To begin with, I feel that there are 4 main areas on which to focus. These are People, Process, Tools, and Cadence.
People
The most important thing to remember when working in this way is that everyone involved is still a person. Nothing beats that interaction when it comes to helping your project to progress at the desired rate.
When choosing your tools & processes, you should remember this. Anything that helps your team feel more real and together will be of benefit here.
Process
People tend to forget parts of the process when working in this way. Make sure you follow the normal patterns;
- Daily Standup
- Tech Huddles
- Sprint Reviews/Demos
- Retrospectives
- Scrum Boards
- Burn up/down charts
- Reporting
Tools
There are some great tools around to help us work collaboratively across geographically distributed locations.
- Google Hangouts/Docs
- Skype
- Basecamp
- Campfire
- Apiary.io
There are also tools which will help you to follow your particular processes across different locations.
- JIRA
- Leankit
Cadence
With all of the above, it is of paramount importance that you keep up the cadence. It is much more of a challenge to get this to work smoothly with people in different locations. Ideally you would have someone responsible for this in each location to help facilitate and engender this behaviour. Once it sets in, all of the above will contribute hugely to your project being successful.
Other Stuff
There are other things that can be done to help ensure that your projects like this are successful;
- Meet face to face regularly. All the tools in the world cannot replace this
- Pick up the phone. It's much better to speak to the person at the other end rather than playing email tennis
- Take advantage of technology. Don't be restricted to the above if you find something that can help.
For more details feel free to look at the document here
