Many organizations use teams spread worldwide to develop valuable business applications. These organizations expect the teams to work as one harmonious unit without missing a beat—or should we say, a story point. A few organizations do it well; many not so well. Betsy Kauffman and Oscar Rodriquez share their experiences in working with globally distributed teams, discussing team models implemented in many organizations. They discuss how to transition from a model that may not be optimal (developers onshore and testing offshore) to a model where teams work together to deliver high quality working software regardless of their location. Along the way, explore “non-negotiables” and sustainable software engineering practices, i.e., DevOps and managing/maintaining solid team health, needed for building strong teams. Leave with a set of guiding principles you can implement day one that encompass agile leadership qualities, common sprint cadences, and “rules” to build strong successful teams.
Oscar Rodriquez
Oscar Rodriquez (CSDP, CSM, SA) has a foundation in engineering with formal education from MIT and a real world education from the San Francisco startup world. He has moved through the roles of developer, architect, consultant, and manager, while working in various domains such as manufacturing, enterprise consulting, billing, healthcare, and finance. In all these roles and domains, the goal has been the same – help the team and organization to deliver higher quality software faster (even if that means failing a lot). Oscar is co-founder of Agile Pi, which takes an “all-in” approach when working with clients in their agile journey by bringing both business and technology together to collaborate, communicate and innovate. (www.agilepi.com; [email protected]; @agile314)