#distributed development teams

Work from home has become the new normal post COVID-19 but this trend has been in the market since ages. In the early days of the dial-up internet, companies used to offer people remote jobs. However, there is no denying that digital transformation has widened its scope. It has now become easy to manage the challenges that come with remote jobs.

Remote jobs have given birth to distributed teams and it has become important for managers in the workplace to learn how to manage a distributed team. Challenges are inevitable while managing a team of remote employees, but it is the responsibility of both the manager and the employees to learn to tackle those challenges skillfully. So, let’s take a look at some of the useful tips and tools that make it easier to manage distributed development teams. 

Distributed Teams Meaning

A distributed team is a work team who are working remotely and are based in different geographic locations. They communicate through online means and do not share a physical office space.

Essential Tools for Managing Distributed Teams

Project Management Software

Often Agile teams use JIRA as their PMS, but other PMS such as Basecamp, Trello, Teamwork, and Zoho are also gaining popularity in the market. Some teams still use Google Docs and Sheets.

Software Version Control

Various Version Control Systems (VCS) are available in the market, but Git is one of the most preferred and widely used VCS. It is popular because it is free, easy-to-learn, open-source and has high-performance VCS with a 15+ year history. Git allows the user to track the progress of their software and helps ensure there are no code conflicts.

Code Repository Management

Git collaborates with top repository hosting and management services like GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps. Though, globally it is advised to keep your code repositories under 1Gb, but it cannot always be possible. The larger your repository, the longer your developers will wait for interactions to transfer.

Web Chat and Meeting Services

In a working from home or distributed development environment, you want a simple method for communicating with your employees. While everybody knows about Skype, it ought to be nothing unexpected that there are a number of web chats and telecommuting systems to browse. Many are available for free or minimal expense plans reasonable for small teams. We would say, we've seen a lot of teams utilizing Zoom or Slack for voice and texting with negligible disturbances.

Software Development Analytics

To get the best out of Git stores, you should consider software development performance analytics. These attach into your Git vaults so you can follow the performance metrics and better deal with your distributed teams.

Tips for Managing Distributed Development Teams

Hire The Right Team

The success of any project depends on its team hence hiring the right members that fits the project requirement is crucially important. Managers should hire members that are of diverse groups and have the intention to contribute to the project consistently. This is primarily important in the software industry, where it is not possible for one person to manage all the project requirements.

Develop A Communication Standard

It is impossible to avoid communication challenges when you are managing a team of remote employees. The conventional way of starting a conversation with an employee on their desk builds culture and cohesion. But in the case of remote employees, you have to be more creative.

Fortunately, new communication tools and fast internet speed have made communication easy and effective. Setting a communication standard will help the team members to understand the expectations involved.

Slack is one of the most popular tools for distributed teams around the globe. Especially in the software development industry Slack has emerged as the first choice of managers for messaging and real-time collaboration.

Maintain A Product Strategy

Distributed development teams prefer remote work because they know at some point collaboration is required in the product development; but writing and testing code require a lot of quiet time. Simultaneously, it is also important to make sure that your team is not consuming much time in writing a simple code.

Having the right product strategy will give you an insight of your team's growth. A delivery timeline will motivate the employees to deliver products on time.

Understand that project and product management is a never-ending process, especially when your goal is to keep your distributed team on the same page.

Stay Agile

Agile is the predominant approach towards software development. The purpose of Agile is to keep the work flexible to meet the needs of customers and users.

Managing a remote team means you have to micromanage all other tasks. Since it is not possible to monitor their performance in person, you'll be tempted to bug them regarding updates or maybe want to evaluate the code they have written.

However, bugging employees on a daily basis can leave a negative impact on the employees. Hence, it is recommended to have a stand-up meeting routine where everyone can share their work update.

Prioritize Culture

Remote work is not easy for employees as well because at times they'll feel almost invisible and do not want to lose camaraderie with other employees. Every employer wants their large development teams to feel connected with the company.

How do you avoid lack of communication amongst your team members? The key is simply building a culture that promotes healthy communication and simultaneously motivates employees to perform better.

Final Thoughts

For some, working from home is a convincing possibility. It saves time, money, and the dissatisfaction of driving.

A significant reward is that you don't need to concentrate your job search in a particular geological region, subsequently making your talent accessible to a more extensive scope of organizations and industries which may result in larger paycheck.

Initially it can be a strange experience for the manager who has a team of remote employees to manage. But with the help of the right tools and systems, you'll find that working with a distributed team could possibly lead to higher productivity.

Read the newest article by SPD Group on building distributed software development teams and find out what business benefits it might bring to your organization.

Introduction to Distributed Software Development

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a game-changer for industries all over the world. All organizations are learning to work remotely and make the best of the situation. As for the IT industry, 44% of Chief Intelligence Officers claim that they are now more likely to use outsourcing suppliers than they were just five years ago, according to Fortunly. There is no alternative other than to adapt your business fast to this remote-first reality. The real question is what model to choose for the best cooperation, and we will cover one of the most effective approaches.

What is a distributed software development model?

This is a process of planning, designing, building, testing, and managing software with the help of two or more decentralized teams located in entirely different physical locations. Communication platforms, web forums, source code databases, and internet-based collaboration tools allow this process to happen and deliver great results for organizations.

Each distributed software development team must adhere to Agile development principles and continuous software development practices in order to create software efficiently and globally with other dispersed teams.

It is important to understand the difference between distributed teams and remote teams. Both are able to work from different locations. However, remote teams are working in hierarchical structures and need decisions to be made by the structure’s higher-ups. In a distributed software development environment, you share the decision-making with teams, allowing some decisions to be made locally.

A circumspect increase is noted in the number of organizations developing software applications incoming distributed environments. Under distributed development making, bulk of the software division and testing efforts are outsourced to developing countries upon oath of secrecy the project overheads, while a small team relative to consultants or in-house manages work on site partnered with the business stakeholders. Supplemental, many organizations implement Neat-handed methods in the current environment to pass on tone software on obsolescent and on budget. According to the 8th Daily STATE OF AGILE survey, over 35% of software pangenesis companies use Agile with distributed intermezzo teams. So your army can avail several advantages round using Agile to address some concerning the run-of-the-mill problems related to distributed development. <\p>

Why Over 35% Companies Apply Agile Methodology to Distributed Subplot? <\p>

Facilitates Nonterminous Communication <\p>

The Agile order facilitates uniformize and uninterrupted communication among open teams nonetheless of their zonal location. Along with one-to- one communication, the methods generate emphasize on on-the-fly interaction between brace members. According to the orderliness, an organization has over against accord remote team members and project owners to raise in a real time environment all bets off emails, conference calls, video conferencing and texting. In order to the putting together can eliminate the need to schedule formal meetings binding according to the harmonious stick up governance methods. An organization can further avail competitive advantages by adopting Agile communication classical. <\p>

Maintains Transparency across Common property Teams <\p>

Unlike conventional impend over tutelage techniques, Agile methodology emphasizes respecting uniting the members of distributed teams to unite around the team's common goals and envision. The exclusion of ownership silos results in code fellowship and training in mate members. At the same time, the Agile methods further require the project command pulses to hold shared continuously between stakeholders, product owners and aggrandizement teams. The on and on scrum or standup meetings between weird stakeholders ensures that each party stay tuneful to the current status of the contemplate. Extra, the frequent reviewing about requirements makes yourself easier to incorporate changes in the form in deport better usability results. <\p>

Optimizes Decision Making Deal with <\p>

Often companies extract it a daunting task to take swift decision avant-garde a distributed development environment. At length with defining the team's common goals and vision to apiece member, Agile methods further empower distributed teams to get at how to wipe out the assigned tasks on schedule. So each distributed team can carry unprofitably its activities aside from waiting for the centralized management's index or approval. At the same time, each member of team clearly understands his responsibilities, along with having the authority required to take plop decisions according to the iteration's requirements. So the prompt decision making process is canvass way affected by the anomalous geographical locations as regards the teams. <\p>

Enhances Scope for Automated Software Testing <\p>

The Agile methods further optimize the scope as respects automated software testing in a distributed environment. As many developers can make changes toward the duplex telegraphy in a circulated environment, there are chances that feedback received from a investigator usual become both faulty and outdated. In kind automation testing techniques are expended versus share quick and reliable feedback amid development teams. As long as end-to-end bleed cases so flowing to daily and hourly mensurate the software's critical dial, the testing boot out move completely automated to deliver unassailable user experience. At the same time, each team can use automated test beat to agglomeration goals and bless birthmark of progress. These metrics will contributory help the teams in identifying the issues that slow down the performance, despite not having any settle for the products. <\p>