Before the health crisis, remote work was offered to employees on a rather occasional basis, with physical interactions being prioritized during various meetings, workshops, or individual interviews, especially in an agile context requiring daily collective engagement. However, with the widespread adoption of remote work, many seem to think that agile principles are difficult to apply and may even increase the workload.
It is undeniable that one of the effects of remote work is the increase in solicitations: what could be handled in 5 minutes through a direct verbal exchange now requires a relentless hunt for available slots in everyone's schedules. Faced with these difficulties, the dynamic is gradually broken, many things are postponed, and the risk is that everyone progresses on a parallel backlog that is neither defined nor prioritized by the core team.
But contrary to popular belief, collective efficiency and team spirit do not solely depend on the work environment and physical proximity. What agile methodology primarily advocates is working together, communicating, and sharing information regardless of the context or geographical position.
Here are 5 best practices to help you stay on track and take advantage of agile principles:
How do we do it as team ?
Before launching your sprints and planning your agile ceremonies, gather your teams via an audio or video conference and review together how to work effectively in this somewhat unique context. The idea is not to redefine your mode of operation from A to Z but to adjust your rules based on everyone's constraints. For example, a one-hour sprint review instead of two, or postponing a sprint retrospective by one sprint.
Timekeeper is key
During your meetings, prepare a clear agenda and share it in advance with the team so that those who wish can add to it. But the most important thing is to designate a timekeeper at the beginning of the session to ensure the agenda is followed, to refocus participants when they stray from the meeting's objective, and to clearly reformulate when a decision needs to be made.
Agile tools are your best friends (and there’s plenty of them)
Whether for project management, deliverable sharing, meeting organization, or brief exchanges, there is a wide range of collaborative tools (some without license fees) that will energize your interactions and engage your team members more in your projects. For example, JIRA-Confluence to track progress via a kanban or scrum board and share your documents, Slack for daily team exchanges, Skype or Zoom for videoconferencing, as seeing each other remains important for group unity, Planning Poker to plan your upcoming sprints, FunRetro or Sensei to make your retrospectives more participative, Featuremap or Klaxoon for your remote workshops without paper post-its...
Do the flexible sprint
Don't hesitate to discuss with your team the duration of sprints and the expected quality. Should we make them shorter to make the sprint cadence, tests, and sprint review content more manageable? Don't be afraid to ask the question; the important thing is to be effective together, considering many situational constraints. Listen to each other, set realistic sprint goals together, and adjust your sprint backlog along the way if necessary.
Hello, can you hear me…
When problems and delays accumulate, stay calm and improvise a retrospective session with your team to take the temperature, identify what is working well or not. Give each team member a chance to speak to avoid unspoken issues and ensure everyone understands each other's difficulties. The goal is to make the team aware of the points to improve to continue to be effective and collaborate calmly. This awareness can translate into changes in behaviors or communications, or even tasks to be added to the backlog. Daily, think of gestures or words of encouragement that will have a direct impact on the team's morale, motivation, and level of involvement in this challenging crisis context.
Agility in a remote work situation: it works, but under certain conditions. These rules must be defined and validated by the entire team, considering deliverable requirements and the context in which everyone operates. Being agile does not necessarily mean strictly following the agile manifesto. The principles, ceremonies, and other tools are at the service of the team, which must know how to use them to its advantage and according to its organization.
