Slides for the talk about Distributed Tech Teams on the 14th of April 2015 at the IT University of Copenhagen for the Agility Labs meetup.

1. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed tech teams
Ricardo Parro – CTO maguru.dk
@ricardoparro

2. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
About myself

3. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
About myself
• 9 years working in startups(Portugal, UK,
Brazil, Denmark)
– wonga.com (UK – online loans)
• From MVP to a 1 Billion dollars
– printi.com.br (BR – printing)
• From MVP to exit (merging with Vista Print)
– maguru.dk (DK – Online Marketing)

4. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed teams – Does it work?

5. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Good news: it works!
• Companies working with distributed teams
– Automattic (wordpress)
– MySQL
– Kissmetrics
– Mozilla
– Github
– Rackspace
– Etsy
– Skype
– Basecamp
– Stack Exchange

6. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Good news: it works!
• wonga.com – UK, Ukraine, Ireland
• printi.com.br – Brazil, Romenia
• tacerto.com – Brazil, Portugal, Ukraine
• maguru.dk – Denmark, Ukraine

7. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment

8. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Choose the country/location

9. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Recruiter’s profile should be appealing

10. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Canditate’s profile

11. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Head Hunting

12. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Interview
– Phone Screen
• Profile
• Motivations
• Communication
– Code Interview
• coder pad
• team viewer

13. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed team- Recruitment
• Decision
– Hire, No hire – avoid maybes
• Offer
– Country employment rules
– Work Hours
– Fair offer – comfortable for both parties

14. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams

15. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams – tools, setup

16. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams – tools, setup

17. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams – process
• 2 week sprints
• Focused on:
– Speed
– Quality — heavy testing
– Iterative process — robust small iterations

18. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams – culture
• Remote first
• Assumptions free
• Flat
• Fail Friendly
• Transparent
• Waste-repellent

19. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Agile in Distributed teams – Team
Motivation
• Communication
• Clear and precise specs
• Lean
• Continuous feedback
• Engagement on decisions
• Perks
• Avoid “Divas”

20. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed Teams – Tech Squad
Organization
• Office
– CTO, Head of Tech, team leader
– Product manager
– Project manager/agile coach
• Remote
– Developers
– Web Designers
– QAs
– Data analysts

21. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed Teams – Tech Squad
Organization

22. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed Teams – Scaling Agile
• Tribes

23. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Distributed Teams – Scaling Agile

24. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Resources
• Remote (37 signals)

25. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Resources
• “Smart and gets things done” by Joel
Spolsky

26. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Resources
• Healthy Hacker podcast episode 18 by
Chris Hunter (github developer)

27. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Resources
• GSIGR podcast – Episode 139

28. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Resources
• Spotify Engineering Culture videos (part 1
and part 2)
– https://labs.spotify.com/2014/03/27/spotify-
engineering-culture-part-1/
– https://labs.spotify.com/2014/09/20/spotify-
engineering-culture-part-2/

29. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs

30. @ricardoparro Agile in distributed teams – Agility Labs
Thanks!
@ricardoparro
ricardo.parro@gmail.com
github.com/ricardoparro
linkedin.com/in/ricardoparro