Teams working virtually are a reality and present us with challenges. As part of New Work, companies are investing more and more in technologies that make this possible and are creating frameworks that will promote distributed working.
Last night we once again had the pleasure of watching the Agile Rhine-Main Usergroup as our guest. Following the last meeting in June, we wanted to exchange experiences on the tools we had tried out.
But as is sometimes the case - it's still vacation time - there were no participants from the last user group. And now? We then decided to discuss the following in two groups:
- Coaching Clinic,
This group exchanged experiences on virtual collaboration and discussed problems and possible solutions. - Tooling,
Here participants exchanged views on tools that enable virtual collaboration.
Coaching Clinic
In this round, we quickly realized that everyone present regularly works together virtually with other team members. Some work well and others not so well, and virtual teams have just as many challenges as co-located teams. We also talked about some companies that collaborate mainly or entirely virtually, such as
The participants also agreed that although co-location can be helpful, it is not always necessary/possible and does not necessarily guarantee a better result.
Tooling
In the tooling round, tools were first collected together and described in more detail using a number of attributes. The participants shared their experiences with the tools and some tips and tricks. You can find the overview and discussed tools on the picture above, I have started to put together the links to the tools:
Task Management Tools
Tools that are suitable for organizing tasks and are also used for Scrum or Kanban, for example. Some also offer functionalities that go beyond this.
Votes & Surveys
These are some tools that are suitable for virtual voting, among other things.
Chat & Video
Here are some of the tools discussed that can be used for communication via chat or for video conferencing.
Development
The following tools were named for development in virtual teams:
Decisions & retrospectives
Some user group members use the following tools to conduct virtual retrospectives or make decisions in the team:
Notes etc.
The following tools were discussed for documenting ideas and taking notes, as well as for virtual classrooms:
Conclusion
Once again, it was a great evening with lots of exciting discussions! And due to the high level of interest in virtual collaboration, we will certainly be organizing another evening on this topic next time. With the idea of also enabling virtual participation. And as it will be another opportunity to learn and exchange ideas together, I can only invite you to contribute your ideas/wishes or experiences. Please let me know.
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