Cost only?
- lower value work is likely to come offshore if cost is the only factor
- v/s going offshore for scale or for specific skills
Are they prepared for what it means?
Buy-in from Business folks is important. Merely IT pushing for offshore is not enough
Business vision
Technical unknowns
Cross functional representation from each location
Ideally 1-2 days of inception team getting together, before inception start
At least an informal catch up of the team before showtime
Important that offshore team members drive enough discussions and create trusted relationships
People who are likely to remain co-located can consciously take a temporary back seat
The primary delivery location should have all the roles (including BAs, UX)
Decision making will require inputs and buy-in from both locations
◦Decision making cycle time may increase
◦Agreement between the onshore and offshore location; that offshore will also drive discussions and decisions
e.g. Don’t do UI in one location and server side code in another location
Both locations should own features end to end (analysis to testing and deployment). Implies direct communication from offshore with key business stakeholders
Minimize the need for both teams to work on the same set of classes and methods on a day to day basis
Risk of silos
Important to integrate continuously - no branches, everyone on mainline
Don’t leave broken builds
People from any location can revert a breaking checkin if the other location is unavailable
Ensure everyone treats this as one team
- Don’t measure or compare onsite and offshore team velocity
Important for onsite folks to work from the offshore location for a few weeks
Form the habit of using video by default on every call
Complement video with screen sharing and collaborative document editing tools
- eg. photos of team members
- celebrating birthdays
- don’t forget the banter - informal chat tools
Offshore driving planning meetings, showcases, feature brainstorming sessions
Ensuring visibility of offshore team members for the customer stakeholders
-whole team takes 30 mins at start of day to check and reply to emails
-a few team members systematically shepherding email responses from each side
Standups, retrospectives, planning meetings
Don’t forget to exchange feedback
Make sure the budget planning accounts for this
◦Distributed agile is hard!
◦If you can find a way to bring all work in one location, do that