Working Agile & Remotely - The Best of Both Worlds

The Agile community has grown tremendously over the last few years, and the impact Agile methodologies had on the way projects are approached can be seen all around. However, though some companies do agile remotely, it is far less common than those that do it co-located. Most companies that we’ve worked with are either doing Agile co-located,or have not been exposed to Agile methodologies before they’ve worked with us. As a company we’ve been doing agile remotely for 4 years.

In this talk we’d like to share a bit about our agile journey, and the role remote work played. We’ll highlight the challenges and benefits of working remotely. We’ll also tell you about some handy tools we’ve been using and lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Learning

● Benefits of having the flexibility of when and where to work from

● Comparison of co-located vs remote agile methodologies

● Tips and Tools for working remotely (and agile), including:

○ How we do remote work at Polymorph

○ How we develop and maintain our Team Culture

● Dispelling some common myths/misconceptions about 'working from home’

● How can I trust that my people are working if I can't see them?

● Unclear or lack of communication because people aren’t face to face (i.e. no shoulder tapping, no body language)

● Doesn’t it get lonely?

Speaker Bios

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I started my agile journey on the 1st of November 2011; the same day that I started working from home. I am based in Pretoria, and am an Agile Manager for several mobile application developer teams that work mostly from the Western Cape. We have been using Scrum or Kanban, depending on what works best for the team and project at the time. I used to be in a QA role previously, and still have a soft spot for testing. I enjoy being able to do interesting, satisfying work while having the flexibility to work from home.

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After finishing my B.Sc (IT) degree at UFS, I spent some time working at the university and freelancing. In 2006, I moved to Cape Town to work as a developer at Mosaic Software right before they were bought by S1 (in the payments industry). After a few years, I became QA lead on the same product and went on to try my hand at project management for ACI. I’ve been working in a true Agile development environment at Polymorph since April 2015, where each individual has the autonomy to decide for themselves what physical location will be most conducive to effective work.

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After being a developer in Waterfall setups for 14 years I was privileged to be part of a team that spearheaded my then Corporate Employer’s transition in to the Scrum flavour of Agile. From the very beginning my life as a developer became humane and enjoyable again. The sheer joy of developing in an aligned, well functioning team was electrifying, and I knew at that moment that my career would be devoted to, and guided by the Principles of Agility. I then joined Polymorph, and realised that there was something even more fun than Agile… Remote Agile!

Venue food and drinks sponsored by: CSG International

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CSG International is the trusted global partner to help clients launch and monetize communications and entertainment services in the digital age. Leveraging 30 years of experience and expertise in voice, video, data and content services, CSG delivers market-leading revenue management and customer interaction solutions in licensed and managed service models. The company drives business transformation initiatives for the majority of the top 100 global communications service providers, including AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast, DISH, ESPN, Media-Saturn, Orange, Reliance, SingTel Optus, Telefonica, Time Warner Cable, Vodafone, Vivo and Verizon. For more information, visit our website at www.csgi.com (http://www.csgi.com/)