We explore how the fundamental principles and practices of Agile can help meet the challenges of working with distributed teams in fully remote or hybrid work environments.
Agile — the collaborative, feedback-based approach to software development — was not created for the world of remote work. Its practices of interactive scrums, sprints and daily stand-up meetings were designed largely for face-to-face communication in one physical space.
However, the rapid shift from teams in offices to distributed teams who could be anywhere in the world fundamentally changed how organizations operate — especially organizations that had adopted Agile for other business functions in addition to software development.
Without physical proximity, many of these teams faced unique challenges, from maintaining effective communication and collaboration to managing different time zones. In this article, we’ll explore how Agile principles and practices can be adapted to overcome these challenges and ensure distributed teams thrive.
How Agile Working Can Help Overcome the Challenges of Hybrid Teams
The ongoing shift in work dynamics has led many organizations to seek effective ways to adapt Agile practices to remote and hybrid environments. Ensuring that teams remain collaborative, productive, and aligned in these settings presents unique challenges. However, with thoughtful adaptation, Agile practices can help overcome these challenges and enable distributed teams to thrive.
Adapt Communication and Collaboration
Clear and continuous communication is critical for distributed teams. Agile emphasizes face-to-face communication, but in a distributed environment, this translates to frequent virtual meetings and continuous use of collaborative tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom to ensure transparency and alignment. To be most effective, we recommend holding these meetings with cameras on to discourage multitasking and ensure team members are engaged, just as if they were face-to-face.
However, communication tools alone are not enough. Team members must also know how to communicate, especially throughout their iterative, fluid projects. Encourage Team members to take their own notes, even if the meeting is being recorded, and to use the hand-raising options on video calls to minimize people speaking over each other. Additionally, provide clear communication protocols that emphasize:
- Collaboration and information sharing.
- More “showing” than “telling.”
- Only the most important information.
- Efficiency.
Establishing clear communication protocols can minimize misunderstandings and enhance collaboration. Working agreements help teams best realize communication protocols. These include:
- Communication Guidelines: The team determines guidelines for how and when to communicate, preferred channels, response times, and meeting etiquette.
- Collaboration and Information Sharing: Expectations for sharing information, providing updates, and collaborating on tasks.
- Decision-Making Processes: Methods for making decisions, resolving conflicts, and reaching consensus.
- Accountability: Defining roles, responsibilities, and how team members will hold each other accountable.
Creating and adhering to a working agreement can minimize misunderstandings and enhance collaboration within the team.
Maintain Team Cohesion
How do you build a team of people who you may never meet in person? Digital communications tools help because they can accommodate the regular meetings that Agile calls ceremonies. Whether virtual or not, Agile ceremonies build strong teams united around common goals. The ceremonies include:
- Sprint planning meetings, which establish the focus points and goals of an upcoming two-week sprint.
- Daily stand-up meetings, where team members report on the previous day’s work, the current day’s goals, and challenges they have encountered.
- Sprint review meetings at the end of each sprint, which recap the work completed and sets the stage for the next sprint.
- Sprint retrospective meetings focused on the quality of the just-finished sprint.
Distributed teams will also benefit from virtual team-building activities to strengthen team relationships and morale. For added fun, consider holding game breaks from time to time using online tools like https://really.boring.website/ or https://skribbl.io/.
Manage Different Time Zones
One key benefit of distributed teams is their ability to access the best talent from across the country or around the world. But this accessibility comes at a price: multiple time zones.
We suggest working with your teammates to identify a suitable meeting time that works for everyone. Alternatively, you can arrange multiple meeting times if that makes more sense for your project.
Some of our clients have successfully adopted a rotating schedule to ensure fairness in meeting times across different time zones. This approach alternates meeting times to accommodate various regions, so team members in one location aren’t always staying late or waking up early.
Communicating the schedule in advance and providing options for asynchronous updates and recordings for those who can’t attend promotes inclusivity and respects everyone’s work-life balance, aligning with Agile principles of collaboration and respect.
Use the Right Tools
In addition to digital communication tools, project management and collaboration tools are also critical to distributed teams’ success. They can help team members refresh their memories and prepare for each meeting, but more importantly, tools like these help ensure visibility and accountability:
- Jira: A project management tool that can be the “single source of truth” for team members, especially teams of software developers. It allows teams to be autonomous and to understand the context of their work and how it links to business goals.
- Trello: Similar to Jira in scope, Trello is built like a Kanban board, an Agile tool for visualizing a project that displays stages of work in columns. Team members move task cards from one column to the next as they are completed.
- Miro: A whiteboard platform for collaborating in real-time from any location, regardless of location.
- Notion: A collaboration tool that allows team members to create meeting summary pages where they can share notes and status updates before meetings.
Stay Connected to Customers
Staying connected to customers and capturing their voices is challenging, even in a traditional setting. Virtual feedback sessions, online surveys, and remote user testing are a few of the tools distributed teams can use to maintain Agile’s customer-centric approach.
The Ultimate Challenge: Fostering Agile Culture in Distributed Teams
As important as it is to adapt agile practices for distributed teams, it’s even more important to develop an Agile culture — but building such a culture requires deliberate effort from everyone, especially leaders.
Leaders set the bar and tone for work activities. Therefore, a positive attitude to the Agile work model will help your team adopt a similar mindset. Leaders also need to actively demonstrate flexibility, openness to feedback, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
We encourage you to stress the importance of frequent and open communication among team members. Make sure that everyone’s work is visible and accessible through some of the tools we’ve mentioned. They will help establish a common understanding and group accountability.
And while video calls and regular check-ins humanize interactions and build rapport, we also suggest implementing more relaxed, sociable interaction opportunities. For instance, you can set up a special Slack channel dedicated to pictures of pets, or schedule other virtual team activities to strengthen bonds and cultivate a sense of belonging.
Examples of Success
Several organizations have successfully adapted Agile practices to remote and hybrid environments:
- Spotify: Known for its innovative approach to Agile, Spotify has successfully implemented Agile practices in a distributed team setting, maintaining high levels of collaboration and productivity.
- Automattic: The company behind WordPress.com operates as a fully distributed team, using Agile principles to manage projects and deliver continuous improvements.
- Buffer: A social media management platform, Buffer has embraced remote work and Agile practices, achieving effective collaboration and maintaining a strong team culture.
These examples demonstrate that with thoughtful adaptation and a focus on continuous improvement, Agile practices can be successfully implemented in distributed teams. It’s important to try out different approaches and adapt to what works best for those involved, leading to enhanced collaboration, productivity, and alignment.
The Agile Advantage in a Distributed World
Successfully applying agile practices in distributed team environments isn’t about re-creating traditional methods online. Rather, it hinges on thoughtful adaptation and a commitment to Agile principles.
Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for Agile. That’s why it’s important to experiment with Agile practices, take advantage of technology, foster a collaborative culture, and focus on continuous improvement. There’s no better time to start your Agile transformation than now!
In our Agile transformation white paper, we walk you through the challenges of scaling agile while providing you with solutions and steps to ensure you can do it successfully.
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