A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum – IBM Press

By Elizabeth Woodward, Steffan Surdek, Matthew Ganis.

http://www.ibmpressbooks.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0137041136

 

Here are my notes picked up when reading the book

CHAPTER 1 : The Evolution of Scrum

Collocation is no longer the norm: only 45% of collocated teams – from a recent survey –

Advantages of distributed teams

• Use time shift for 24/24 h development effort
• Reaching market more quickly with the “follow the sum model” :
• Multinational companies produce more ideas than domestic counterparts

A lot of distributed teams are the result of acquisition.

Four level of distribution with more and more difficulties

Collocated

Collocated part-time

• dailies with remote callers,
• “out of sight, out of mind”,
• biggest challenge is to invite remote people to planning and design sessions.

Distributed with overlapping hours

• Not easy to plannify sprint planning and review
• Scrum meetings lack of body language
• Cultural / language difference

Distributed with no overlapping hours

• Every meeting is a challenge

Three ways of handling distributed teams

Isolated Scrums model

• No synchronization needed between teams
• Each location has a cross functional team.
• Usually the first two level of distribution

Distributed Scrum of scrum

Scrum of scrum daily (Ken Schwaber 2004)

1. What did you team do yesterday?
2. What will your team do today?
3. What blockers have you met?
4. + What blockers might you be throwing into another team’s way?

• Longer meeting fewer time to give all members time to communicate
• Several Product owners who make a single team : Need to speak with single voice

Totally Integrated teams

• Each team has members in several location (Ex : All testers in a single location)
• In such a context, Scrum can improve productivity by 5 to 10 compared to industry average

 

Comments are welcome ; Comming soon : Chapter 2 : Challenges faced by distributed teams