Presented by

Date

Event

Extreme AgileManaging fully distributed teams

June 2015Alan Bennett

6/12/2015

Agile Development Conference BSC/ADC2015

● a truly unique opportunity● I could work anywhere● Manage / Lead multiple teams● Grow from a Global talent pool

● Diverse background● Delivered ‘Full-stack’

○ Consumer electronics○ Military/Aviation: DO-178B

● Lots of process experience○ Phase Gate, Waterfall and

Agile/Scrum● Open Source & Automation

How hard can it be

Walkthru the Organization

● Directed engineering● Competitors collaborating● Opensource SW on ARM processors● Linux Kernel, GNU Toolchain, Core developers● Organizationally ‘Flat’● Periods of High growth● Fully-transparent operations to stakeholders

How do I fit in

● Engineering Manager 3 teams○ Team 1: Automation framework (6)○ Team 2: Automation System Administration (2)○ Team 3: Infrastructure (4)

● Structure○ 75% Full-time employees○ 25% Member employees / ‘assignees’

Manage using Agile Scrum

● Company wide cadence: 1 month cycles● ‘Way of Working’ based on Agile / Scrum● Feature level planning, scoping, “hard

commitments”● Regular Ceremonies

○ Planning, retrospectives, demosbug scrubs, standups

● Next up Execute

Scrum, its great, but...

● Scheduling meetings○ It’s 5 o’clock somewhere

● Team Dynamics○ Specialists, differing goals

● BattlingBurnout○ starting days at 5am, meetings until 9am

Low hanging fruit

● Find ‘least painful’ time● Split / team

○ focused○ lose ‘cross-over’ benefits

● Results○ Able to keep the team moving○ Focusing on cross team dependencies

● Things are more-or-less working

Re-organization

● More responsibility● Resources shuffle

○ lose some, gain others● Product Development

○ My comfort zone○ Building products (Linux Kernel, Toolchain,

Automation Product)● Share management with reporting Manager

New signs of trouble

● Hair begins to turn gray● Less time to focus● New products under

scrutiny, escalations● Battling high priority

interrupts

Thankfully, high quality ingredients

● Opensource works○ Passion drives contribution○ Resources are volunteers,

■ un-managed■ self-motivated■ self-planning

● Company values team dynamics○ semi-annual meetings, sprints, conferences

● Have a great team of driven engineers

Can we build a process around Open Source

Inputs

● Driven Engineers ○ Open source contributions

● Leverage tools that promote visibility○ Kanban, ordered by priority

■ Priority from team & stakeholders● Autonomous; The team has to ‘own’ the problem

○ Individuals have to be able to add work items■ assigned and ‘unassigned’

Inputs, cont...

● Ceremonies that work for us○ Design Discussions

■ 30-90 minutes, weekly■ Hangouts / Email thread / reviews■ #IRC discussions

○ Quarterly focus meetings / sprints● External Priorities (aka distractions)

○ “managed” incoming & outgoing i.e. Product Owner / Engineering Manager

○ Transparent, but protect focus / “Flow”

Tooling