10/9/2012
Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall
– how to make distributed teams work
Dorothy J Tudor –TCC Ltd. Cheshire, Surrey, The World!
Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall
– how to make distributed teams work
Dorothy J Tudor –TCC Ltd. Cheshire, Surrey, The World!
1
10/9/2012
Dot Tudor
•
TCC Technical Director
•
Accredited Agile Coach, Scrum Master
•
Agile Alliance, Agile Leadership Network
•
Accredited Facilitator
•
Agile Project Management Practitioner/Trainer/Examiner
•
DSDM Advanced Practitioner/Trainer/Examiner/Co-Author
•
PRINCE2 Accredited Practitioner/Trainer
•
ITIL Service Manager
•
BCS / ISEB Business Analyst
•
Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS)
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-3
Who are We?

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Founded 1981 (Sandbach, Cheshire; Guildford, Surrey)
Agile Coaches, Facilitators, Trainers
BCS Business Analysis Accredited
Agile, DSDM, Scrum
PRINCE2, ITIL Service Management
www.tcc-net.com
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-4
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Agile Teams across the world
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-5
Sleeping in Seattle – Wide-awake in Walsall
Walsall is 8 hours
ahead of Seattle:
So when the people of
Walsall are just having their
first “Costa” on the way to
work ...
The people in Seattle are
either still partying, or have
just gone to bed!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-6
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Sleeping in Seattle – Wide-awake in Walsall
Format of the Presentation
How to make distributed teams work:
• What is a distributed team?
• What does a team need to be effective?
• Recognising the blockers and problems
• Recognising the “up-side” of these
• Taking advantage of the time, space and cultural differences
• Having a checklist to help set up and support these teams
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-7
... But what is a distributed team?
“
... A distributed or dispersed team has members who
are not located in the same place
Michael E Kossler
Leading Dispersed Teams
2004
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-8
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Types of distribution
“
Teams have to deal with distance:
• temporal
• geographical
• socio-cultural
Resulting in difficulties with:
• division of work
• communications
• knowledge management
• project / process management
• infrastructure
Sharp, Giuffrida, Melnik: 2011
Information Flow within a dispersed agile team: a
distributed cognition perspective
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-9
What about Agile distributed teams?
“
•
Some believe Agile emphasizes the challenges
•
Yet others suggest that agile practices need to
be modified for success.
•
Holmström et al. explored how agile practices
can actually reduce the three kinds of
“distance”:
- temporal,
- geographical,
- socio-cultural.
Sharp et al,
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-10
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Sleeping in Seattle – Wide-awake in Walsall
How to make distributed teams work:
• What is a distributed team?
• What does a team need to be effective?
• Recognising the blockers and problems
• Recognising the “up-side” of these
• Taking advantage of the time and cultural differences
• Having a checklist to help set up and support these teams
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-11
What does a team need, to be effective?
The Red / Blue game:
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-12
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What does a team need, to be effective?
The “not the Red / Blue game” – “1 in 5”:
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-13
What does a team need, to be effective?
The team game:
• Form small teams.
• Find out about each
other in 2 minutes
• What do you need to
know to be effective
as a team?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-14
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What does a team need, to be effective?
A clear
objective
Strategic
alignment
Leadership
Belief /
Motivation
Ability to
communicate
effectively
Effective
process
Right skills
Empowerment
/ responsibility
Trust
/Respect
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-15
It’s often about communication ...
“
Human communication usually fails ...
except by accident!
Osmo Antero Wiio
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-16
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Osmo Antero Wiio (s. 4. helmikuuta 1928)
• on suomalainen viestinnän professori emeritus,
toimittaja ja entinen kansanedustaja. Wiio on
tunnetuimpia suomalaisia organisaatioviestinnän
tutkijoita ja opettajia. Wiio on myös tullut tunnetuksi
tulevaisuudentutkijana, tieteen kansanomaistajana ja
käytännön viestinnän edistäjänä.
• Wiio valmistui Helsingin yliopistosta valtiotieteen
maisteriksi 1954, mutta suoritti lehdistöopin laudaturopinnot Yhteiskunnallisessa korkeakoulussa
Helsingissä. Yhteiskuntatieteiden tohtoriksi hän väitteli
Tampereen yliopistossa vuonna 1968.[1] Wiion
väitöskirja käsitteli tekstin ymmärrettävyyttä.
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-17
Osmo Antero Wiio (s. 4. helmikuuta 1928)
• Osmo Antero Wiio (born February 4, 1928)
Finnish professor emeritus of communication.
• Wiio graduated from the University of Helsinki
with a Master's degree in political science in
1954 University of Helsinki, Finland. He
defended his doctoral thesis at the University of
Tampere in 1968.
• This dealt with making text easier to read.
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-18
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Wiio’s Laws
Wiio’s “laws of communication” are the human
communications equivalent of Murphy’s Law.
• If communication can fail, it will.
• If a message can be understood in different ways,
it will be understood in just that way which does
the most harm.
• There is always somebody who knows better than
you what you meant by your message.
• The more communication there is, the more
difficult it is for communication to succeed.
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-19
There are 6 of you!!
Wiio observed that whenever there are two people conversing,
there are actually six people in the conversation:
•
Who you think you are
•
Who you think the other person is
•
Who you think the other person thinks
you are
•
Who the other person thinks he/she is
•
Who the other person thinks you are
•
Who the other person thinks you think
he/she is
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-20
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So get to know eachother!
Understand eachother’s roles and skills!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-21
Distributed Teams -Blockers and Problems
• Different time zones
• Different languages
• Different geographical cultures
• Different skills cultures
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-22
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Distributed Teams -Advantages
• Different time zones
• Different languages
• Different geographical cultures
• Different skills cultures
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-23
Different Time Zones
•
Is it always the same people
who have to work late?
•
Hard to find time to meet?
•
Tiredness affects motivation?
•
Share the “pain” around!
•
Let the team decide!
•
While they are sleeping in Seattle,
they’re working in Walsall – this can
improve velocity by lessening waittime
•
Interleaving work-times can improve
team motivation and responsibility
•
Time difference can give space to
work uninterrupted
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-24
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Different Languages
•
If the product is international,
testing is better – fewer “gaffes”
•
We at least take less for
granted in understanding
http://randmacivor.blogspot.co.uk
•
Don’t think because we all
speak English, we all speak
English!
•
Give time for comprehension.
Text and diagrams are
sometimes better offline
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-25
Different Geographical Cultures
When your diving buddy
does this,
should you sink them or
save them?
Showing this
American Football
sign is a jail-able
offence in Italy!
Hitchhiker?
Nice one, son
... Or is it?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-26
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Don’t do it!
It may be illegal!
Roger Axtell: Gestures – the do’s and taboos of body language around the world
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-27
You gotta be sooo careful ...
Bono has won numerous awards with U2,
including 22 Grammy awards and the
2003 Golden Globe award for best original
song, "The Hands That Built America",
for the film Gangs of New York.
During the live broadcast of the ceremony,
Bono called the award "really, really f***ing
brilliant!" In response, the Parents
Television Council condemned Bono for his
profanity and started a campaign for its
members to file complaints with the
Federal Communication Commission
(FCC). Bono's use of "f***" violated FCC
indecency standards.
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-28
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Take advantage of distribution!
• Use the time difference – longer working hours overall,
not per individual.
• Use the language differences – simpler explanation.
Pictures. Prototypes
• Use the geographical cultural differences – variety of
ideas. Better more diverse testing.
• Use the skill-based cultural similarities - (developers
talk easily to developers across the globe!)
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-29
Communication
• Visual
See it
• Auditory
Hear it / read it
• Kinaesthetic
feel, do, touch, smell
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-30
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An illustration!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-31
Information: Data in context
What do you think this means?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-32
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Information: Data in context (2)
What do you think this means?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-33
It ain’t what you say…..
it’s the way that you say it!
• How do we communicate?
– With words 7%
– With the tone of our voice 38%
– With body language 55%
Albert Mehrabian 1939 - )
The relative importance of verbal and non-verbal messages
(After
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-34
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It ain’t what you say…..
it’s the way that you say it!
... but at most 45%
of the message is
getting through?
I see a reluctance
to use web cams
However, have you
noticed where you
spend the time
looking ...
Your
picture
here
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-35
What does a team need to be effective?
A clear
objective
Strategic
alignment
Leadership
Belief /
Motivation
Ability to
communicate
effectively
Effective
process
Right skills
Empowerment
/ responsibility
Trust
/Respect
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-36
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Mo - tivation
What are the team’s targets?
How is every individual’s performance measured?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-37
What motivates us?
“
If you’re going to bet, my son,
bet on the horse called “Self-Interest”
It’ll be the only one trying!
Australian Politician
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-38
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Motivation
“
... for a person to "grow", they need an
environment that provides them with:
- genuineness (openness, self-disclosure)
- acceptance (unconditional positive regard)
- empathy (being listened to and understood)
Carl Rogers
(1902-1987)
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-39
“
In summary, then ...
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-40
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Types of distribution (Reprise)
“
Teams have to deal with distance:
• temporal
• geographical
• socio-cultural
Resulting in difficulties with:
• division of work
• communications
• knowledge management
• project / process management
• infrastructure
Sharp, Giuffrida, Melnik: 2011
Information Flow within a dispersed agile team: a
distributed cognition perspective
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-41
A few guidelines
• division of work – go for small, feature-based teams
• communications
- set up the tools, but discuss the protocols.
- have facilitation for events
• knowledge management – make sure the information
has effective ways to flow and be shared
• project / process management – empower the teams
• infrastructure – ensure it is doesn’t get in the way
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-42
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5 Top “Hard” Tips for distributed teams
• Clarify roles and objective
• With meetings, think “short,
small and active”
• Visibility of plans and work to all
(“push” not “pull” information)
• Right tools
• Have “Ground rules” for
meetings, and behave!!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-43
5 Top “Soft” Tips for distributed teams
• Meet face to face very early,
and again when you “feel the
need”!
• Allow the teams to meet the
strategists
• Use visual, auditory and
kinaesthetic communication
• Bring key resources “onshore” as link-people
• Dedicate resources – limit the
multi-tasking!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-44
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Dedicated resources
“
The best way to stop [too much] multitasking is to
stop ... cold turkey!
Mike Cohn
Succeeding with Agile: 2011
”
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-45
... And finally ...
What do these have in common ...?
T
• MONTREAL
E
• WALSALL, WEST
MIDLANDS
• SEATTLE, AMERICA
A
• ROME, ITALY
• AMSTERDAM
M
• WESTON-SUPER-MARE
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-46
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And remember ...
• A champion team will always beat a team of
champions!
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-47
Any Questions?
© TCC: Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall ABC 2012 S1-48
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Sleeping in Seattle, Wide Awake in Walsall
– how to make distributed teams work
Dorothy J Tudor –TCC Ltd. Cheshire, Surrey, The World!
25