Daily stand-ups in distributed teams

Working together in one place is much easier for us, it requires less coordination and less information is lost, the list goes on. And although we strive to have teams physically in one place, this doesn't always work out. To make distributed working in agile teams work as well as possible, an exchange with others is valuable and we can learn together.

On February 27, 2019, we hosted the Agile Rhein-Main user group again. This time, the topic of "Daily Stand-Ups & Distributed Teams" was discussed. The first evening on agile events in distributed teams.

For all those who were unable to attend or would like to read up again, here is a summary of the results of the evening. The following topics were discussed on this evening:

• Communication rules for distributed daily stand-ups
• How can we build trust in distributed teams?
• Asynchronous daily stand-ups - is that possible?
• Distributed dialysis with Zoom - An example
• Daily stand-up - loses power & effectiveness

Communication rules for distributed daily stand-ups

To enable daily stand-ups in distributed teams, a few agreements are needed to be able to communicate well with each other. One team developed a few ideas for good communication in distributed daily stand-ups.

One of the things that emerged from the discussion was that the social aspect is often overlooked when working in distributed teams. That's why the idea was born to include a social period in the Daily. The question was also raised: if one or two people are working remotely, shouldn't the Daily be virtual for everyone? Or a hybrid solution - i.e. those who are in one place dial in together? We have a lot of pros and cons on this topic, so we didn't come to a common conclusion.

How can we build trust in distributed teams?

Trust also develops differently in distributed teams, more slowly or sometimes not at all. But what could be done to promote trust in distributed teams was another exciting topic.

Many of the ideas that have emerged to promote trust are also reminiscent of co-located teams. Mood barometers, finding common ground, having eye contact, but also sitting together in the same room at all times (video stand line) remain helpful in both cases.

Asynchronous daily stand-ups - is that possible?

Asynchronous dailies, i.e. for cases such as teams sitting in two time zones, half-day employees, but also private projects such as collaboration on open source solutions or events were scrutinized.

One idea that has emerged here is to record video messages. To make it clear when the Daily takes place, the idea was to record and post the video message right at the start of the day. The video message should simply answer the 3 questions about a Daily. Then the first person to get up posts the message, so the second person who starts work already has the Daily message from the first and so on. A kind of read confirmation could also be an aid here to recognize who has already read which message.

Distributed dialysis with Zoom - An example

Sascha offered a virtual session in order to enable quasi live experiences with distributed dailies. Here is his virtual invitation:

For this he used the tool "Zoom". Here, ideas such as having a virtual coffee, using video recordings, but also actively involving works councils in this topic were relaxed.

The study that Sascha mentioned in the session will follow in the next few days.

Sascha is offering this experiment again on March 6 and 13. If you want to take part, register here:

• The experiment on 6.3.2019
• The experiment on 13.3.2019

Daily stand-up - loses power & effectiveness

How can we maintain the power and effectiveness of a daily as much as possible virtually? In this discussion, it quickly became clear that further agreements were needed. You can find the recommendations and ideas here:

Conclusion

Distributed working is not the same as being on site. A team in one place is of course nicer, but it doesn't always work. We have the feeling that we are only at the very beginning of learning how distributed working works well. Next time we want to meet again on April 9th and this time exchange experiences and ideas on the topic of "Distributed Retrospectives". If you are interested, then get in touch at Meet-Up and come by from 18:30.