Session Title : Minding the Mind - Agile in an Offshoring Environment

1. Minding the Mind
Challenges and Issues with
“Offshore Development”
| Agile Gurgaon – 2016 |
- Ajay Kabra

2. Hope,
everyone's
paying
attention

3. Our PO is always available and when required?
A. Yes, Always available
B. Sometimes, but
coordination is major issue
C. Never
D. We have not seen our PO
E. We have a person
designated as PO, but no
discussions with PO
Yes,Alw
aysavailable
Som
etim
es,butcoordination...
Never
W
ehave
notseen
ourPO
W
ehave
aperson
designate...
20% 20% 20%20%20%

4. All our stories meet the definition of done?
A. Yes, more than 90%
B. Rarely, may be about 20%
C. We do not follow “DoD”
D. Our PO does not worry on
DoD
E. It real does not matter
Yes,m
ore
than
90%
Rarely,m
aybeabout20%
W
edo
notfollow
“DoD”
OurPO
doesnotw
orryon
DoD
Itrealdoesnotm
atter
0% 0% 0%0%0%

5. Offshore and Onsite team work as “One Team”
A. Yes, always, we have joint
daily scrum
B. Rarely
C. We touch base and when
required
D. We only interact with our
counterpart from onsite
E. We speak, when we have
issues
Yes,alw
ays,w
ehave
jointdai..
Rarely
W
etouch
baseand
w
hen
re...
W
eonly
interactw
ith
ourc...
W
espeak,when
w
e
have
issues
0% 0% 0%0%0%

6. We have persistent or similar behaviours
for each sprint.
A. Yes, always
B. Never, we have new
problems each sprint
C. None, Our retrospectives are
effective
D. Where is the time to think,
we are always over-allocated
and struggle to meet our
committments
Yes,alw
ays
Never,w
ehave
new
proble..
None,Ourretrospectivesare...
W
here
isthetim
eto
think,..
0% 0%0%0%

7. WHOLISTIC AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS
Where did it all start?
• Many enterprises these days are outsourcing software development to offshore teams. Your
organisation may have even tried it as a way to get access to highly skilled resources cheaply,
and scale development resources up and down as you need them.
• Recently at a client, I happened to see a wonderful chaotic organization, trying to force fit Agile
and Scrum concepts … in a pure play Onshore – Offshore engagement model.
• Why am I saying Chaotic ….. Well some reasons are well known at most
of us and yet we ignore them or consider it as “Business as Usual”,
well that’s the way it works out here … is a common phrase used

8. • Want to fail at your Agile transformation? It’s easy.
• Follow these simple rules for distributed teams:
• set up a complex geographic maze based on the economics of resource
utilization;
• ensure a time zone difference between 7-11 hours;
• rely heavily on emails and large documents (especially detailed test plans) for
your communication;
• and definitely don’t invest in bringing people together to collaborate or train.
• Organizations in this distributed bind have essentially made deals with the devil,
trading off fundamental Agile success principles like face-to-face collaboration for the
promise of speed and lower costs (but don’t worry, it’s still Agile!)
How to manufacture disaster..

9. WHOLISTIC AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS
• The inherent challenges of working with offshore development team are kind of obvious, at face value:
• time zone differences,
• cultural differences
• and a lack of face-to-face communication
• All the above facilitates a negative feedback loop in which misunderstandings beget more
misunderstandings and traditional Scrum-based agile development spirals out of control.
• The most important facet of agile development in a fast-moving
workplace is communication – without it, processes can fall apart
and deadlines can fail to be met.
What are the challenges?

10. • Start customizing an agile process before you’ve done it by the book.
• Don’t communicate a vision for the product to the agile team or to the other
stakeholders.
• Have one person share the roles of ScrumMaster (agile coach) and product owner.
In fact, have this person also be an individual contributor on the team.
• Replace a plan document with a plan “in your head” that only you know.
• Don’t trust the team or agile. Micromanage both your team members and the
process.
• Equate self-managing with self-leading and provide no direction to the team
whatsoever.
• Cavalierly move work forward from one iteration to the next. It’s good to keep the
product owner guessing about what will be delivered.
• Do not create cross-functional teams. Put all the testers on one team, all the
programmers on another, and so on.
• Convince yourself that you’ll be able to do all requested work, so the order of your
work doesn’t matter.
What are the challenges?

11. WHOLISTIC AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS
• Due to the lack of face-to-face communication, cultural differences and time zone issues, the
developers start to misunderstand requirements. In an attempt to close the communication gap,
the product owner starts to use more written communication, which causes more
misunderstandings.
• The next thing that happens is because the team has never met one another,
the onshore developers don’t treat the offshore developers as part of the team.
• The offshore developers start to work on their tasks independently, become
less likely to clarify aspects of the project, and because they feel that they
need to fend for themselves, they start to blame each other
when something goes wrong.
• In my experience, this lack of communication and teamwork
leads to poor productivity and a solution that doesn’t provide value.
What are the challenges?

12. • But more often than not, I hear of project failures that are blamed on offshoring.
People say things like: “The offshore developers just didn’t understand what we
needed” or “They developed completely the wrong thing.”
• An executive decrees a switch to Agile delivery across offshore development, but
there’s no real follow-through: it’s simply a “check book commitment.”
• The executive demands immediate results, yet doesn’t change the metrics by which
success is measured.
• We still continue to measure
• Effort Variance
• Resource Utilization
• Schedule Variance
More of the some that we know

13. WHOLISTIC AGILE TRANSFORMATIONS
• How do we prevent this failure?
• Leaders must accept that a successful transformation is a journey. Along this journey, leaders seek
guidance for a transformation with a broad, sustainable impact.
• As part of the transformation they make a personal commitment to their teams, and in turn they
recognize the personal commitment they are asking of their employees.
• Executives commit to measuring success differently from before,
because the work is different from before.
• Success now favours value delivery, and time for learning
is built into the transformation. Ultimately, success is
celebrated across the organization and setbacks are seen not
as failures or cause for blame,
but as opportunities for learning and growth.
More of the some that we know

14. • Failed Agile transformations suffer from an inability to change the existing organizational structure.
• Here’s another symptom of your crippling Agile transformation: Does your organization cling to a
notion of efficiency based on resource usage — believing that loading people to 100% capacity is
the best way to get work done, and then measuring people annually by how well they deliver in this
fully-loaded mode?
• What do I mean by this?
• Typical organizations have been set up for sub-optimization: that is, they measure success by
departmental performance, versus overall value delivery.
• True Agile transformations push the boundaries of these existing organizational hierarchies.
• In the soccer field metaphor, Now everyone can see where the ball is, where everyone else is,
where the goal is positioned, what the referee is indicating, what the coach is saying, and what
the scoreboard says.
• In your effective Agile transformation, you know what the true value is, you know who needs to
be involved in order for the value to be delivered, and everyone associated with the value
delivery has visibility into the current state of the value stream, including its blocks.
• They see the goal as successful delivery of value to the customer, and they coordinate as a
whole to deliver that value.
Why do we have Failures?

15. • To have a greater collaboration and communication, you need to revisit how you
appraise work. Instead of annually, by individual, 100% utilized, with MBOs set 12
months earlier, you should invite frequent feedback; focus more on team
effectiveness; and bias performance appraisal toward efficiency of value flow versus
efficiency of workers.
• If you’re not feeling the discomfort change brings, you aren’t truly transforming. If
your transformation isn’t requiring you to invest in the technology and culture to
support a new mode of visibility and collaboration, you aren’t truly transforming. If
you’re adopting some Agile practices at the project level without looking at the bigger
picture, your Agile transformation is poised for failure. And Agile, not the failure to
transform the organization, will get the blame.
Why do we have Failures?

16. • Decentralize decision making
• Define Guiding Principles in your organization for offshore engagement model
• Have Open culture and relationship based on equality
• Transparent results are only measure of progress
• Building Quality in, Results in lowest development cost
Enough of issues, let’s focus on solutions

17. • Agile transformations fail when we don’t pay attention to whether we centralize or decentralize
control.
• Due to strict, centralized control, decisions are not as informed as they could be. Waiting for a
decision because of centralized control wastes time and human potential.
• This control style ultimately lowers morale and fosters cynicism
• Servant leaders don’t relinquish all control; rather, they recognize the value in releasing control when
all concerned are better served.
• They maintain centralized control when they see that this is in the best service to their teams.
• Long-term decisions with extended impact that include dependencies across many constituents
warrant a centralized mode of control. Short-term and low-impact decisions merit decentralized
control.
• Always remember, “Watch the work, not the worker.” Decentralize
to move decisions closer to the worker, the one who best knows
the work. Centralize control as a service to the flow of value.
A bias toward decentralization helps leaders and teams better converge
Decentralize decision making

18. What is the most important metrics captured in
your project
A. Resource Utilization
B. Schedule Variance
C. Individual Productivity
D. Effort Variance
E. Velocity compared across
teams
Resource
Utilization
Schedule
Variance
IndividualProductivityEffortVariance
Velocitycom
pared
acrosst...
20% 20% 20%20%20%

19. We still have specialized roles in the team
like: Lead, Architect, Designer, DBA or Tester?
A. True
B. False
True
False
50%50%

20. None team member participations - Talking
Chickens in our daily scrum?
A. True
B. False
True
False
50%50%

21. • “GROWTH AND PROFIT ARE A PRODUCT OF HOW PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER”
• SW development is complex and offshoring complicates this further. It takes
special effort to collaborate effectively with people in different time zones,
locations and with different culture.
• Develop the concept of “One team”
• Team members on both the sides of the Atlantic are considered equal
• Shared culture and personal relationships triumph over distance
• There is substitute for working with “Good” people
Guiding Principles in your organization
for offshore engagement model

22. Co-locate team as often as possible,
especially at inception and key milestones.
Rotate members around.
Invest in (and plan for) tools that provide a
shared environment.
Plan to experiment.
Establish a single global instance of project
assets, easily accessible by all.
Try virtual team building (team wiki &
photos).
Establish known hours, with as much
overlap as possible.
Apply high cohesion and low coupling to
allocation of work to sites.
Develop a shared team vocabulary.
Apply Scrum-of-Scrums concept when
mass remote meetings are unproductive.
Dispersed Team Recommendations

23. • Involving all the team members in the scrum ceremonies and have a right structure for all necessary
formal communication
• Remove all / any barrier that supports the “Us-Them” mentality – There is “One Team” and there is no
room separation
• The team only works on the user stories / requirements that are necessary and agreed upon to complete
the clients priorities
• The client repeats the aim and the ‘Why’ behind every ‘What’ for every sprint / iteration to the entire team
• Personal disciplines (developer, analyst, tester …) are less important than achieving the iteration goal
together
Guiding Principles in your organization
for offshore engagement model

24. • Team members at both the locations / or multiple locations have an equal say
in the software architecture an design
• Feedback on quality and performance is open and bi-directional
• Company culture and project culture are based on the strong principles and
value system. These are more important than personal differences
• Hiring the same level of talent at both the location creates trust and respect
• Know your co-worker contests: Create a game where you describe the
passions and interests of a particular co-worker and everyone has to guess
which co-worker it is.
Have Open culture and relationship based on equality

25. • Invest in common tools to be used across the borders
• Knowledge is always available at local levels, because both the sides of the
team work on the same parts of the system
• Measure the wastage incurred in the sprint / iteration. The most powerful
metric in the Agile world
• Address the concept of “Takt time” or what we call the “Cycle time”
• Always round the velocity to the lower level and Sprint time to the higher
level
• Identify and quantify the impact on velocity due to loss of time / waiting for
information and so on…
Transparent results are only measure of progress

26. Here are some changes you can embrace to deal with the distress introduced by the distributed model:
• Hire a coach who’s well-steeped in distributed team success.
• Ensure all team members receive the same Agile training; for maximum effectiveness, get
everyone in the same room for the training.
• Invest in high-definition, large-screen video technologies.
• Accompany these with a top-notch sound system that figuratively brings all the voices into the
room.
• Have a facilitator in each location when teams plan their dependent delivery commitments.
• Whether using audio-only or adding video, use facilitation techniques that ensure all insights
are welcome (small-group brainstorming, round robin check-ins, frequent breaks.)
• Invest in technologies that support transparent workflow communication
• Maintain a regular cadence of visits across all geographies and all roles.
• Build working agreements that support core hours for availability, or alternative solutions for
quick turn-around feedback.
• Trade or share the burden of dealing with broad time zone differences. Engage the executive
sponsor in regular visits to all locations.
Dealing with Disasters, some ideas, & thoughts..

27. • Actually all the concepts we review are part of the root concepts Scrum has, Transparent, Inspect
and Adapt.
• These are key factor to improve in scrum and become a more Agile team and people in this
technology world.
Some Closing thoughts ...

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