- development processes - roles in the team - work with in-house and remote developers and partners

1. Distributed Drupal team:
not an option, but the reality
by Anatolii Pazhyn, CEO at AnyforSoft
Kharkiv, Ukraine
2017

2. Who likes to work at the
office?

3. Who likes to work from
home or another
city/country?

4. Who are we?
●
Backend Developers
●
Frontend Developers
●
Project Managers
●
QA
●
Sales
●
CxO
●
Business owners

5. Virtual/Remote/Distributed
teams

6. Distributed Drupal team
Basically, it is about being competitive in the fast-
changing world.
There is no other choice than to create distributed
teams and to experiment with them and to learn fast.

7. Advantages for business
●
Larger talents’ pool
●
Rare skills
●
Scalability
●
Less overhead
●
Saving on taxes
●
Better team effectiveness
●
Better processes

8. Disadvantages for business
●
Personal team involvement
●
Harder retention
●
Harder processes
●
Stability

9. Advantages for team members
●
No suits, no ties
●
No transportation
●
Flexible schedule
●
Activity hours
●
Work from any location
●
Your personal computer
●
Home food
●
Family time
●
Listen to your favorite loud music
●
Code with your cat

10. Disadvantages for team members
●
No suits, no ties
●
Less corporate parties
●
No strict schedule
●
Less personal communication
●
Fridge, TV :)

11. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture
– building corporate culture

12. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language
– finding common language and using it

13. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language – finding common language and use it
●
Time zones
– planning daily meetings and activities for overlapping hours

14. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language – finding common language and use it
●
Time zones – planning daily meetings and activities for overlapping
hours
●
Communication
– building team spirit and common communication routines

15. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language – finding common language and use it
●
Time zones – planning daily meetings and activities for overlapping
hours
●
Communication – building team spirit and common communication
routines
●
Lack of trust for team members
– collaborate more
– psychological safety
– meaning and impact
– common results sharing and kudos

16. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language – finding common language and use it
●
Time zones – planning daily meetings and activities for overlapping
hours
●
Communication – building team spirit and common communication
routines
●
Lack of trust for team members – collaborate more
●
Lack of visibility for management
– regular sync-ups and project/team workload reviews

17. Distributed team challenges
●
Culture – building corporate culture
●
Language – finding common language and use it
●
Time zones – planning daily meetings and activities for overlapping
hours
●
Communication – building team spirit and common communication
routines
●
Lack of trust for team members – collaborate more
●
Lack of visibility for management – regular sync-ups and project/team
workload reviews
●
We’re thinking ‘we’ versus’ them’
– Face-to-Face meet-ups, build project teams

18. Formal vs Informal
communication?

19. Toolsets and clear
workflow
define behavior

20. Tools
●
Google Apps
– calendar for appointments,
– estimates, contracts, documents,
– project source files, specifications, planning,
– invoices
●
Google Hangouts (cross-platform, video calls, screen sharing) / Skype

21. Tools
●
Redmine
– Wiki
●
processes (workflow, artifacts)
●
corporate code standards
●
best practices
●
project architecture
– sprint planning
– issue tracking
– bug tracking
– Agile board
– communication

22. Tools
●
Gitlab
– version control system
– code review
– skill sharing
●
GitlabCI
– code sniffers
– auto-deployment

23. Tools
●
Slack
– general team channel
– department channels
– technology channels
– skill sharking
– project channel
– kittens :)
●
Skype
– community skills sharing
– communication with some clients

24. Process
●
Project planning
●
Sprint planning
●
Daily meetings
●
Daily reports
●
Clear workflow
●
Continuous deployment
●
QA
●
Sprint demos
●
Account management

25. Tools
THE LESS THE BETTER
●
Do not use similar tools for the same purposes
●
Do not write too many processes and standards
●
Keep some space for creativity and self-development

26. Distributed Drupal team
TIME FOR QUESTIONS
/
TIPS AND TRICKS FROM YOU

27. Share your Drupal distributed experience!
Contact me
Anatolii Pazhyn
CEO at AnyforSoft
anatolii@anyforsoft.com
https://linkedin.com/in/pazhyn
https://facebook.com/pazhyn
https://twitter.com/pazhyn
https://drupal.org/u/pazhyn
https://facebook.com/anyforsoft
https://anyforsoft.com