Agile and Remote Work
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- Agile says that the best way to communicate is face-to-face, but how do you do that when you have people working remotely? This video looks at how some of the most effective Agile teams I've worked with create face-to-face interactions when people aren't co-located.
I've published a book called "Starting Agile" that is designed to help you start your team's Agile journey outright. You can buy a copy from Amazon, but I'm giving free copies away to my subscribers from TH-cam. You can signup for a copy at this link:
www.xeric.net/...
To be honest, always-on audio would drive me batty. Conversation happening around you in the background is a very different experience than having it fed directly into your ears via a headset. As it is, I often wear a headset with music running to block out external noise so I can focus on my work.
Agile is bigger than the Agile Manifesto which was written in Feb 2001 when most people didn't have phone, mobile internet or broadband and even Skype was 2 years away. Agile is about mindset and principles rather than face to face which is a practice. As a principle we should optimise for high bandwidth communication and then work out through self-empowerment and regular reflection the best practices which suit. It's also more inclusive and disabled friendly to allow for people who can't so easily manage a commute to the office.
Excellent explainer! :)
Re. "This is what would happen if everyone were physically in the office, but with an always
on virtual team room it can happen regardless of who is located where." -- only if team members are in the same time zone, or if they have enough overlap hours (not if in locations shown on the map at 4:06). Just sayin' :)
Yes. The map does show areas that wouldn't have overlap. :)
Great message to Agile teams and well done video Mark. Great Job
You got me lol counting the ceiling tiles. 😂😂. thank for the video.
I always look forward to your videos. They are really informative and very well created.. 👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate the feedback.
Great topic, Mark...and, of course, very timely...a comment and a question:
Comment: I think many large organizations are struggling to meet the, unexpected by most, unplanned for by many, shelter-in-place requirements while at the same time trying to full-time telework-enable their workforce. The result, at least in my organization, is that remote collaboration capabilities are being rationed (conference calls only, no video, no Skype, etc.) in order to maximize network capacity. So in the long-term, I agree that always-on video team-rooms is where we should be headed to enable remote, Agile teams, in the short-term, that goal may be set aside by many organizations and this will be a challenge for DevOps, Agile, Lean teams.
Question: While the trend is towards more open and collaborative working spaces (both physically and virtually), have you investigated any of the research / writings that question whether these types of arrangements are sometimes too distracting and doesn't allow for individuals to concentrate sufficiently on "cognitively demanding" tasks. As one point of reference, I would direct you to Cal Newport's Deep Work (www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692) and how he feels it is important to balance, and leverage, focused concentration ("Deep Work") and collaboration with peers, co-workers, etc.
Again, great topic Mark...
Yes I have seen a lot of people saying that the idea of being on video is too distracting and they can't do enough heads down programming. I believe there are tasks like that. I've even heard them called HDD, hammock driven development where you go and sit and think for long periods of time.
However, most of the work I find myself involved in is actually more efficient when done collaboratively. For that type of work, my experience has been that the cost of the "distracting" part of things is minimal compared with the value of being able to naturally collaborate.
I believe that most of the routine development work in the US is more efficient by valuing collaboration within the team over a quiet work environment. There are obviously exceptions, but I think defaulting to heavy collaboration and then doing something different for the exceptions is probably the best approach.
Great question and thanks for taking the time to comment!
I like a lot your channel! I just discovered it and I can understand you almost everything even thoug my native language is Spanish! Thank you!!
you got me on funny picture of cows! liked
Awesome Mark Love it, very well explained and demonstrate
Very informative! Thank you for sharing
Great Idea!!! That should be implemented for all. It will really help the real time communication problem.
I like it!
Sigh! Thank you for this!!!!
Completely agree! Great video Mark.
Mark, how do you practically apply persistent video across time zones?
Great question. The teams I've been on that do it well try to find ways to have core hours where everyone tries to be online and working together. So maybe 6 hours of the day from 10 to 4 central time or something like that. I've also seen teams form where the working hours are one of the things people were committing to. So the people who joined the team in California were all people that preferred starting their day early and finishing early, so they worked from 7 to 3, while the people on the east coast were people who tended to like start a bit later in the day.
Now if you have teams that are off by 12 hours, it definitely gets more complicated.
Totally disagree. Agile does not say what the best way to communicate is. It only says to favor individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Face to face being it is just your opinion, and in my opinion, it's wrong. Face to face "always-on persistent video" is probably the worst way to go about it. It doesn't add anything audio-only offers plus it puts the strain of physical appearance. It drags the focus away. I won't go in detail but your other proposed problems and proposed solutions in the video boil down to people being irresponsible and in some cases, an ass. Having an always-on video meeting is very unproductive. Solving software problems requires a comfortable, quiet, and interruption-free environment. Few managers recognize this problem and fewer try solving it.
Thanks for the video, even tho I disagree it can be a discussion starter.
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment. You definitely raise some important points.
When I say that Agile says to prioritize face-to-face communication, I'm referring to the 6th principle from the Agile Manifesto which says: "The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation."
Having worked with teams that use video extensively for many years and teams that use audio only, my experience is that the visual element adds a tremendous amount of nonverbal communication that translates into better collaboration and better efficiency.
Regarding the need for a quiet environment to solve programming problems, most of the development work I see today is more efficiently done in a collaborative environment with people working together. That doesn't mean there is never a time when someone says they need to turn down their audio and go heads down for a few hours. I've been on teams where they were always on video, but it wasn't uncommon for someone to say, "Hey I need to work on this heads down for awhile so I'm turning off my audio. Ping me if you need me for something and I'll check with you when I get to a good stopping point." I've also seen team members say, "Hey Bill and I are going to work together on this issue for awhile, so we will be on video but are going to do audio and a screenshare between the two of us so we aren't talking over everyone else in the room. If anyone wants to join in, let us know and we'll add you as well."
Of course none of this means there aren't situations where there is an advantage of just sitting quietly and thinking through a solution. There are two types of code I've worked on that have been like that. The first type is code where I can't collaborate and that requires very intense math or logic. The second type is code that has no tests and is written in such a complex way that it takes 30 minutes just to get into the right context that I can understand what it is doing and if I'm interrupted, I have to start over.
The first type of code really does need heads down time, but most of the code I see being written by most businesses does not fall into that category. The second type of code is just badly written code, so you may need to be heads down, but it isn't what you should be designing all your processes around because you shouldn't be creating that type of situation in the first place.
Once again, thank you so much for your thoughts. I really do appreciate that you took the time to comment and add your perspective.
@@MarkShead What you quote does not say that you should facetime all the time and I think it is a dumb idea. Looks like a perfect spot for some micromanagement sport.
You got yourself a new subscriber Sir great content.
Hi Mark. Q: You have a great into to Agile video, and you have a great set of specific videos on individual Agile Methodologies, but I don't see an Agile Methodologies Overview video. Do you have a video (in the 4 to 8min range), that covers the commonly used Agile Methodologies and their typical implementation and use in teams? I'm trying to introduce my leadership to Agile, and I love your videos as a way to do this. Seems like this would be a great video to have to bridge this gap. Thx, PLS
We are working on a video called "What is SCRUM?" and will probably follow with one on "What is Kanban?" is that what you are thinking of?
@@MarkShead Well, more like: "Though Agile is NOT a methodology and IS a collection of Beliefs, here are the most commonly used methods that teams have found successful". Then introduce each method you think worth covering. You have more specific videos for many of these methods already, so you can point to them "...for more detail". But it would be great to understand how the basic set of Methodologies can work together to support the Agile philosophy (Values and Beliefs). It would be an example of Agile Methodology Overview, demonstrating how Agile is often applied by Teams. Does that help? Thank you! --PLS
@@paulsummers6777 That is very helpful. When you say mythology are you referring to things like Kanban and Scrum, or what I tend to call practices like Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Development, Pair Programming, etc. ?
How would instant videos work when working from home? Family might want to be on the video all the time.
It is generally a good idea to set up your desk so you aren't aiming at a high traffic area where your family is running back and forth. But yes, really it depends on what you are trying to optimize for. If you are trying to optimize for creating the best interaction with your team and the most efficient software development, face-to-face communication is going to be part of that. If you are optimizing for not disturbing your family while working from home, you might take a different approach.
Mark, what is your opinion on screen sharing vs face to face video conferencing? We frequently use both. For example, in a team standup meeting we'll ask each person reporting to take over the screen in turn so they can point with the mouse and move items around a scrum board. This relegates video of people down to postage stamp size. It seems a worthwhile tradeoff, but what are your thoughts on video conferencing of people vs screen share?
That definitely works and getting to see each other's faces is better than not seeing each other at all. The best setups I've used have a separate monitor or even separate device for the video conferencing so you can always see everyone and if they share something it shows up on a different monitor or different computer. But even if you don't have that, the ability to look each other in the eye when you aren't sharing something on the screen is worthwhile and helps keep some of the personal aspect as well as makes sure you can read body language and facial expressions as much as possible.
Mark, what video conferencing solutions do you like best for working with and managing a remote agile team?
@@peterskalla2321 I've personally been very happy with WebEx because it works with desktop, laptops, mobile and standards-based video conferencing equipment. You can buy used video conferencing equipment off ebay for a fraction of what they go for new and it does a good job of replicating being in the same room with someone else. Dedicated equipment helps make you completely independent of your computer and you can reboot without losing access to the conversation in your virtual team room. Also it lets you keep people up where you can see them even when you are fully utilizing your work devices monitor(s) for your work software. Many of the devices support multiple monitors so someone can share a screen that you can see, while still letting you look them in the eye for conversation and still have access to everything on your computer screen--all things you would expect to be able to do if you were in the same team room with others. Every room has a telephone number to call into as well, so people can join that way if that gives them a better connection.
I looked into zoom and they charge an extra $50 for each hardware device connecting to a SIP address. So 10 people using their own devices would cost $500+ per month. Webex is $15 to $20 for each person you want to be able to start the meeting and you can have everyone join on a hardware device. WebEx also integrates easily with Exchange and Google calendar so you can just add devices as a resource and they automatically pop up with a reminder to log in for whenever the meeting is scheduled. (So every morning they show that you have a day-long meeting from 8 to 5 and you just click to connect.) I have a few DX70s that I use as well as some Cisco Room Kits on 40 inch TVs. All of the hardware came from eBay so it was only a fraction of the list price.
I believe Amazon Chime also has SIP addresses too, but WebEx handles the provisioning of Cisco devices so you don't have to deal with ports and other networking setup to get it to work. Oh also WebEx Teams comes with WebEx Meeting and it gives you chat, document sharing, etc. It isn't necessarily the best chat experience ever, but having it all integrated may make up for it. Plus it works on any device so you can chat from your phone, join a video conference remotely, and then transfer it to the video conference device when you get back to your office.
If you do look at WebEx, the stuff you can sign up for on the website is more expensive and has lower capacity than calling and getting setup with their enterprise service. For example, on the website you can signup for service with up to 100 people. With the enterprise service you can handle 1,000 for the same or possibly slightly lower price. I think enterprise requires a year commitment, so the self service lower capacity is probably a good way to test it out and then call them to switch to enterprise version. Their service has been solid and in I've had some government clients that have approvals to communicate over WebEx just like calling you on the phone, but they aren't allowed to use Zoom or other solutions because Cisco has gone through the trouble of passing their security certification. This also means that WebEx doesn't usually have as much downtime or security issues as some of the newer companies. (At least that has been my experience so far.)
Downsides of WebEx are many people have experience of what they were like before Cisco bought them and turned them into actually video conferencing and they aren't seen as "cool" as Zoom. Adobe Connect has some better tools for showing multiple panels of information at the same time and seems to give the presenter a bit more control over how everyone else's screen is arranged instead of letting each person have full control. (This could be good for teachers...maybe.) Also WebEx is very much an enterprise service so there are hundreds of settings to let you integrate with phone systems, other video conferencing systems, etc. So sometimes it can be a little tricky to figure out what setting you need to change to do something, but their support has always been very very good. I like Google Meet but it doesn't work with standard video conferencing equipment without paying thousands of dollars for a connector.
That might be way more information than you were wanting, but hopefully some of it is helpful. :)
Mark, how do you practically apply persistent video across time zones?