CONSCIRES AGILE PRACTICES

We at Conscires are as distributed as a distributed team can get – geographically, culturally and in several other ways. There is at least one person that each team member has never met. Everyone knows everyone else’ voice, but some of us may pass each other on the street without a second glance!

Since our timezones are far apart, one of the greatest challenges that we face as a team is regular coordination and synchronization. There is only a window of about an hour or so every day when all the team members are awake and ready to talk business.

For a while, we worked in overlapping groups of two or three. One person, who always knew what the rest of us were up to, coordinated between these little groups. Most of the communication happened through emails or occasional chats. Though we preached Scrum, we were unable to put it into perfect use. The coordinator had too much responsibility on his shoulders. To cut the story short, the efficiency was not what we would have wished it to be.

However, over one month ago, things began to change. The team experimented with new tools and new ways of working. We were apprehensive about how it would go at first and were clumsy with the tools, but we decided to give it a try. And the results have been very pleasing and impressive!

Here is how we go about it:

1. We use Kanban Leankit for planning and tracking our tasks.
2. We have weekly Sprints.
3. Our daily standup meetings happen on Skype during the short window of time when everyone is available.
4. Further follow-up discussions would be scheduled after the standup or as per the concerned persons’ convenience and timezone constraints.
5. At first, our Sprint weeks began on Monday, but later we changed it to Friday. That seemed to work better!
6. Our Sprint review and retrospective meetings happen on Thursdays over Fuze Meeting and Skype. We use the Fuze whiteboard and sticky notes to perform the retrospective.

The results began to show in less than two weeks.
1. The new way of working brought about a visibility that we never had. Every team member could see what the others were up to.
2. When there was a crisis or if a high priority task was stalled, the others could jump in and lend a hand.
3. The formal air that was part of the team vanished within no time. Everyone began to feel at ease in each others’ company – in other words, Team Bonding was in place.

Screenshot of Sprint retrospective discussion over Fuze Meeting

There is still scope for improvement. There are also issues we can do nothing about.

1. Sometimes, a few minutes get wasted while waiting for members to join the call, due to issues in using the meeting tools or logging in.
2. A person could get dropped from the call in mid-conversation because their Internet connection failed or power supply was cut.
3. Discussions stray from the point occasionally during standup because that may be the only time everyone gets together and important things need to be discussed then. “Let’s take it offline” does not always work very well.
4. Because of the timezone differences, some members may find that it is too late or too early in the day for the call. Personal priorities may keep them from joining on certain days.

As I write this, another successful Sprint week is drawing to close.

A new Sprint Week begins tomorrow. It would begin slowly with a planning meeting, pause for the weekend, and go full steam ahead from Monday.

Work was Good, now it has become Awesome!