Carlo Kruger hosted the final webinar in the #StrongerAgile series, titled ‘Offshoring Agile: Make it work in practice’, live from our Cape Town office. Despite the belief that Agile can’t work offshore, this webinar explains how it can flourish with the right mindset, processes and relationship.

The audio of the full session:

Topics covered included:

• Communication, culture and trust in an Agile environment
  
• How do we build relationships with people we don't have face-to-face contact with?
  
• What can be done to enhance and improve communication
  
• Tooling
  
• Video conferencing
  
• Remote pairing working within distributed development teams
  
• Facilitation of meetings
  
  

Amongst these topics, Carlo shared insights:

• There has always been a greater demand of software developers than the available supply
  
• There is a measurable bias in all online communications
  
• In remote communication, we lose the opportunity for small talk
  
• Both sides of conversation need approximately 30 megabits per second
  
• Video conferencing has had a big impact on the clarity of communication
  
• The idea of pairing becomes important when it comes to team composition
  
• More open and inclusive platforms, than email, make for a better channel of communication around decisions in projects
  
• High-quality communication equipment can make a massive difference to meetings with multiple people in the room
  
• Having a conversation with someone not in the same room is much more cognitively taxing than the equivalent conversation in the same room
  
• Make sure that people are prepared for meetings - use live online tools such as Trello, Whiteboard and Google Presentation, so people can know when you're referring to something in the discussion
  

Buy the best quality bandwidth you can afford to allow true real-time communication. #OffshoringAgile @ironicbuddha

— Unboxed Consulting (@Ubxd) March 18, 2015

We are the same hairless apes who communicate through word and gesture, despite the way technology has marched on @ubxd #offshoringagile

— Carrie Bedingfield (@CBedingfield) March 18, 2015

Neutral statements are generally seen as negative. #OffshoringAgile @ironicbuddha

— Unboxed Consulting (@Ubxd) March 18, 2015

Remote teams suffer from the inherent bias in tech comms - neutral comments are typically interpreted as negative #offshoringagile @ubxd

— Clean Communication (@cleancomms) March 18, 2015

Teams work best when there is mix of skills in both locations. #OffshoringAgile @ironicbuddha

— Unboxed Consulting (@Ubxd) March 18, 2015

In remote comms, we lose small talk. We forget the complete human being. Leads to lack of empathy. @ironicbuddha @ubxd #offshoringagile

— Clean Communication (@cleancomms) March 18, 2015

The design of a meeting must take both sides of the team into consideration. #OffshoringAgile @ironicbuddha

— Unboxed Consulting (@Ubxd) March 18, 2015

Tweet us at @Ubxd with the hashtag #OffshoringAgile to get in on the conversation, or tweet Carlo at @ironicbuddha who would be happy to answer any questions on the topic.