SFA2017

Working with distributed agile teams has many challenges with team participation and using communication tools successfully. If you have a distributed agile team, struggling with effective communication, or team participation in meetings, this is the session for you. If youve worked on or with a distributed team, you are familiar with technology issues, network connectivity issues, making everyone participate in the meetings and others. We have faced similar issues with over four years of working on distributed teams and want to share our experiences and useful pointers. Retrospectives are one agile ceremony that has proven to be challenging with distributed teams. Weve identified new ways to encourage more team participation in retrospectives. For example, using an online tool like Scrumblr allows participants to write their own ideas as if they are co-located with their team participating in the ceremony with sticky pads and white boards. Distributed team members dont have regular opportunities for non-work interactions to get to know each other as co-located team members do. We have introduced a common practice of starting meetings with an icebreaker to encourage more of such interactions.

Learning Objectives:

In this session you will learn:
ˆ         How to increase team participation in meetings
ˆ         Online tools to aid in facilitation of ceremonies
ˆ         Tips to minimize digital distractions