The document discusses the challenges and principles of distributed agile teams, emphasizing the importance of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and agility across multiple locations. It presents different team models and outlines best practices for successful distributed agile environments, including stable team structures, effective communication, and continuous improvement metrics. Additionally, it highlights the need for a shared agile mindset among team members to enhance productivity and ownership.

1. Distributed Agile: Oxymoron or Holy Grail?
This pack is a record of an interactive session I facilitated for the 2013 Sydney
Agile Tour on 29 November.
The sticky notes that were the output of this interactive session did not come
out in the photos, so I quickly had to type them up.
As such this is not so much a presentation and I apologise for the boring
‘bullet point’ slides.
Sieger de Vries
Sydney
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2. Distributed Agile: Oxymoron or Holy Grail?
Deafening Silence
Open Secret
Virtual Reality
Only Choice
Unbiased Opinion
Pretty Ugly
Distributed Agile
Exact Estimate
Minor Crisis
Free Love
Seriously Funny
1. Lets Get some Data
2. Analyse The Facts …
4. Make it Practical:
Patterns & Practices
3. Agree on some
Principles
5. Learn: How can
we get More Data?
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3. Distributed Agile: Oxymoron or Holy Grail?
Why partner?
• Scaling up/down with knowledge retention, stable velocity and without local
layoffs
• Availability of extra talent & diversity of thinking
• Average team cost reduction
• Partnering + Agile = Killer Combination!?!?
What are the challenges
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Geography
Time zones
Culture
Language
Different Standards
No shared ownership
Us/Them
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4. Distributed Agile Team Patterns
A – The Offshore Team
Product Owner
On Shore
Off Shore
Business Analysts
Design Lead
Developers
Testers
Scrum Master
Work is predominantly done offshore
How well is it working?
0
1
2
Dysfunctional – we
are abandoning this
model
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5
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10
As good as a colocated team
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5. Distributed Agile Team Patterns
B – The Resource Augmentation Team
Product Owner
Business Analysts
Design Lead
Maybe a few Devs
Testers
Scrum Master
Developers
Maybe Testers
Rarely a BA
Off Shore
On Shore
Most work requires multiple hand offs between locations
and is directed from onshore
How well is it working?
0
1
2
Dysfunctional – we
are abandoning this
model
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
As good as a colocated team
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6. Distributed Agile Team Patterns
C – The Equal Feature Team
Product Owner
Scrum Master role
Business Analysts
Designer
Developers
Testers
Scrum Master role
Business Analyst
Designer
Developers
Testers
On Shore
Off Shore
Most work can be completed end-to-end in each location
How well is it working?
0
1
2
Dysfunctional – we
are abandoning this
model
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
As good as a colocated team
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7. Distributed Agile Team Patterns
D – Other? Multiple teams with possibly a
combination of patterns
On Shore
Off Shore
How well is it working?
0
1
2
Dysfunctional – we
are abandoning this
model
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
As good as a colocated team
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8. Distributed Agile: Principles & Practices
Principles and Practices for successful Distributed Teams
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Team coherence
The Person with the agile mindset
Agile maturity
Knowledge sharing & capability management
Infrastructure & Tools
Measurement & continuous improvement
Partnership governance & operations
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9. Team Coherence
• Stable teams with agreed and planned staff turn over. Team is
consulted and has a say in rotations
• Talent, experience and skills balanced equally between
locations
• Work can be completed end-to-end in both locations with no
or very few hand-offs
• Both on/off shore teams pull work from the same backlog
• On/off shore team members share equally in all team
ceremonies
• On/off shore team members have regular contact with the
SMEs and Product Owner and feel the same ownership of the
product and understand the strategy and roadmap
• Design is done in joint sessions to promote ownership of the
product
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10. Team Coherence - Continued
• Team members are co-located at the start of major initiatives
• Regular planned rotations for team members to share
knowledge and build personal relationships within team
• Team interactions are frequent and ad-hoc as well as planned
• Team interactions are both personal and goal focused
• Team members build personal relationships despite being in
different locations
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11. The “Agile” Team Member
The Team Member with an Agile Mindset
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Has internalised the Agile values & principles
Has an open growth mindset vs constraint of thought mindset
Walks the Talk
Self motivating
Self aware
Self disciplined
Self improving
Self actuating
Doesn’t wait to be told what to do
Has the courage to challenge and be challenged
Never feels “that’s not my job”
Picks up the trash lying on the floor
Listens with the intend to understand and explore
Behaves like an owner
Passionate about their craft
Passionate about their customer
“Three musketeer” attitude
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12. Agile Maturity across Locations
• “No compromise” attitude to one way of working – Agile
• All locations are agile and share the same values,
principles and practices
• “Calibrate” the way of working at the start of the
engagement
• All locations have a “safe to fail” culture
• All locations are “self-organising”
• Team & individual development plans address Agile gaps
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13. Knowledge Sharing & Capability Management
• Capability Matrix covering technical and business domain
skills
• Agreed staff turnover expectations, process and
measures
• Capability development plans for teams & individuals
• Comprehensive on-boarding process with buddy system
• Standard process for capturing and sharing knowledge
• Team organises regular capability and business context
sharing sessions
• Regular, planned staff rotations to promote knowledge
sharing and business context
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14. Infrastructure & Tools
• Collaboration tools such as Jira, instant messaging &
desktop sharing
• “Always On” video during shared hours so teams can
“see” each other and have ad-hoc interaction
• Dedicated networks to enable consistent high quality
video and audio
• Individual web cams & bandwidth to help build personal
relationships
• Smart boards or equivalent to enable joint design
sessions
• Equal access to environments and data
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15. Measurement & Continuous Improvement
• Standard Metrics identified, base-lined, tracked
• Team metrics identified, base-lined, tracked
• Team metrics include business outcomes ($ sales, profit,
numbers)
• Capability gap made visible
• Rate of improvement is made visible
• Joint Retrospective action items completion rate tracked
• Team and individual development plans in place
Average Cycle Time to “Done”
Average Cycle Time to “Prod”
Average Cycle Time for Risks/Issues
Throughput
Velocity
$ Burn rate for Team
Average $ Cost per Team Member
(averaged across locations as one number)
Average cost per story/feature by size (s,m,l)
Staff turnover / length of time in team
Team Temperature
Customer NPS
Average cost per team member of travel /
rotations
Average Gap score for Capability matrix
# of Defects escaping the iteration/sprint
# of Defects in production per period
# automated functional tests executed/passed
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16. Partnership Governance & Operations
• Clear service levels and outcomes agreed with defined
measurements and flexible targets
• Clear, simple and flexible financial processes
• Active, ongoing and visible risk management
• Relationship management at multiple levels
• Agreed targets for capability gap improvement
• Ongoing planned rotations
• Agreed process for individual performance management
• Joint capacity forecasting and planning to facilitate scaling
• Shared security and compliance processes &
responsibilities
• Strong commercial relationship
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