I’m not a scientist or a psychologist or a Certified Scrum Trainer. The only classes I’ve taken in interpersonal communication, though incredibly interesting, were chosen mostly to fulfill some degree requirement years ago. What I’m saying is that I’m technically not an “expert” in distributed retrospectives.
I have, however, worked as a product manager or product owner on many distributed teams, some of them agile, with developers in Poland, Sweden, India, China, Costa Rica, Spain, California, Virginia, New York, some of them on the same team at once. And I’d estimate that 90% of my favorite coworkers ever are developers from those teams.
Working on a distributed agile team isn’t easier than when you’re co-located, but it’s also not as complicated as people think. Yes, it requires more online tools (Oh, the horror!). Yes, sometimes the video and audio irritatingly breaks up mid-thought. Yes, distributed teams must communicate even better and with more specificity than perhaps a co-located team.
But when it comes down to it, the key to working well in a distributed agile environment is fairly simple: You have to stay focused on self and team improvement. Based on my experience, I’ve come up with five things you can do to improve your retrospectives and drive continuous improvement, despite the miles or time zones between you.
Be nice Anytime I’ve started to write a post about the key to working well with distributed or remote teams, I’ve written, “I don’t know. BE NICE!” and then deleted the draft. It’s a simple thing, but super powerful. See your coworkers as human beings who have a whole lot more going on in their lives than work. Get to know them. If the urge to do this doesn’t come naturally to you, I’m not sure how successful you’ll be as a team member on any kind of team, let alone one that you can’t enjoy happy hour with every Friday.
Have a sense of humor There’s no denying it: Retrospectives can get awkward. It’s not easy to talk about what didn’t go well, especially when a particular person’s behavior or absence needs to be addressed. The best way to deal with the awkwardness, other than to be nice and honest, is to lighten up. Stop taking things so seriously. Laugh a little about the time that the app didn’t work at all on IE. Just don’t be that person overdoing it with sarcasm to mask mean comments. That’s never good.
Know your weaknesses I’m one of those people who cannot hide her feelings. It’s all in my face. During a Google Hangout-powered meeting a couple of years ago, a developer stopped mid-sentence to ask what was wrong. They all laughed. I had no idea what he was talking about until he imitated a facial expression I quickly identified as one of my own. (It’s the same “worried” expression in just about every one of my baby pictures, and one that doesn’t always come from worrying.) Ever since then, I’ve tried to be self aware enough to know when it’s happening, and quickly change the expression if it could be taken the wrong way.
It’s also a good idea to talk to a coworker you trust after particularly difficult meetings. Ask, “Did I sound like an ——-?” Then reach out to anyone who might have been on the other end of that behavior.
Be honest Retrospectives don’t work without honesty. The worst possible thing you can do is not speak up and mutter things under your breath the rest of the week. Remember: Muttering under your breath doesn’t even have the same effect on distributed teams. They just won’t know that you disagree, and that’s bad.
Actually have them Oh, the retrospective. It’s often the first practice to fall out of focus. I’ll be honest: Our team, which is building a retrospective app, hasn’t had one in two weeks because the person who made sure they happened is no longer on the team. Pick someone to own them and make them happen. Otherwise, you’ll just get to a point (yesterday, for us) when you’re all saying, “Ya know, we haven’t had a retrospective in a while,” for a reason.
(It should be noted that all of this is much easier if the team meets face to face at least once at the start of a project and uses video during the session. But I’ll speak more on that in later posts.)
