Agile in distributed teams: challenges and solutions

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Agile in distributed teams: challenges and solutions

Rosalba Giuffrida rogi@itu.dk

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk

n  Distributed teams: advantages, challenges and approaches

n  Agile practices in distributed settings and lessons learned n  A successful case: XP@Scrum

n  A successful case: Scrum in Danske Bank

n  A case of Scrum abandonment

Agenda

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 2

Splitting the development of the same product or service among globally distributed sites.

Global Software Development

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 3

F. Lanubile, "Collaboration in Distributed Software Development", in Software Engineering, LNCS 5413, 2009.

n  Advantages n  Lower development costs

n  Access to most talented developers

n  Proximity to market

n  Time to market - Follow-the-sun

n  Challenges n  Geographical distance

n  Temporal distance

n  Socio-cultural distance

Distributed software teams

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Carmel, E.: Global Software Teams. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (1999)

XP combined with Scrum

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht2xcIJrAXo

n  Approach used: XP@Scrum

n  Tools used: OneNote, Team Foundation Server, SkyDrive, Lync

A successful example: dispersed agile

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 6 © Helen Sharp

H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik, Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 62-76.

n  stand-up meetings every day

n  2-week sprints

n  iteration planning meeting, customer demo, retrospective

n  user stories

n  test-driven development and continuous integration

n  Pair programming

XP@Scrum practices used in the team

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 7 © Helen Sharp

H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik, Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 62-76.

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 8

Physical location: co-located agile

Physical location: dispersed team

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 9 © Helen Sharp

H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik, Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 62-76.

Daily standups and synchronous meetings

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 10 © Helen Sharp

H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik, Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 62-76.

n  Synchronous communication was possible n  Overlapping hours + adapting working hours

n  audioconference, no video

n  Communication mainly informal n  Impromptu conversations

n  Collaborating on a daily basis with remote colleagues

n  Technology n  Virtual for everyone

n  If technology issues, meeting must go on

n  Recording of important meetings to share asynchronously

n  Distribution was not a problem for this team

n  Artifacts used were all digital

n  Knowledge sharing has to be explicit

n  Individual responsibility very high

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 11 © Helen Sharp

H. Sharp, R. Giuffrida, G. Melnik, Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, 62-76.

Lessons learned

A successful case: Scrum in Danske Bank

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 12

Pries-Heje, L., & Pries-Heje, J. (2011). Why Scrum Works: A Case Study from an Agile Distributed Project in Denmark and India (pp. 20–28). Presented at the AGILE Conference (AGILE), 2011, IEEE. doi:10.1109/AGILE.2011.34

n  Team members in Denmark

n  had common work experience

n  not familiar with Scrum

n  Team members in India

n  very limited knowledge about each other

n  no experience working together

n  no experience with Scrum

n  The Project manager had prior experience managing Scrum projects

n  The Indian Scrum Master and the Project Manager knew each other

The initial setup

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 13

Pries-Heje, L., & Pries-Heje, J. (2011). Why Scrum Works: A Case Study from an Agile Distributed Project in Denmark and India (pp. 20–28). Presented at the AGILE Conference (AGILE), 2011, IEEE. doi:10.1109/AGILE.2011.34

n  Project kickoff in India Build social ties within the team

n  1 scrum team in each location with physical scrum board and daily standups

Maintain social ties within the team Knowledge-based trust

n  Daily Scrum-of-Scrums meeting Performance trust

n  Frequent deliveries Performance trust

n  ‘All Hands’ meeting: all team members were present in a video conference towards the end of a Sprint.

Social ties across sites

Practice used

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 14

Pries-Heje, L., & Pries-Heje, J. (2011). Why Scrum Works: A Case Study from an Agile Distributed Project in Denmark and India (pp. 20–28). Presented at the AGILE Conference (AGILE), 2011, IEEE. doi:10.1109/AGILE.2011.34

n  Build up network of ties and relationships

n  Trust can be built in distributed settings

n  Synchronous communication

n  Experienced project manager

Lessons learned

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 15

Pries-Heje, L., & Pries-Heje, J. (2011). Why Scrum Works: A Case Study from an Agile Distributed Project in Denmark and India (pp. 20–28). Presented at the AGILE Conference (AGILE), 2011, IEEE. doi:10.1109/AGILE.2011.34

Scrum abandonment case

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Ralph, Paul and Shportun, Petr, "Scrum Abandonment in Distributed Teams: A Revelatory Case" (2013). PACIS 2013 Proceedings. Paper 42.

The project setup

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n  One single Scrum team

n  1 Scrum Master, 1 Product Owner, 3 team members in California,

n  4 developers (1 senior), and 3 testers in St. Petersburg

n  Synchronous daily meetings – no standup

n  Wall both physical and digital

Ralph, Paul and Shportun, Petr, "Scrum Abandonment in Distributed Teams: A Revelatory Case" (2013). PACIS 2013 Proceedings. Paper 42.

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 18

n  No overlapping working hours: inconvenient standup meetings

n  Physical wall useful only if it is used

n  Scrum Master’s credibility

n  Attention to team member’s perceptions of role changes – hierarchical culture

No overlapping hours?

Physical wall?

Lessons learned

Ralph, Paul and Shportun, Petr, "Scrum Abandonment in Distributed Teams: A Revelatory Case" (2013). PACIS 2013 Proceedings. Paper 42.

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk 19

No overlapping hours: recording of standups

R. Giuffrida, Y. Dittrich, How social software supports cooperative practices in a globally distributed software project. In Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) 2014

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Integrated physical and virtual Wall

Bardram, J. Esbensen, M. Tell, P. Supporting Co-located SCRUM Processes in Global Software Development. Supporting. Workshop on Local Remote Collaboration, CSCW 2015

Research on agile in distributed teams

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Research on agile in distributed teams

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Agility Across Time and Space - Implementing Agile Methods in Global Software Projects Editors: Šmite, Darja, Moe, Nils Brede, Ågerfalk, Pär J. (Eds.), 2010, Springer

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Agile in distributed teams: challenges and solutions

Rosalba Giuffrida rogi@itu.dk

Rosalba Giuffrida - rogi@itu.dk