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Distributed Agile Teams

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Title: Distributed Agile Teams


1
Distributed Agile Teams
  • SENG 615 Agile Software Engineering
  • Mark Dochstader
  • 04 December 2007

2
Distributed Agile Teams Outline
  • Definition
  • Challenges
  • Introduce Exercise
  • Complete Scenario
  • Review Results
  • Related Work
  • Conclusions
  • Final Thoughts and Questions

3
Distributed Agile Teams Introduction
  • When you hear Distributed what comes to mind?

Can a distributed team be agile?
4
Distributed Agile Teams Definition
  • The use of agile methods when members are not
    collocated
  • Geographic
  • Temporal
  • Different Types
  • Remote customers
  • Dispersed team
  • Distributed team
  • Why an agile approach?
  • Distributed or not, traditional approaches lack
    adaptability
  • Distributed teams need even more sensitivity to
    changing customer needs than collocated teams

5
Distributed Agile Teams Challenges
  • What does this mean?
  • Pair programming is hard or impossible
  • On-site customer is not available for some or all
    developers
  • Can we even use agile methods with distributed
    teams?
  • No The most efficient and effective method of
    conveying information to and within a development
    team is face-to-face conversation.
  • Yes The importance is adhering to the
    principles not the explicit implementations it
    may be harder but can still be done

6
Distributed Agile Teams Scenario 1
  • A New Idea (version 0.0)
  • You decide to start an individual development
    project for personal use.
  • Personal Information Management (PIM) tool
  • Unique features
  • Unknown technologies

Complete Scenario 1 of the handout
7
Distributed Agile Teams Matrix

C / P
C / P-
Communication Focused?
C- / P-
C- / P

-
Process Oriented?
8
Distributed Agile Teams Common Issues
Communication
Strategic Assets
Technology
Security
Process Synchronization
Culture
9
Distributed Agile Teams I AM A Team of 1
  • Most effective team size for communication
  • Simplest All at once model is the single
    programmer
  • Internal architecture is centrally stored
  • Consistent vision
  • Tool Set
  • Minimal/Incomplete
  • Tailored to the individual
  • On-Demand

10
Distributed Agile Teams Scenario 2
  • Early Days (V 0.1)
  • 2.5 Developers
  • Same location
  • Different schedules
  • Interest from potential users via Internet

Complete Scenario 2 of the handout
11
Distributed Agile Teams Distributed Agile
Development (DAD)
Submit Code Meta
  • Asynchronous distributed pair programming
  • The first programmer works on a task for a period
    of time
  • To end their session the programmer composes a
    brief description of what is complete and tested
    and what remains to be completed
  • The second (partner) programmer starts their
    session by reviewing the notes and produced code
  • The partner then modifies and expands the code as
    required to complete the task

Repository
Developer 1
Get Code Meta
Add Code Update Meta information
Developer 2
Customer
Monitors
Guides
12
Distributed Agile Teams Reviewing DAD
  • Validation
  • Undergrad programming assignments with 4 sets of
    programmers collocation/distributed and
    pairing/non-pairing
  • Distributed pairs were synchronous
  • Both paired teams performed superior vs.
    non-paired
  • Collocated vs. distributed showed little
    difference
  • Concerns with the approach
  • Added requirement to produce supporting
    documentation vs. verbal communication or
    concurrent completion
  • Implicit assumption that both programmers in the
    pair are experts
  • Customer guides development by monitoring written
    descriptions
  • Focuses on the process changes inflicted by a
    distributed team and not the communication hurdles

13
Distributed Agile Teams Scenario 3
  • Diamond in the Rough (version 1.0)
  • Added remote teammate
  • 2 P/T grad students
  • Early Adopter customers
  • Located worldwide
  • Suggestions growing

Complete Scenario 3 of the handout
14
Distributed Agile Teams Tools
  • Agile Manifesto individuals and interactions
    over processes and tools
  • PRO
  • Tools are needed to help synchronize larger teams
    - whiteboards and index cards don't scale.
  • CON
  • Most tools inhibit communication they're a weak
    reporting mechanism replacing rich discussion.
  • Tool Adoption Test Is the tool aiding or
    replacing the intended practice?

15
Distributed Agile Teams Tool Coverage
  • Acceptance Testing
  • Unit Testing
  • Pair Programming Supplements
  • SubEthaEdit / TightVNC
  • Modeling Tools
  • Whiteboard and colored markers
  • Metrics
  • Clover / NCover
  • Build Source Control
  • Ant/Nant
  • CVS/Subversion/VSTeam
  • Collaboration Planning
  • Project Management
  • Wikis
  • Rally Lifecycle Management

16
Distributed Agile Teams Design Principles of
Collaboration Tables
  • Interpersonal Interaction
  • Fluid Transitions between Activities
  • Mitigate focusing on a single type of activity
  • Transitions between Personal and Group Work
  • Multiple views (personal / shared)
  • Task Collaboration vs. External Work
  • Use of Physical Objects
  • task-related (notebook, camera)
  • non-task-related (beverage)
  • Simultaneous User Actions

We can use these design principles to assess
potential tools.
17
Distributed Agile Teams Scenario 4
  • Solid product with growing customer base
  • Divergent focus
  • Integrate
  • 3 development teams
  • New developers
  • New customer group

Complete Scenario 4 of the handout
18
Distributed Agile Teams Distributed Extreme
Programming (DXP)
  • The key problems in DXP are to maintain
    sufficiently rich communication, and a sufficient
    level of respect, between colleagues separated
    widely in time and space.
  • Three general cases for cross-site agile
  • Agile Outsourcing (AO)
  • Agile Dispersed Development (ADD)
  • Distributed Agile Development (DAD)

19
Distributed Agile Teams DXP Prescription
  • Maintain a commitment to the value judgments that
    characterize the core of all agile methods.
  • Use XP practice as-is when possible
  • Adopt agile-esque substitutes when you cant
    use the existing agile practice
  • Use process to guide development when distributed
    aspects violate principles of agile

20
Distributed Agile Teams DXP Results
  • Validation
  • Experience-based
  • Commercial projects
  • XP-based with Scrum influences
  • One Team
  • Balanced Sites
  • Onsite Visit / Ambassador
  • Communication Channels
  • Distributed Standup
  • One Team, One Codebase
  • Unapologetically influenced by personal beliefs
  • No empirical evidence
  • Limited literature review

21
Distributed Agile Teams DXP Matrix

Balanced Sites
One Team
One Team One Codebase
Visits
Distributed Standup
Communication Tools
Communication Focused?
-

Process Oriented?
22
Distributed Agile Teams The Scalability Problem
  • Single Super Hacker
  • Surgical Team
  • Extension of the single programmer
  • Rare resource
  • Pair Programming
  • Capture advantages with gt 2 people
  • Scrum
  • Scale small, cross-functional teams
  • Applied to a multi-site distributed team

23
Distributed Agile Teams A Scrum Experience
  • Easel Corporation (Early 1990s)
  • Scrum teams of distributed developers
  • Any developer, Any Site, Any Task
  • 50 developers in US, Canada Russia
  • Large Library System (gt 200 Million Users)
  • Focuses On
  • Daily Scrum meetings
  • Daily meetings of Product Owner team
  • Hourly automated builds from one central
    repository
  • Developers at different sites on the same team
  • XP practices

24
Distributed Agile Teams Easel Scrum Matrix

XP Practices
Diff Sites One Team
Auto build One Repo
Daily Product
Daily Scrum
Communication Focused?
-

Process Oriented?
25
Distributed Agile Teams Easel Scrum Concerns
  • Identify Three Approaches
  • Isolated Scrums (Typical Offshore)
  • Distributed Scrum of Scrums
  • Totally Integrated Scrums
  • Requires you already have a scaleable agile
    methodology in place
  • How do you build cross-functional teams that
    balance distribution with functional coverage
  • Are you trading cross-team visibility for
    inner-team miscommunication?

26
Distributed Agile Teams Scenario 5
  • 2 new development offices
  • Brazil
  • Eastern Europe
  • Focus expanded
  • Coordinate departments
  • Branch offices
  • Customers
  • Integrate new development offices

Complete Scenario 5 of the handout
27
Distributed Agile Teams Case Study - Global
Software Development
  • US-based company servicing Internal projects with
    globally distributed development units
  • Distributed customers and dispersed team
  • Interviews with dev. team customers
  • Interaction between team customers
  • Interaction inside development team
  • Key Challenges
  • Requirements engineering
  • Software development process
  • Communication and language
  • Culture and context sharing
  • Trust

28
Distributed Agile Teams Case Study - Solutions
  • Solutions adopted focused on
  • Planning
  • Training
  • Standardization
  • Requirements Engineering
  • Trust and integration
  • Identified critical success factors
  • Software Development Process
  • Training
  • Planning and Engagement
  • Team building
  • Communication and Feedback

29
Distributed Agile Teams Case Study - Outcomes
Trust

Dev Process
Planning
Training
Communication Focused?
Requirements
Standardization
-

Process Oriented?
30
Distributed Agile Teams Offshoring Experiences -
IBM
  • IBM using an agile approach to off-shore
  • Challenges
  • Decreased communication bandwidth
  • Decreased visibility into project status
  • Problems with configuration management
  • Disconnection on project estimation

31
Distributed Agile Teams Offshoring Experiences
(2)
  • Classify the project
  • How well does the team understand what is to be
    delivered?
  • Does the team know how it is going to deliver?
  • How complex is the project?
  • Balance Agility with Discipline
  • How dynamic are the requirements?
  • How much order does the culture need?
  • How many people are involved?
  • How critical is the project?
  • How many expert developers do you have?
  • Tailor the Method
  • Apply the Method
  • Gather Method Feedback (Retrospective)

32
Distributed Agile Teams Offshoring - Agility
vs. Plan Driven
  • Barry Boehm, Richard Turner Balancing Agility
    and Discipline, Addison-Wesley, 2003

33
Distributed Agile Teams Offshoring Experiences -
Overview
  • Provides an inventory of available
    strategies/tools for different situations
  • Targets the process designer, not the end-user
  • Relies on centrally planned assembled
    development methodology
  • May contain agile-inspired techniques but not
    organic
  • Hampered by IBMs Global Services Method
  • Insight into unpredicted challenges
  • considerable cultural issues
  • High turnover / job-hopping
  • Communicate through code product (dog-fooding)

34
Distributed Agile Teams Review Whiteboard
  • Does anything jump out?
  • Trends in proposed solutions to management
    challenges
  • Group opinions on observations
  • Individual does this match your personal
    experience?

35
Distributed Agile Teams Conclusions
  • Developer/Customer
  • OSS developers tend to be their own customers
  • helps mitigate communication issues
  • often expert developers
  • Domain expert developers rely on the customer
  • Less frequently for understanding
  • Just as much for guidance
  • Size
  • smaller projects tend to be less impacted by the
    communication challenges
  • As team size grows, process rigidity increases
  • A necessary formalization?

36
Distributed Agile Teams Conclusions (2)
  • More documentation can help
  • Can be informal (screen shots, notes)
  • GOAL Capturing collective understanding
  • Shared Planning Tool
  • Web-based project planning or collaboration
  • Daily meeting substitutes
  • Isolated Scrums, Scrum of scrums, sub. Weekly
  • Travel No replacement for Face-Time
  • Solution must focus on communication
  • Adaptability requires immediate feedback, close
    communication and task visibility

37
Distributed Agile Teams Final Thoughts
  • Process and/or tools dont replace critical
    assessment.
  • Projects and teams (especially distributed)
    change strategies must change too
  • If possible structure the project so that teams
    are basically not distributed for major
    iterations.
  • Agile toolset is not all/none use what works
  • Distributed teams are a growing phenomenon
    embrace it!

38
Chandler Information
  • Personal Information Management (PIM) software
    suite
  • Focus on Information Workflows (GTD)
  • Collaboration and Sharing
  • Destruction of Information Silos Note ? Email ?
    Calendar Event
  • Started Spring of 2001
  • Apache License
  • Cross-platform (Python)
  • Effort 25 developers (variable)
  • Cost 5 to 10 Million (Guess)
  • Status Preview 0.7.2 (Nov 13, 2007)
  • http//chandlerproject.org/
  • http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_28PIM29

39
Distributed Agile Teams Discussion Questions
  • Whats the difference between agile practices and
    agile principles?
  • Why differentiate?
  • You are finishing a distributed agile project
  • What were the big challenges?
  • What worked?
  • What didnt?

40
References
  • Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres Extreme Programming
    Explained Embrace Change (2nd Edition),
    Addison-Wesley (2005) p.18
  • Keith Braithwaite and Tim Joyce XP Expanded
    Distributed Extreme Programming, Springer Berlin
    / Heidelberg, 0302-9743 (Print) 1611-3349
    (Online), 2005
  • Keith Braithwaite and Tim Joyce XP Expanded
    Patterns for Distributed eXtreme Programming
    (April 2006) http//www.keithbraithwaite.demon.co.
    uk/professional/papers/2005/europlop/patterns_dist
    ributed_xp.pdf
  • Herbsleb, J. D., and Moitra, D. An empirical
    study on Global Software Development Distributed
    IT Projects, IEEE Software, March/April,
    USA,2001, p. 16-20.
  • Brooks , F.P. The Mythical Man-Month, Addison
    Wesley Pub. Co., 1975, 25th Anniversary edition,
    2000.
  • Nidiffer, K. E. and D. Dolan, 2005, "Evolving
    Distributed Project Management," IEEE Software
    22(5) 63-72.
  • Scott Rosenburg Dreaming In Code, Crown
    Publishers, (2007).ISBN978-1-4000-8246-9
  • Christoph Steindl Distributed Agile, IT
    Architect and IT Specialist Institute - Central
    Region in Herrenberg, Germany, 2004.
    http//www.agilealliance.org/system/article/file/1
    420/file.pdf
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