Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1gZVTiC. Dana Caulder discusses how to improve team communication and delivery, aligning processes and tooling for iterative improvement, processes to mitigate team member turnover and speed-up onboarding. Filmed at qconsf.com. Dana Caulder received her PhD in Chemistry at UC Berkeley and then completed a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. When it was time to get a real job, she decided the chemistry lab was not so interesting after all and accidentally found her way into software development. Dana currently works as a technical lead in the Genentech Bioinformatics department.

1. Synergis)c
Effects:
A
mixed
remote/in-­‐house
team
can
be
be;er
than
the
sum
of
its
parts
Dana Caulder
@dmysticd

2. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations
/mixed-teams
InfoQ.com: News & Community Site
• 750,000 unique visitors/month
• Published in 4 languages (English, Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian
Portuguese)
• Post content from our QCon conferences
• News 15-20 / week
• Articles 3-4 / week
• Presentations (videos) 12-15 / week
• Interviews 2-3 / week
• Books 1 / month

3. Presented at QCon San Francisco
www.qconsf.com
Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide

4. Application
Development
Maintenance
Delivery
Science
Software
Together we build great
software for science

5. Adopting agile has been key
In house team + no agile = good
Mixed team + agile =
WOW

6. Agile reminds me of chemistry class
Thermodynamics
Kinetics

7. ing ag ile
us
With our mixed team, we are…
Delivering value
Sustainable
Having fun!

8. (drug discovery)

9. ing ag ile
us
With our mixed team, we are…
Delivering value
Sustainable
Having fun!

10. Saving $$ and animal lives
Animal Reservation / Checkout
• 28% fewer animals ordered
• $600K savings
2012

11. Enabling ground-breaking research
Meta Studies enable exploration
• Avastin response in studies over
the last 7 years
• Performance of drug candidate(s)
across cancer models

12. New customers coming to us
Bridging Research / Early Development
• Improving collaboration
• One stop shop for in vivo data

13. ing ag ile
us
With our mixed team, we are…
Delivering value
Sustainable
Having fun!

14. Continuously evaluate the trade-offs
Time
$$
Quality

15. ing ag ile
us
With our mixed team, we are…
Delivering value
Sustainable
Having fun!

16. Inside & Out: Wendy Kan
YouTube Genentech Channel

17. Our biggest challenges
Scientific software is hard
Time Difference
Team keeps changing

18. Our biggest challenges
Scientific software is hard
Time Difference
Team keeps changing

19. Science is a different language

20. Science involves lab work

21. Science doesn’t pack nicely

22. Science moves fast

23. Our biggest challenges
Scientific software is hard
Time Difference
Team keeps changing

24. 9 hour time difference complicates
communication

25. Our biggest challenges
Scientific software is hard
Time Difference
Team keeps changing

26. 2011
2012
ag i
le
2013
QA
QA
UX

27. Doomed to fail?

28. Be a team
Know each other
Know your purpose

29. Be a team
Know each other
Know your purpose

30. “Your way” might not be the “right way”
(Re)evaluate tools
Choose a process that works
for the team

31. Everyone’s opinion counts
Ask: What should we be doing?
Guard time for what the team thinks
is important

32. Be a team
Know each other
Know your purpose

33. Meet in person
Visit each other
Teach each other
Do something fun together

34. While you’re waiting for the
teleconference to start…
Talk about
weekend plans
family
pets
traditions
Make jokes

35. Be a team
Know each other
Know your purpose

36. Know your customers
Refer to customers by name
Recap customer feedback

37. Know your customers
Setup customer meetings
Or bring the experience to the team

38. Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Document stuff
Find a schedule that works

39. Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Document stuff
Find a schedule that works

40. Make your TODO list
Find a tool you like
Create an “Unassigned” user
Understand the tasks

41. Discover what’s under the surface

42. Numerous Challenges
language barrier
bariera językowa

43. Use all communication channels

44. Getting the conversation started is the
hard part
Ask 2 Questions

45. Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Document stuff
Find a schedule that works

46. Code review – don’t let it drag on
CR w/ people in your time zone
Do a separate (pre) check-in for
formatting changes

47. Don’t ruin someone else’s day
Continuous integration – use it!
Continuous integration – use it!

48. Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Document stuff
Find a schedule that works

49. Create a team wiki
Put it all in one place (or try)
Make it part of the task
Make it helpful

50. Make onboarding easy

51. Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Write documentation
Find a schedule that works

52. Make
mee)ngs
predictable

53. Is a meeting necessary?

54. Don’t make Fridays suck
No face/face team meetings on
Friday.
Don’t end a sprint on Friday.

55. Consider a transition week
Start
End
Demo
Retro
Plan
Plan

56. Save Time: Prepare in advance
Use a Google form for preliminary
retrospective feedback
Email blockers / sidebars before
the standup

57. Save
Time:
Bin
tasks
by
complexity

58. Be a team
Know each other
Know your purpose
Track your tasks
Maintain code quality
Document stuff
Find a schedule that works

60. Thank you!
… my team, customers, colleagues at
Genentech & Roche
§
Cheetah By Hein waschefort (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
§
Water cooler Pavel Ševela / Wikimedia Commons
§
Iceberg By Created by Uwe Kils (iceberg) and User:Wiska Bodo (sky). [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/
copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia
Commons
§
Giant snowball By Kamyar Adl (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via
Wikimedia Commons
@dmysticd

61. Watch the video with slide synchronization on
InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/mixedteams