SCRUM from Home

The whole point of technology is to make things easier, better, faster, and cheaper, right?  What is the point of having a laptop, for instance, if you can’t use it in more than one place.  Despite this of work anytime/anywhere, one important point of Agile is working as a team, which means face time if at all possible.  Our team works primarily in a dedicated work room with each other throughout the product development process, but often individuals have a need to have a more flexible work schedule.  I like to thank that one of the things that makes us a good employer is our flexibility on things like this.

Therefore we have tried to retain a bit of SCRUM in our work-at-home situations.  What follows is an actual email I sent out to our team.

Folks,

One of the cool parts of our team is our ability (in most cases) to be very flexible on where and when you work.  SCRUM ties us all together on a daily basis and the daily standup reminds us that we are all part of a team, but other than that we are all pretty free living folks.

The flexibility that we have to work at home sometimes is great.  That’s a big part of why we have laptops, after all.  Given that we have this open and flexible way of working together, I would like to ask that we take care to be respectful of our teammates by ensuring that we keep each other informed about our activities.  One of the most challenging parts of being a remote worker (an extreme example) is feeling like you are part of a team.

In order to keep each other informed and to support the team that you are working with, I ask that if you decide to work from home, please do the following.

1. Write an email that answers the 3 SCRUM questions
   1. What did I do yesterday?
   2. What am I going to do today?
   3. What might get in my way today?
2. Include your voice contact information.  What number can your co-workers call to speak with you?
1. Send the email to your team by 9:00 AM.
2. Anyone else you are working with from other teams
3. Your SCRUM Master if applicable

Thank you for doing this.  This has proven to be quite an effective way to keep everyone together and moving forward on a project.

Thanks,

D.