by Suja, R., IT Consultant (PPM and Agile), CAPPM (Centre for Advanced Practical Project Management)
Scrum
is agile process that aids in delivering the business value in short time.
Kanban is a visual system that helps in managing the work, through which the
work progress can be tracked. Kanban methodologies are continuous, where
scrum is short and it has structured work sprints.
Kanban
suits best on projects that have widely varying priorities. Scrum suits
on teams that have stable priorities which remains stable constantly over time.
In scrum, team must not make any change during the sprint, but in case
of Kanban changes can be made at any point.
In
Kanban it is optional to have a meeting, based on the need and desire the
meeting can be scheduled, but in case of scrum it is must to have
meetings on the daily basis. The meetings in scrum are daily scrum, sprint
review, sprint planning and sprint retrospective.
In Kanban there is no pre-defined roles for the team, and in scrum each team member has a pre-defined role. Kanban Products and processes are delivered based on requirement and due date. Scrum deliverables are determined by the sprints in which a set of given work to be completed and must be in ready to review state. Scrum has two specific KPIs, namely velocity and planned capacity. Velocity is the story point that being completed and help is planning the backlog items. Capacity specifies the availability the team has for the sprint. To track the items, it uses burndown chart and velocity chart. In Kanban KPIs, it has two important metrics namely cycle time and lead time. Lead time specifies the time period between new task and its final departure from system. Cycle time is on task when it is currently executed. The primary chart used in Kanban is the cumulative flow diagram and cycle time histogram.
Scrum Story BoardKanban Board
Scrum helps
the team, working together and effective. Project construction is one of the domains
where scrum is used, here scrum plays a major role in planning, meeting and in
assigning work and aids in the project completion period. Kanban is a workflow
management method, which help as in visualizing workflow. Simple real-life example
of Kanban is planning our day-to-day life to do list.
Both scrum and Kanban helps in increasing the efficiency and productivity, thus it can be used based on necessity of project.
by Ms. Subha Sadagopan, PPM IT Consultant in CAPPM (Centre for Advanced Practical Project Management)
Businesses today are embracing remote trends and hiring top talent from different countries. A remote team is a group of professionals from various time zones, diverse skills, and different cultures working together on a unified project. Remote work is increasingly becoming the new norm rather than an exception. The COVID pandemic has mandated social distancing, compelling professionals to collaborate virtually.
Remote working was an increasing trend
with the pandemic to just speed up this process:
4.7 million People were already working remotely from home before the COVID-19 pandemic. (Flex jobs)
74% of companies plan to shift some of their employees to remote working permanently after COVID-19 (Gartner)
Before the pandemic, 52% of global employees worked remotely once a week, and 68% did so at least once a month (Owl Labs)
77% of remote employees say they’re more productive when working from home. (CoSo Cloud)
Examine Remote team needs:
The team members should be connected, not isolated.
Have clear goals and expectations.
Receive frequent feedback on progress.
Be consulted on issues and decisions.
Not be micromanaged
Understand the capabilities of virtual teammates.
Having clear communication channels.
Ensure their career progress is supported.
Feel appreciated and recognized for their contributions.
Leadership Skills for Remote teams:
Strong leadership skill is essential for creating a
business culture that’s productive, innovative, and able to adapt to an
ever-changing professional landscape. The remote employee is going to be more a fitting than a favour,
with this shift, team leaders will need to learn the new skills required to
meet the challenges of a virtual workplace.
Along with the other leadership skills, project
managers use Servant leadership skills which adopt a more human-centric,
collaborative approach to project management, where customer and employee
relationships take center stage.
Best team-building
practices:
Team building refers to the activities undertaken by
groups of people to increase their motivation and boost cooperation. Best
team-building practices that allow co-workers and employees to use their
collaborative strengths to bring long-term value to the business.
Set Boundaries and clear goals
with Remote Workers
Remote
teams often need some kind of boundaries to outline their work and personal
life as they are work from different time zones.
Working on Sprints
Sprints
are the key to managing an agile team. Instead of setting goals by quarter
or year, break them down into smaller projects ranging from 1-4 weeks.
Start
the sprint by creating a list of activities (backlogs) and deliveries that need
to be made to complete the project.
Frequent Communication
Over-communicate
decisions across all geographies training the
team to understand when decisions are made and how they need to be
communicated.
Encourage and Embrace Diversity
A
simple way is to find how different people from different areas are open to
receiving feedback, promote a mindset of celebrating differences, be respectful
about national holidays for your global team, and respect every cultural
difference.
Accountability and trust
Emphasize that
for teams to work effectively, everyone must trust each other, focus on their
responsibility, and be accountable for their actions.
Remote Team Tools:
Project management tools are a valuable addition to the teams working remotely. Project management for remote teams requires managers to rely on collaboration and communication tools, project management tools, and emerging technologies to help them stay connected and updated on projects and deadlines.
Asynchronous communication tools give people the ability to
communicate instantly with anyone / anywhere without having a
face-to-face conversation.
Synchronous communication tools –
real-time communication when you expect to get an answer at the same
moment in time.
The tools which make collaboration
and communication easier for the remote teams are: GIT lab, Slack, Twist,
Loom, Mural, Hugo, Geek Bot, Jell, Confluence, Microsoft Project, Trello,
Wrike, WebEx, Google meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Fishbowl, Tumblr, etc.
The Remote Team types:
The Co-located team indicates that there is a functional team
working on a project sharing the same workspace.
The teams
that work entirely from home or other remote locations are called fully
remote or fixed teams.
The concept of a hybrid
team refers to the amalgamation of remote work and work from the
office.
Engaging team members in Remote
teams:
Use Agile to manage your remote Team
Implementing an Agile project management approach can
minimize these roadblocks and boost engagement. For instance, the agile
methodology allows people to communicate openly and frequently discuss
roadblocks. Team members can openly share their challenges in scrum meetings,
without fear of judgment. The Agile approach also includes frameworks like
implementing scrum artifacts for managing cross-functional teams,
which can help.
Invest in Frequent Training
This includes on-the-job mentoring and shadowing, as well as
regular training workshops on technical and soft skills. Employees
feel excited about training
programs that help them build the vital
skills they need to grow in their careers.
Create a Customer-Focused Culture
This shared purpose is more difficult to assimilate
in a remote work team where people are physically separated from
their team. This feeling of purpose is most important in customer-facing roles
such as sales and support. Lack of engagement there will lead to stunted
revenue growth and excessive customer churn – both of which can be disastrous. Creating a customer-centric company
culture is a great way to build a sense of shared purpose and is perfect
for boosting engagement.
Centralize your communication
Communication can get confusing in a remote
work team. This leads to misunderstandings, conflicts, stress, and,
consequently lower levels of employee engagement. Communication becomes a
lot simpler when all members working remotely stick to the guidelines
and use innovative technologies.
Rewards system and employee
recognition
Motivated workers are always highly productive, and this,
in turn, will enhance the bottom line. But to accomplish this, we should
consider offering rewards and a recognition system to the workers. This will
serve as a means to reinforce the employees positively. Virtual recognition ideas recognize performance and appreciate those
departmental members who are consistently doing well. The best way for managers
and businesses to show appreciation virtually is to recognize and reward with
uniformity.
Be as creative as we can: extended lunch breaks, gift cards, performance bonuses, extra vacation days, etc., are just some of the things we should consider.
Work anniversaries and birthdays are landmark days in an employee’s life and are cause for celebration.
Virtual contests are fun for virtual teams to participate in while challenging them.
A wall of fame can be on a whiteboard tool where the person’s name, picture, department, and reason for going up on the wall are listed.
Social media shoutouts are a type of virtual kudos where everyone in your and your employees’ network sees the post and interacts with it.
Meal coupons with discount codes are one of the best recognition ideas invented.
Virtual employees who have worked overtime hours on billable projects can cash in complimentary offs for those weeknights and weekends.
Benefits of Remote teams
Downsides of Remote teams
Increased productivity
Nightmare in scheduling
Reduced costs for organizations
Managing workloads
Reduced stress
Harder to build company culture
Access to top talents
Complex team communication
Report employee’s satisfaction
Slower team formations
To develop an effective and efficient remote work team, here are six best practices represented by the acronym REMOTE:
Recent Comments