

• Negotiable

• Valuable

• Estimatable

• Small

• Testable

Acceptance Criteria

• Consider all user roles

• Consider non-standard workflows

• Are testable by anyone

Why User Stories?

Adapting Agile Ceremonies

• Daily Stand-ups

• Sprint Planning

• Sprint Reviews

• Grooming

• Release Planning