How do you stay agile in remote work?

I agree that communication is the most essential thing in remote working. I want to emphasize setting up the expectations for each stakeholder. For example, when you need to do some errands during working hours, let your team know when you will be available or can complete your task. It doesn’t have to be often as long as you maintain your schedule visibility.

The most impactful thing I have been doing as Scrum Master at my company is giving a rundown to the progress of all tasks etc to the team lead every monday and confirming what each worker will be doing that week. This allows the project to stay on track with steady progress. Occasionally, after notifying the lead with the next task to be done, that task will be put on hold for a higher priority issue. Communication is key.

I work hard to build connections that feel more like "real life" to enhance virtual communications. For example, I try to share my screen only for short periods of time to maintain "face-to-face exchanges.

One thing I found useful about communication is to be deliberate. Think about why people need the information, who will consume it and that will help you choose the medium and the message.

The best way to communicate is with the intent of inclusion. Choosing words and phrases that are not agile "inside baseball" and serve to establish a common ground when introducing new concepts and ideas. A large part of any change is about understanding how humans will react to it! Hint - no one really likes change - especially at the begging so avoid alienating by meeting them where they in their language.

There is a plethora of options out there when it comes to being flexible and experimenting, don’t lock yourself or your processes to norms/ideals, remember every sprint doesn’t not have to result in a release and working remotely doesn’t mean you have to sit in your home office all day, try your lawn or dining table for a meeting.

Don't be afraid to toss something that isn't working! Continuously revisit your processes to see if they provide the value that is needed. Always look for the simplest approach and only add complexity as needed. It's easy to fall into a pattern of process over productivity.

Agile methodologies have several ceremonies that in a remote work scenario must be maintained or reinforced. The absence of interaction in the same physical environment requires more moments of interaction between team members through virtual communication tools.

Set expectations and trust your team. Agile relies on trust. Set clear expectations and empower your team to make decisions. Trust that they'll deliver without constant oversight. Give your team flexibility.

I personally think this is the wrong question to ask, as it implies that collaboration is only done face to face. It is not an either or. Agile already states that one of its principles is "adaptation". So as a group you have to adapt to the environment. There are plenty of tool to collaborate with your team and manage your daily meetings and other aspects of your project that, even when working in person, such tools need to still be available in order to create a collaborative environment. However, the single one tool that needs to be adapted and always used is "communication". Always continue to communicate with your team to make sure that everyone has what they need to be successful.

I discovered a highly effective strategy by regularly engaging with the newcomers who joined the team amid the challenges posed by COVID-19. Taking the time to comprehend their individual journeys, the obstacles they faced, and the distinctive skills they brought to our group greatly aided me in strategically placing them in roles where they could excel. The sight of a senior leader showing genuine care for their well-being and being easily approachable significantly boosted their self-assurance. This, in turn, accelerated their learning curve and led to more substantial and meaningful contributions from these individuals.

While teams are working remotely, it is very important to have all the team members focused on a common goal. Apart from sprint deliverables team has to focus on underlying value that is being delivered to customers. Value doesn't necessarily mean a code push to prod, but the impact it causes or how efficiently that solves customer's problems. While team is doing all these activities, there is quality which is to be taken care at every single step. It could be quality of story grooming(adding minute details, exploring business scenarios), quality of coding(following best practices, re-usable components, guard rails), quality of testing(edge cases, performance impact etc). And always make use of metrics to measure quality.

Getting an objective metric is generally the way forward. I have seen teams who outperform others, tend to follow feedback from customer in some defined form be it. And there are several bucket of metrics for this as below: 1. Behavior metrics: DAU(Daily Active Users), MAU(Monthly Active Users), Traffic, Average Time Spent 2. Success metric: Conversion rate 3. Revenue metric: Orders, transactions, average ticket size etc.

Absolutely, this statement highlights a key principle of agile methodologies that is particularly important in the context of remote work. Continuous improvement through reflection and learning is essential for maintaining productivity, adapting to new challenges, and fostering a positive work environment.

In Agile, it is super important to: - Hold regular Retrospectives - Celebrate successes - Learn from failures - Implement feedback mechanisms - Commit to action plans - Embrace a growth mindset

I've discovered that dedicated communication channels within a Community of Practice (CoP) are an exceptionally effective method for sharing knowledge across multiple teams or even throughout the entire enterprise. CoPs offer a platform for individuals with shared interests or roles to collaborate, exchange insights, and collectively enhance their skills. Additionally, these channels enable anyone to seek assistance on specific CoP topics and learn from the archived history of past discussions.

Working remotely can be daunting for some people. So, it’s essential to ensure your happiness and sanity regularly. We can have a schedule on our calendar to do our hobby or do family time. Addressing the smallest concern that you have in the work with your manager will also be helpful.

One disadvantage to remote work is where siloed knowledge can happen more frequently, but the act of humility can help combat this issue. When co-located, you can soak up knowledge from surrounding conversations which often leads to a more well-rounded perspective of a situation. Although remote work is beginning to closely resemble the ad-hoc nature of conversations of an on-site work day, there are still opportunities to utilize humility to gain the information needed. Having the courage to ask questions, a cultural agreement to not judge one another on questions asked and the intent of looking for the information on your own can all lead to a deeper understanding of the topic at hand and lead to greater awareness of the solutions needed.

I have some standard team norms I like to employ that allow for both remote and asynchronous work. They are: Be Document Centric Tools like Slack and Teams are great but they result in fragmented ideas and communication. Using documents, like Google Docs, helps ensure things are contiguous. Share WIP Early and Often Once we start funneling knowledge to documents, we need to get them shared so we can start collaborating on the ideas. Waiting until we are done causes a lot of rework. Acknowledge When we use messaging tools, far too often we don't know if the message has been truly synthesized by the recipients. The simple act of placing a common emoji on an item is a clear indicator that the message has been consumed.