I have received many requests to assist with Agile training and deployment. I am humbled by your interest and, being a huge proponent of Agile, want to help any way I can by providing consulting where I am able to.
November 4, 2009Remote contract workers
A question posted this morning on one of the Yahoo groups ..
" We have a Scrum team in the Silicon Valley and two contractors who work with us remotely. Although they are proficient at what they do, it has been a challenge to get them (understandably so as contractors) to be apart of the team. We have two main issues:
1) They are contractors and don't see Scrum as more than just something to do tokeep a contract.
2) Daily meetings and full conversation required for communication saturation
are next to impossible over the phone (and really poor quality, unreliable Skype
video), and despite our efforts there is a disconnect and a lack of
effectiveness felt by everyone.
Any suggestions, or should we break them out of the team and have them work on separate projects? "
So this scenario I am sure is a very common one, so probably worth commenting on.
My issue with this scenario is exactly this (stated above)
"it has been a challenge to get them (understandably so as contractors) to be apart of the team."
The basic premise for success is that you are a team. All Agile/Scrum thought leaders agree that co-located teams are highly likely to out perform non co-located teams. However, there are examples of companies that have achieved high productivity with multi-site teams. But in all those cases, the remote teams are very much PART OF THE TEAM. This scenario however is a recipe for disaster.
My first question back at him was "do you have to keep them on" The answer to this was that the base financial costs of the remote resources was extremely low. However, the time required to reel these remote resources in are going to reduce the financial benefits not to mention the costs incurred due to issues related to "lost in translation" - getting the requirements wrong etc.
My recommendation is that they (remote contractors) either shape up, get with the program or cut your losses.
My 2 cents...
Jack
Written by Jack Milunksy - COO at Brightspark, certified ScrumMaster and Co-founder of Agilebuddy (Agile project management software that lets you easily Create, Estimate, Plan and Track your software development projects). For great Agile tips follow Jack at: www.twitter.com/agilebuddy. To get more info on Agilebuddy please visit: www.agilebuddy.com
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