8 Patterns for Successful Distributed Development with agile and lean

1. Patterns for Successful
Distributed Development
Mads Troels Hansen
Agileee 2009, Kyiv, Ukraine
© 2009 Mads Troels Hansen

2. My background
• Mads Troels Hansen
Agile and Lean Coach at BestBrains, Denmark. Mads has
more than 15 years of experience with software development,
as developer, project manager, product owner, CIO and CTO
in different companies. He is very experienced in working with
Scrum, Agile and Lean in a distributed environment and is
Certified Scrum Practitioner.
mth@bestbrains.dk, +45 6082 2282
.
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3. • Agile team
– Co-located, face-to-face collaboration
– Task board on the wall
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4. • 8 Patterns for Successful Distributed
Development
September 09, © 2009 Mads Troels Hansen 4

5. Structure
• Visibility and Transparency TRUST
– Use Google Docs or another online tool
– Physical task boards whenever possible
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6. Structure
• Focus on problem solving
– DO regular retrospectives, online and offline
– Find root cause, not only symptoms
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7. Structure
• Establish flow and remove bottlenecks
– Limit Work In Progress, CF Diagrams
– Value Stream Mapping
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8. Structure
• A normal way of folding hands
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9. Structure
• Change the structure
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10. Rhythm
• Regular rhythm in teams and between teams
– Planning, coordination, releases
– Establish a cadence
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11. Rhythm
• Business and technical feedback rhythms
– Sneak preview, demonstrations
– Continuous Integration
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12. Technical
Infrastructure
• Highly automated and fast
– Simple tools
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13. Technical
Infrastructure
• Remove dependencies to other locations
– It must be fast to integrate and test
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14. Communication
Protocols
• Use VIDEO whenever possible
– Distributed face-to-face communication
– Use different tools for distributed communication
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15. Communication
Protocols
• Prepare the distributed meetings
– Use checklists and remember to ask questions
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16. Communication
Protocols
• Pomodoro technique
– Distributed team
– Local team
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17. Shared
Product
Vision
• Understand the vision and key features
– User Story Mapping, a picture of the whole system
– Innovation Games, learning from customers
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18. Shared
Product
Vision
• Prepare requirements with acceptance criteria
– Easier to test and validate
– Focus on need not solution
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19. Domain
Knowledge
• What you don’t know you don’t know
• Ask questions
• Innovation Games
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20. Domain
Knowledge
• Physical outputs and business workflow
– Learn what the solution will produce
– Understand how the user will use it
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21. Development
Practices
• Slice the system by feature not layer
– Integrate and test in small steps
– Risk first
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22. Development
Practices
• From “Ready, Ready” to “Done, Done”
– Agree and define your “Done, Done” criteria
– Validate requirements with “Ready, Ready” criteria
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23. Cross cultural
understanding
• Regular face-to-face visits
– Distributed teams working together, same office
– Solve problems together
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24. People don’t resist
change, they resist
being changed.
- Peter Scholtes
Thank you
Send me your distributed stories: mth@bestbrains.dk
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25. References
• Innovation Games, Luke Hohmann
www.innovationgames.com
• User Story Mapping, Jeff Patton
http://www.agileproductdesign.com/presentations/user_story_mapping/index.html
• Distributed Pomodoro: CherryTomato
http://www.chrylers.com/cherrytomato/
• Agile 2009 Paper: Agile for Distributed Teams
http://tinyurl.com/CmmiAgile
September 09, © 2009 Mads Troels Hansen