modern approaches to product development: the challenge of distributed teams

APPROCCI MODERNI ALLO SVILUPPO SOFTWARE:

LA SFIDA DEI TEAM DISTRIBUITIA webinar for CodeMotion #TechDay - Jan, 21st, 2014

/ME@carloz

DOES DISTRIBUTEDPRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT WORK?

Hudson Bay Companydistributed work since1670

trust and control via hiring, communication and

participation practices http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Indians_at_a_Hudson_Bay_Company_trading_pos

DOES DISTRIBUTED MODERN PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT WORK?

LINUX KERNEL

• internet

• copyleft (incentive systems)

• transparency

• leadership

• modularity

• communities of practicehttp://pixabay.com/p-158547

NAMING CONVENTIONS #OFFSHORING, #NEARSHORING, #HOMESHORING, #OUTSOURCING

• REMOTE TEAM: team members are co-located. Somewhere else. (BTW, where is the BIZ seated?)

• REMOTE TEAM MEMBER: one team member works from home (or another office)

• MULTI-SITE DEVELOPMENT: team members are co-located. Different teams work together on the same product from different locations.

• DISTRIBUTED TEAM: team members are NOT co-located

• DISTRIBUTED COMPANY: whole company embraces distributed work

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Are you more a requestor, a coordinator, or a developer?

How large is the organization?

Do you deal with remote and/or distributed teams?

http://bit.do/techday

DOES DISTRIBUTED MODERN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT WORK?

HOW DO WE KNOW IT’S WORKING?

HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?

(LET’S TRY & USE THE WEBINAR Q&A FUNCTION!)

A FEW GOOD INDICATORS

• how much?

• how fast?

• how often?

• how good?

• how happy? (customers, team)

• how much money? (ROI)

• (how do we compare it to a less or non distributed approach?)

• “capability of delivering quickly & frequently high quality, valuable, software”

• “great remote workers are simply great workers”

• “most remote issues are really trust issues”

• “people play games and watch youtube in the office, as well, if they want to”

WHAT MAKES IT WORK?

• your take: http://bit.do/funziona

• which are the enablers? the key things that make a difference

FROM THE TRENCHES• effective communication (tools to support realtime & async comm. + storage;

frequent travels)

• talented, committed people

• respect (different times, cultures)

• optimal team size and mix

• “common ground”

• trust

• transparency

A. HIRINGB. MANAGING

case year n of ppl company size

“success rate”

#1 2008 3 8 2/10

#2 2009 8 14 1/10

#3 2011/15 70+ 550 8/10

#4 2012/14 14 170 6/10

#5 2014 4 4 7/10

#6 2014 15 950 4/10

#7 2013/14 22 950 3/10

A Chinese tale

image from https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3274/2461440599_d55ff90806.jpg

HYGENE FACTORS

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Toiletpapier_(Gobran111).jpg

. . . AGILE . . .

• teamwork and collaboration

• short feedback cycles

• inspect and adapt

• same principles, contextual practices (& tools)

GOING DISTRIBUTED?

DO IT FOR THE RIGHT REASONS!

https://lh5.ggpht.com/SNdIq3FdZsul4tbC2NZkG3N8lNwoELywBlec6_quA6-NZ74YBekMGjuQEZisJ6jFXTxGnozRWiSgEj1OZDELFkfQrlE=s0

TIPS FOR THE PRO

Alistar Cockburn

“Software development is a cooperative game”

Dan North

“Ignorance is the single greatest impediment to throughput”

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE REST OF US

DOES DISTRIBUTED MODERN PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT WORK?

RULE OF THUMB

“If you are working well with this team while co-located, it is reasonable to assume that you may work well with them while distributed.”

(“The best way to test your assumption is to run an experiment”)

https://gohelpyourself.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/thumb.jpg

PEOPLE AND INTERACTIONSOVER

PROCESSES AND TOOLS

TIPS FOR THE BIG ONES

“After working for some years in the domain of offshore

distilled our experience and advice down to the following:

Craig Larman, Scaling Lean and Agile Development, p. 1

remote work (http://dilbert.com/strip/2009-09-03)

remote team (http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-02-20)

teaching to remote team (http://dilbert.com/strip/1998-10-14)

Craig Larman, Scaling Lean and Agile Development, p. 1

“There are better ways to build large systems than with many developers in many places. Rather, build a small group of great developers and other talents that can work together in teams, pay them well, and

keep them together in one place with product management or whoever acts as the voice of the

customer.”

FINAL THOUGHTS

• co-located product development is easier

• inspect your position in the “agile fluency” journey. act accordingly.

• (your effectiveness in distributed product development may be a good indicator of your organization “agility”)

• run experiments

GET MORE …

• [article] Distributed Workforce - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_workforce

• [paper] Essence of Distributed Work: The Case of the Linux Kernel, J. Yun Moon and L. Sprout, 2000 - http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/801/710

• [book] Distributed Work, P J Hinds and S. Kieser, 2000, http://www.amazon.com/Distributed-Work-Pamela-J-Hinds/dp/0262083051/

• [post] Geographically distributed agile teams, S. W. Ambler, https://disciplinedagiledelivery.wordpress.com/agility-at-scale/geographically-distributed-agile-teams/

• [article] Working with agile in a distributed team environment, S. Joshi - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh771057.aspx

• [post] Our top 10 tips for distributed development teams, N. Pellow, - http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/05/top-10-tips-distributed-development-teams/

• [book] Remote: Office Not Required, J. Fried & D. Heinemeier Hansson, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/Remote-Office-Not-Required/dp/0804137501

… & MORE• [video] How I fell down the rabbit's hole: life and work at the distributed wonderland, L. Sartoni - https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=kEvuT9LTNdY

• [post] Remote working: istruzioni per l’uso, A. Salomone - http://www.ideato.it/remote-working-istruzioni-per-luso/

• [post] The Joys and Benefits of working as a distributed team, J. Gascoigne, http://joel.is/the-joys-and-benefits-of-working-as-a-distributed-team/

• [post] Four years of remote working, D. Pomfret, http://simpleasmilk.com/blog/four-years-of-remote-working/

• [book] Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum, C. Larman and B. Vodde, 2009 - http://www.amazon.it/Scaling-Lean-Agile-Development-Organizational-ebook/dp/B001PBSDIE/

• [video] Scrum doesn’t work in China?, Bass Vodde - http://www.infoq.com/cn/presentations/bas_scrum_china

• [paper] Software development as a cooperative game, A. Cockburn, http://alistair.cockburn.us/Software+development+as+a+cooperative+game

• [podcast] The Collaboration Superpowers Podcast, AAVV, curated by L. Sutherland - iTunes store

• [webinar] Jan, 27th, 2015 - 7 tips for improving your geographically distributed team, Johanna Rothman - http://bit.do/webinar27

SEE YOU AROUND?• [conf] Codemotion - 23 & 24 March, Rome - “Is Kanban better than Scrum?

(next question, please)”

• [camp] Agile Coach Camp, sometime in June, probably in Trentino

• [conf] Italian Agile Days, 6 & 7 November, Brescia

• [conf] Better Software - 15 & 16 November, Florence - “Managing learning debt”

• [online] xp-it mailing list

• [online] Lean Agile Italy Group on Linkedin

• [online + offline ] WebDeBS group on Facebook, #brainpirlo events IRL

Thanks!

Enjoy the rest of #TechDay :-)

Feedback: http://bit.do/meglio

Ping me: @carloz