Leading Remote Development Teams

Question

I'm now in the position that I am leading 2 remote development teams, some in India, some in the USA (I'm based in Scotland) and was looking for some advice and wisdom what will help make me more successful in this pursuit.

Already I've found the following:

• Regular one to one sessions with each developer helps build trust immensely
• Code reviews over Livemeeting can be a chore but are worth while
• It's tricky being agile when not in the same building or timezone. It's difficult to get testers fully involved with all the on the fly design decisions
• You have little or no time to code as you're working to keep the team moving

Tips and experiences will be most helpful. I've led teams on a single site before but this is a whole new challenge!

Answer 1

Daily scrums by conference call are a lightweight way to get frequent updates on people's progress. Ideally you'd want the entire team on the call, but that will be difficult given your time zones.

You want to make sure that you keep the calls very short. For our team of five or so people it takes less than five minutes. If someone's late for the call, they miss the whole thing. Don't let the call degenerate into a long development meeting. If there are things that need to be talked about that will take longer, end the scrum and excuse the people not interested in the discussion.

Answer 2

I have had experience with just one person remote and with a subcontracted team in another country. The internal member was a lot easier - not just because it was only one person, but because he was part of our organization. The culture of the organization was still not far off from office to office. The remote team was hard - they had their own company...

I worked as part of a group that was based in London at another company and I was alone in NY. I found that meeting everyone face to face at least once was great. It is important. May not be feasible with you/money, but it is worth mentioning.

One thing we did also was set up webcams on different parts of the office. Publishing photos can sometimes help teams/team members relate to each other.

From a purely technical point of view - there really was not an issue.

Sending/ordering lunch or breakfast as a surprise once in a while is a nice gesture. or paying for people to go to the movies after work/early dismissal)

You are probably dealing with some vast culture differences. Not sure I can comment on those specifically, but trying to force things will definitely backfire.

I'd say forget about the code for now. That is just about impossible with what you describe.

Ask the developers and the devs how they can help the situation. They probably have ideas.

Answer 3

Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!

I have 8 yrs of experience as remote developer.

Set the proper expectation, give them tips to improve their basic coding skills.

Answer 4

• Don't expect the best immediately.
• Work as a remote developer and understand what are all basic issues.
• Make sure they are able to access SCM (SVN, CVS) without issues.
• Do the code review and latter let them do it internally (within offsite)
• Meet offshore team and party with them.