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    Category: Newbie

    New to Agile? Build trust to grow influence and impact

    Transforming the way you work to an Agile approach has implications for the relationship between software teams and their customers and stakeholders. But in many…

    Richard Lawrence 2015-10-01
    1 Comment

    New to agile? Remember, sometimes things get crazy!

    Do you ever get so frustrated you feel like pulling your hair out?  I do (although that is NOT a picture of me to the…

    Bob Hartman 2010-07-27
    4 Comments

    New to agile? Learn how to fail well

    Is success or failure really a choice?  I don’t think it is at all.  Pretty much no one chooses to fail.  Unfortunately, we can’t just…

    Bob Hartman 2010-06-14
    5 Comments

    New to agile? Remember a user story is more than a card!

    What’s wrong with the user story on the card?  It seems to have everything we need: a) short title, b) a size (in this case…

    Bob Hartman 2010-05-03
    5 Comments

    New to agile? Watch an Intro to Scrum video in about 8 minutes

    My friend, Arif Gangji, and I created this video to help his customers understand why his company uses Scrum as their software development framework. I…

    Bob Hartman 2010-03-03
    1 Comment

    New to agile? Lean principles can help!

    Ever see a trash can look like that?  I know I have – plenty of times.  I have 3 kids so I sometimes even see…

    Bob Hartman 2010-01-13
    3 Comments

    New to agile? Remember the power of automation

    As this blog entry is published I am teaching an agile/scrum course to a client in Flanders, New Jersey.  You might want to ask “Bob,…

    Bob Hartman 2009-12-01
    6 Comments

    New to agile? Give thanks!

    Here in the United States we will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, November 26.  If you are currently on an agile team you…

    Bob Hartman 2009-11-24
    2 Comments

    New to agile? Remember to respect people

    One of the Lean Principles is “Respect People.”  I think it may be the most important lean principle.  When I teach a course and get…

    Bob Hartman 2009-11-17
    0 Comments

    New to agile? Keep it very simple

    When dealing with an agile implementation, particularly in the case of a new agile team, we often make things too complex and difficult.  We tend…

    Bob Hartman 2009-10-06
    27 Comments

    New to agile? Work at a sustainable pace

    Question:  Which is better: a) Working nights and weekends to meet iteration commitments, or b) Admitting the commitment was too much and working normal hours…

    Bob Hartman 2009-07-24
    5 Comments

    New to agile? What to do when you are behind

    Wow, has it really been more than a month since I posted something on my blog?  Ouch!  I guess I’ve been busier than I thought. …

    Bob Hartman 2009-07-06
    11 Comments

    How to make a LOT more money using agile

    Yesterday’s blog post dealt with how to manage scope for an agile project.  Today I have to admit it was a bit of a setup. …

    Bob Hartman 2009-05-27
    2 Comments

    New to agile? Remember how to say “No”

    No.  Only two letters.  Very simple word.  Yet for some reason, with the exception of when we are at “the terrible 2’s” stage of life…

    Bob Hartman 2009-05-18
    4 Comments

    New to agile? INVEST in good user stories

    As a <user> I want <function> so that<value>. Above is a very simple user story template.  How can something so simple be so hard to…

    Bob Hartman 2009-05-14
    30 Comments

    New to Agile? Use a Rules of Engagement document.

    How do we work together? Seems like a simple question, right? How wrong you could be!  For an agile team, working together is vitally important,…

    Bob Hartman 2009-05-05
    10 Comments

    New to agile? Do the simplest thing that works – THEN STOP!

    As an agile trainer and coach I often see new teams struggle with a simple question: “How much to do on a user story?”  A lot…

    Bob Hartman 2009-04-27
    0 Comments

    New to agile? Tips for better daily stand-ups

    As an agile coach I have attended a lot of daily stand-up meetings.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a meeting…

    Bob Hartman 2009-04-14
    1 Comment

    New to agile? Don’t settle for mediocrity

    James Shore recently changed the entire focus of his company. This blog entry gives his reasons why. The blog post really struck a chord with…

    Bob Hartman 2009-03-30
    5 Comments

    New to agile? Tools for distributed agile

    I’ve been working the past several weeks with some highly distributed teams.  Each team requires a way to track their project effectively (when you have…

    Bob Hartman 2009-03-26
    4 Comments
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    Forum Description

    I've been working the past several weeks with some highly distributed teams.  Each team requires a way to track their project effectively (when you have people in 6 different states and a few countries cards on the wall no longer work!), collaborate, use planning poker and store things pertinent to the project.  What can you do when co-location is just not a possibility? It turns out there are many ways to help overcome pieces of the problem.  Unfortunately, the problem also has many pieces!  Below I have broken out some of the tools I have seen used successfully to overcome various issues distributed teams face: Issue: Lack of high-bandwidth communication This is probably the biggest problem distributed teams need to solve.  How close can you come to high bandwidth communication?  That should be the question you ask all the time.  Since this is about tools, some that I've seen used are video conferencing that is live all the time (cheaper than you think when done over the Internet), extensive use of Skype, instant messaging of various flavors, and a good old fashioned phone call.  For teams that overlap the work day at all, some form of instant messaging is used nearly universally.  I've also seen teams use Twitter in "private" mode to share information with each other.  For any of these methods it is vital to have an easy method of storing the critical information which is exchanged.  Issue: Cannot use "cards on the wall" to track iteration progress This is the issue that is probably easiest to deal with because it is where most vendors of agile tools have focused.  You basically have 4 choices here:  1) create something of your own to solve this problem, 2) use something like www.cardmeeting.com to still try to simulate cards on the wall, 3) use an Excel spreadsheet for tracking, or 4) use a web-based tool designed for the job.  To me numbers 1 and 3 are not viable solutions.  There are too many problems associated with both of them.  Number 2 is interesting, but only for a short time.  It doesn't quite have enough flexibility to make it easy to use for this particular type of situation.  That leaves number 4 as the only true option (again, this is my opinion, yours may be different).  In this category are LOTS of tools.  VersionOne, Rally, Pivotal Tracker, TargetProcess, Microsoft TFS and many other applications can do the job.  I have not mentioned any open source tools because I've seen too many teams try them, get stuck and have no good place to turn for help.  The two having the largest market share by far are VersionOne and Rally.  Both have a free version for evaluation and in both cases they also have a free version which can be used by small teams forever.  I know there are lots of other tools out there, but I've not personally used them, so I can't put them in here. Issue: Cannot play Planning Poker remotely OK, I lied earlier - THIS is the easiest problem to solve!  Assuming you can get everyone on the web at the same time, www.planningpoker.com will suffice quite nicely.  This site has several different variations of point scales to use, can import stories, has a timer you can use and basically makes playing Planning Poker remotely as simple as possible.  Kudos to Mike Cohn for setting it up and keeping it free for the agile community to use (Mike has also written a couple of books we have listed on our resources page). Issue: Information storage and sharing is difficult This is another area with lots of potential answers.  Wikis are very popular and probably the number one choice for taking a stab at this particular issue.  Sharepoint is another option that I've seen work well.  Many teams using an agile project management tool like VersionOne (or one of the others mentioned) will create links from the tool to wherever the additional information is stored, thereby allowing them to use any storage medium including something like subversion. While there are lots of choices in this area, good agile principles tell us to eliminate waste.  This is a huge potential area for waste.  If you can't find something then it might as well not have been there at all.  It is vitally important for teams to pick a tool and a way of using that tool which allows for easily finding information when necessary! Other random tools: www.etherpad.com - real-time collaborative text editing Google Docs - online document sharing www.tinychat.com - instantly create and use a chatroom www.scriblink.com - online whiteboard www.webex.com and www.gotomeeting.com - online meetings with presentations or sharing a desktop for others to view As you can see, there are a LOT of tools available for use with distributed teams.  Let the agile process work for you by having the team use one for an iteration and at the iteration retrospective (you do have those, right?) decide whether to continue using it, change how you use it, or decide to try a different tool.  There are far more tools than I've listed.  Let Google be your friend and find ones that solve your specific problems. Until next time my clients will be using many of these tools as they continue Making Agile a Reality™.

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