Are you practicing social distancing with your Agile team?

Remote teamwork can be challenging. 

Almost everything is harder and takes longer. Work time free from distractions may be limited and hard to find. If there were ever a time when when the advantages of focus and simplicity are clear, it’s now.

Focus

What aspects of your product matter most right now? Focus only on the most urgent and critical needs of your customers. Defer until later lower value and less urgent work. Urgent and critical needs can take the form of capabilities to help your customers deal with the challenges of COVID-19. If your product isn’t of this nature, then perhaps now is the best time to tackle technical debt and other product needs that will protect your product’s long-term value potential. Or, perhaps now is an opportunity to pivot to something new. Agility is grounded in doing what matters most to your customers. Focusing on a few things done well will help your remote team excel.

Simplicity

Now is the time for simplicity. Start by separating work into that with requires collaboration and that which can be done by an individual contributor. For the collaboration work, break the work down into small chunks of valuable work. Smaller chunks enable swarming and shrink cycle time. Reserve your video conferencing time and effort for those things requiring collaboration. And remember to celebrate getting things done with your team! Keeping things simple will accelerate your team’s learning and mastery of remote teamwork.

If you want more tips on how to help your remote team excel, join one of our virtual Certified Scrum classes, work with us to craft a custom learning experience for your team, or take advantage of our remote coaching services. We can help you help your team excel in challenging times.