Stand-up alternative for a remote team

Question

What would you recommend in place of a standup, if there are many people working remotely at very different working hours? Is there any software for - let's say - remote standup, where everyone would write the same things that he or she would say at a normal standup?

Answer 1

Since you need it offline you could use a wiki. Otherwise a skype conf would do.

Answer 2

What would you recommend in place of a standup, if there are many people working remotely at very different working hours?

I would recommend... a standup (with video conference), unless you can't find 15 overlapping minutes in everybody's working hours. First, face to face communication is much more efficient and second, it really helps to build relationships between persons.

If really this is impossible, then go for a wiki, with all the overhead this implies. But I can't say that this is ideal Scrum. And because I'm not sure you'll be able to stay withing the 15mn time box, maybe consider splitting the team into multiple teams.

Answer 3

Skype recently introduce up to 10 people video conference.

That said, I don't think standard standups will be appropriate in your case (different locations + different time zones). Having managed offshore developers for years, I never found that very practical. Maybe you can get better results than me?

Answer 4

Problems related to distributed teams are described in Succeeding with agile. The book offers some very good set of solutions to these problems. I recommend the book.

Agile is about communication so if you can, always try to make video conference or conference call for your daily meeting. One of the very interesting suggestion in the book is called "Share the pain". It is related to different time zones. Planning the call for people around the world can cause that somebody will have to attend the call very early in the morning or lately at night. You should move the time for the call during the project so that inconvenience with the time of call is gradually shared by all team members.

If you have group of peoples working remotely you can also allow each group to have own daily meeting and only one person from each group will participate in global meeting - similar to SCRUM of SCRUM.

Another possibility is to write meetings. The easiest solution is to use Wiki or emails. This should be used with care - completely replace daily meetings with written reports is somehow against agile development. This is one of the 12 agile principles from agile manifesto:

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

The book propose combined solution where members with overlapping work hours participate in call and other members submits written report. Together with sharing the pain this can solve the problem of daily meetings in distributed teams.

Answer 5

What would you recommend in place of a standup, if there are many people working remotely at very different working hours?

From this question I gather that you have two issues for which you need a solution. 1. Finding a good real time/ non real time communication tool for your Scrum Team and Scrum meetings (Standup in particular) 2. Managing different working hours of Scrum Team members

Solution to number issue 1: Tools you could use: For video chatting and conferencing - gtalk and Skype And also in addition during the Sprint - For sharing desktop and pair programming also - VMWare and VNC (Tight VNC) or if Windows:( then remote desktop For better document sharing - backpackit.com, Wiki (as some of the others suggested)

Solution to number issue 2: Try not to replace Stand up. I think it is the most crucial meeting in Scrum, it is like the heart beat for the Sprints life, if you stop the heart beat your Sprint dies! (my opinion totally) The solution is that have everyone in the Team commit to a particular 15 minute time window to be available for a remote Scrum meeting using one of the tools mentioned above, which every Team member agrees to. There is just no other solution apart from that in my mind IF you want to adopt Scrum successfully that is. Just rethink the whole Team choosing process with your management. Arrange a meeting and discuss the following: 1. Is this Scrum Team with remote Team members adding value to our company or business? 2. Do we have any alternative way or idea to have Team members collocated? 3. Can we form the team differently? For e.g. Split the Team and have collocated Team members in the same Scrum Team etc? 4. If remote Team is the only option, can we get a commitment from all remote members to attend the Daily Scrum Meeting for 15 minutes everyday real time?

Remote Scrum can be painful, I have experienced it once and I quickly noticed that the Team becomes less productive, and may lose morale and motivation to achieve the goals for the Sprint, it can be contagious and motivated passionate Team members get affected as well. But then again, sometimes you have to accept it is what it is, you have suck it up and deal with it, in that case, please follow my suggestions and use tools recommended by others and me above, but I highly recommend Team members being available for the Scrum meeting real time (even if it is just call conferencing) and not just send or post their notes and 'updates'.

Best of Luck!

Answer 6

This will seem mundane, but tools to help Team members keep track of the local time in the various locations will be very helpful. A list o 6 free ones can be found at: http://mashable.com/2010/09/27/time-zone-websites/

Answer 7

I have found a tool supporting remote stand-up. It's here: http://www.assembla.com/offers/standup/index2.html