thesis-and-viva-voce preparation for research scholars
Top 5 secrets of distributed teams / Christina McNeill & T. Kim Nguyen
1. Top 5 Secrets of
Distributed Teams
Christina McNeill – Penn State – cmcneill@plone.org
T. Kim Nguyen – Wildcard Corp. – nguyen@plone.org
2. Why Are Successful Teams Important?
●Individuals have limits
●Affect Plone’s success
●Team effectiveness is a range: 0% <–> 100%
●Ways to boost effectiveness
7. 1.Plan the Meeting
Share agenda & other documents beforehand
Scheduling: be consistent in frequency, time, format
Do you need a meeting?
Pick collaboration tools
11. 2. Manage the Meeting
Start and finish on time
Follow agenda: Stay on topic
Can use task managers as structure for the meeting
Manage personality dynamics
Record minutes and action items
12. 2. Manage the Meeting: Face-to-Face
Google Hangouts (group)
Skype (group)
Firefox Hello (1 on 1)
FaceTime (1 on 1)
19. 4. Share with the Community: What & Why
Team members
Agenda
For transparency
So people know you’re active & can coordinate with you
You may get help!
20. 4. Share with the Community: How
1.community.plone.org: Announcements -> Team Minutes
2.Twitter
3.Personal blog (feed to planet.plone.org)
news from these sources are included in the newsletter
22. 5. PeopleThink™
●Who make good team members? not always obvious
●Easing collaboration / group dynamics
●Allowing personality and style differences to
complement, not clash
●Who will show up consistently? Who will do what they
say they would do?
23. Applied Theory / Plone Teams
1.Foundation Board
2.Plone.com
3.Plone 5 Launch Team
4.Marketing & Communications
25. The Star Chamber … evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power
26. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone Foundation Board
Team with most formal process
Scheduled bi-weekly meetings
Formal agenda process
27. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone Foundation Board
Agenda
Google Hangout
Approve prior meeting minutes
Record meeting minutes
28. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone Foundation Board
Email
Google Docs
29. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone Foundation Board
Meeting minutes
posted on plone.org/foundation/minutes
posted on community.plone.org
emailed to Foundation membership
Agenda
posted on plone.org/foundation/agendas
30. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone Foundation Board
●A truly effective mix of:
○ quiet (and maybe not so quiet) doers
○ reality checkers
○ social networkers
○ longstanding context keepers
33. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone.com
Regularly scheduled bi-weekly meetings
Same day
Same time
Google Calendar
Recurring meetings
34. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone.com
the same Google Hangout URL
private Trac issue tracker
35. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone.com
Email
Comments on issue tracker
IRC
36. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone.com
Closed (private) issue tracker
No meeting notes taken, none shared
37. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone.com
Right people in right roles:
themer
decider
writer
idea bouncer & editor
general purpose doer
40. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone 5 Launch Team
Regularly scheduled bi-weekly meetings
Same day
Same time
Google Calendar
Recurring meetings
Agenda
41. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone 5 Launch Team
Follow Agenda
Google Hangout
42. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone 5 Launch Team
Notes *eventually* posted on
community.plone.org
43. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Plone 5 Launch Team
●Members chosen to represent all aspects
of P5: docs, training, installers, framework
team, marketing & communications
●A good mix of deciders and doers
●Needed more people to DO
46. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Marketing & Communications Team
Regularly scheduled bi-weekly meetings
Same day
Same time
Google Calendar
Recurring meetings
47. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Marketing & Communications Team
Overlap with Plone 5 Launch Team
members
Email
Slack
48. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Marketing & Communications Team
Folded into Plone 5 Launch Team
Notes not taken and/or nothing to share
Miscommunication
No one attends
Meetings canceled
49. Plan the meeting
Manage the meeting
Communicate between
meetings
Share with the
community
PeopleThink™
Marketing & Communications Team
So much to do, not enough people
Small team, work well together
Skills needed
50. 5 Secrets
1.Plan the Meetings
2.Manage the Meetings
3.Communication Between Meetings
4.Share with Community
5.PeopleThink
51.
52. Top 5 Secrets of
Distributed Teams
Christina McNeill – Penn State – cmcneill@plone.org
T. Kim Nguyen – Wildcard Corp. – nguyen@plone.org
Editor's Notes
big / complex / long lasting things are not accomplished by individuals alone
effective teams are critical to the success of Plone
we each remember nightmare teams, and (if we’re lucky) some amazing teams
but, mostly, teams aren’t at those extremes
how do you boost a team’s effectiveness?
these are the things that helped us on some moderately successful teams we have been a part of
Normal team challenges
Finding role where everyone is contributing in meaningful ways
Personality: work style, communication
Leadership & organization
Remote team challenges
Creating & maintaining enthusiasm for work that could be accomplished in one day if we were all locked in a room together (this is why we love sprints, yes? =) )
Collaborative Tools: because people aren't in the same room, they get easily distracted by things that happen to them in the room they're in, and then they never get back to the remote work
Global team challenges
time zones
language barriers
cultural
7 Ps
Plan the Meeting
How
Be consistent: frequency, time, format
Do you need to meet at all? Could use the time to Get Things Done instead.
Send documents to read beforehand; send agenda so members can add what they’ve accomplished since last meeting.
*choose tools up front
Plan the Meeting
Create a Google drive folder, set sharing permissions once, create docs inside it (they acquire the same sharing permissions)
Add attendees. Repeating events. Always notify attendees. Include link to Google Doc in event description. If use Hangout, keep the same Hangout URL.
Being on time is best use of everyone’s time
If a new topic comes up, can it wait until the end or next meeting? Flexibility is good; don’t shut down discussion if it seems to be productive!
Try to allow the quieter team members to be heard. May have to (gently!) interrupt others.
Have someone record the minutes and action items: best if whoever is recording is not the same person who is running the meeting
Face-to-Face
Google Hangouts (group & public recordings / streaming On Air)
Skype (group)
Firefox Hello (1 on 1)
FaceTime (1 on 1)
Task Managers:
*good tool to help keep meeting focused & members accountable
ActiveInbox
Trello
JIRA
Basecamp (PSM13, PSM14)
Github issue tracker
Task Managers:
*good tool to help keep meeting focused & members accountable
ActiveInboxHQ.com (for Gmail)
Trello
JIRA
Basecamp (PSM13, PSM14)
Github issue tracker (public & private repos)
Email: if you can, create a group e.g. Google Group, with one email address, or you may forget people
Collaborative Editing
Google Docs
Suggesting mode with editing & approval workflow
in-document chat (show demo how to enable this)
How to view document history to see what’s been changed and/or rollback to previous version
Feedback on Designs: invisionapp.com
Shared Folder
Google Drive or Web Site Intranet Folder
Chat (pro/con list?)
IRC
Slack or equivalent (advantages of Slack: chat logging, paste snippets/images/files, notifications on all devices)
Transparency
How to Communicate
community.plone.org: Announcements/Team Minutes*
Twitter (seems to be Community social media tool of choice)*
personal blog*
*These things are included in newsletter
doers, idea people, take charge, deep thinkers, detail people, process people, historical perspective
diversity makes us stronger
developers, designers, trainers, writers, testers, organizers
The Star Chamber was an English court of law who sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century (ca. 1641). Over time, the Star Chamber evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power
Plone Foundation Board
Plone “team” with the most formal process
biweekly meetings
agenda drafted, agreed on, then made public and sent out ahead of time
Google Docs for collaborating on budgets and other documents
official minutes prepared and approved by the board
official minutes posted to plone.org and sent to Plone Foundation membership (and informally posted to community.plone.org for wider readership and community awareness)
Plone.com Team
Issue tracker which we used to structure team meetings
Google Hangouts
members are accessible & responsive, even if not immediately available to work on “some thing”
scheduled bi-weekly meetings
Plone 5 Launch Team
biweekly meetings
Google Hangouts
Google Docs for agendas and notes send ahead of time and edited during meetings
Marketing & Communications Team
scheduled bi-weekly meetings: helpful that there was overlap between this team, the Plone Board, and Launch team
Google Doc for collaborative agenda & notes
Invisio App to collaborative edit designs
Many times we didn't have the meeting so we could spend the time to work