Distributed Teams in Software Development Projects

Distributed teams are more and more common in today's environment. Some reasons why they are here to stay are

• to save costs
• to get local resources with regional expertise 
• Merger & Acquistions

In any case a distributed team creates additional work and stress to the individuals involved. This translates into more risk for the organization. The following tips and hints are meant to reduce the risk for the organization and are based on our experience with this topic.

1. Learn about Cultural Differences 
This is important for example when your team is located in places where it is less likely that a team member challenges authority (e.g. China).  You want to know upfront what you can expect. So checkout Kiss, Bow or Shake hand or something similar to gather your first idea. Remember that you need to adjust these generalizations for your team. It is a good general preparation though.
During this step you should also make sure you are getting familiar with regional holidays, worktimes and habits to understand the potential impact to your project.

2. Expect a higher travel budget
There is no replacement for face-to-face meetings. To build relationships between individuals and teams they have to spend time together. It is very important to prevent a "us" and "them" attitude. There are multiple ways how this can be achieved.

• get everyone together in one location for a kickoff/sprint planning meeting. The purpose of this is to build relationships. This can be a big step towards knowing and trusting each other. Consider this seriously since it can decide the success of the project early on. These meetings can be from 1 week to several weeks.
• send Key People regularly between different team locations. The purpose of this is to give teams a chance to learn about topics that are usually not discussed in formal meetings. The personal relationships forged here can be very helpful when project challenges arise.
• get everyone together in one location a couple of weeks before important milestones (e.g. Go-Live, Sprint Review Meeting). This makes the communication at a critical time easier since the team is colocated. From a teambuilding point of view this seems not as helpful as the other two options.

3. Expect more communication needs
It is obviously more challenging to communicate across time-zones, cultures etc. You need to spend considerable time at the beginning of the project to learn what communication works the best for which team. When meetings are scheduled between two or more different locations make sure that the meeting times are rotated. This is to ensure that neither team always has to meet outside their usual working hours. Agree ahead of time what turn-around-times you expect for questions, escalations etc to prevent surprises.

4. Work actively to build relationships between teams
Find out if any team members from different locations share the same interests. This can be done with a little survey at the beginning of the project or just by talking to different individuals and taking notes. It might sound a little silly but can go a long way later in the project. If help is needed the team members do it for each other and not necessarily for the project. Nevertheless the project will benefit from these relationships.
Also at the beginning of meetings don't be too professional! It is good to talk about some non-work related topics (e.g. weather, vacation plans, sports etc.) and it allows everyone to relax a little. This kind of trivial relationship building is especially important for distributed teams in order to get a feeling how somebody is doing today.

Soft Skills and Project Management

I was at the PMI MileHi Symposium in Denver yesterday. The focus was on communication. This is no surprise since the project related challenges in this area are the biggest. Don't get me wrong the technical project management skills (e.g. traditional, incremental and iterative methodologies) have to be there as a pre-condition anyway. But once they are there the leadership/soft skills/communication skills or whatever you want to call it are becoming crucial. If you can't get people to follow you without positional power how are you going to succeed as a project manager?
After many years of work experience, reading books and listening to cd's in this area I consider the following steps common across authors and most critical

• Listen, before you talk. (rough guideline 70% listen, 30% talking). You need to know what your stakeholders need. You can't learn this when you talk because you are in sending mode and not in receiving mode.
• Set a clear goal. You need to know where you want to go. You will encounter changes but you still know where you want to go even if the path to that place changes
• Strive for a win/win. Think about others without giving up your goals.
• Be flexible. You can plan as much as you like but change will always be there. So don't give yourself a tough time if the inital plan doesn't work. Find another way. Do not give up!
• Be passionate. Do what you do because you love it. If you like it that is not enough. You have to love what you do so you can be passionate about it.

There are many other people who have said this much better than I do it and therefore I list here my all-time favorites in the leadership books

1. The 7 habits of highly effective people - Stephen R. Covey
2. Influence (Science and Practice) - Robert B. Cialdini
3. Dealing with people you can't stand - Dr. Rick Brinkman & Dr. Rick Kirschner
4. Optimal Thinking - Ph.D. Rosalene Glickman
5. The Success Principles - Jack Canfield
6. Getting past No - William Ury

I found the presenation from Guy Cabana regarding Negotiations very impressive but haven't had the time to checkout which books he sells.

What is "PMO as a Service"

This Service is based on the idea that every small to mid-size company can benefit from some additional help in their Project Management efforts. Most of these companies have their own Project Managers and they can execute most projects successfully. PMO as a Service comes in when

• an additional, experienced, perspective is needed
• challenges can't be addressed by the Project Team (e.g. communication challenges)
• new idea's are needed to move on in a timely manner
• fulltime resources are not needed
• the project managment maturity needs to grow from within an organization

This Service lets Project Managers grow w/o giving up their projects. The idea is to help when and as needed.

How important are Project Management Certifications?

Let me begin by saying that I’ve met a number of good project managers and SCRUM Masters that were not certified. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the results proof that their projects were successful.
Nevertheless in today’s market I consider it a necessity for a project manager (incl. SCRUM Master for the purpose of this blog post) to proof with a certification that he/she possesses all the necessary technical project management skills to be successful. The most common and widely recognized certification is the Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI.org)
Here are some reasons why I think the e.g. the PMP certification is important

• Requires a deeper and more conscious thinking about all aspects of Project Management
• Requires a certain time commitment to really study the topics that are going to be tested
• Provides technical tools that might not have been used before

There are obviously many more reasons why this certification helps but people who are not committed to Project Management and consider it only a transitional stage on their career path will struggle with this.

As with all certifications not everybody will use every topic every day and so some of the certification topics will be forgotten soon. Nevertheless you know where to find the necessary information quickly if needed. Besides every project sponsor wants to ensure that their project managers have the necessary skills to make their projects successful.

Now does the Professional Project Manager certification (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI) or another Project Management certification mean that this is all you need to be successful? No, but it is important foundational knowledge. In order to be really successful more (soft) skills are needed.

How important are additional certifications like the Green Belt or Black Belt? Should you have a SCRUM Master certification as well?

Generally speaking I consider all of these related certifications good and helpful for Project Managers! But there is more to a good project manager than a number of certifications. In order to make a real difference in your projects you should look how to improve your soft skills. Mostly importantly the 2 topics below

Communication

• What do you do to address the project communication challenges you encounter?
• What communication areas are you really strong at? Which ones need more work?
• How do you determine if you make progress in this area?

Leadership

• How do you energize and motivate the team?
• How do you create challenging gaps between the current state and the one that is envisioned?

I will provide some recommendations for books regarding Communication and Leadershipin one of the next posts