Remote work has become the norm since the global pandemic. However, the Agile methodology focuses on face-to-face communications. So, how is remote work possible with an Agile team? The good news is that it’s possible for Agile and remote teams to come together. Having said that, it does require some experimentation and work to succeed. Using the latest technologies and tools such as workforce management software to ensure team productivity, seamless communication and collaboration, and quality output helps in managing remote Agile teams effectively.
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Top Best Practices to Effectively Manage Remote Agile Teams
1. Develop and follow guidelines and standards
Right from the kick-off phase, remote Agile teams should work towards developing open communication and trust to direct their self-organization. Guidelines and work agreements outline directives on how team members communicate and coordinate with each other to plan, establish, and attain common goals. Such an agreement makes sure that the Agile team operates well together and keeps improving and streamlining its processes. Workforce management software can come to your rescue when developing standards and guidelines and then enabling your Agile team to follow them.
2. Coordinate and manage team members in complementary time zones
In the case of distributed teams, there are people located in different regions and geographies with different time zones. Here too, workforce management software helps in managing resources and projects in different time zones. Such a tool acts as a repository for all the company’s projects, employees, and important data. Employees can document the status of projects, any challenges faced by project plans, and a lot more. Such a tool also becomes an easy communication channel for people across geographies and team members can share files, data, dashboards, etc, with any other team member across the globe in a few clicks.
3. Enhance the level of documentation and visibility
Agile teams always focus on the working code rather than up-front documentation. However, for remote teams, it is very important to increase the level of documentation and standards and ensure that there is clear visibility about project details like plans, status, milestones, data, etc. Workforce management software helps to improve the documentation around resource and project management and also provides clear visibility to all team members.
4. Work as a team
Collaborating and working together as one team is important in the case of remote Agile projects. This includes efficient planning, execution, and resolving any challenges together. Workforce management software helps in creating detailed resource and project plans in just a few simple steps. The team or stakeholders can view, share, or approve the plans easily on the tool. Teams can share the status, and progress, or discuss any challenges they are facing with ease. Such tools also make communication and coordination with remote teams very easy.
5. Use the right working tools
Remote Agile teams require tools that can help with efficient communication and real-time status updates. For this, you can consider implanting digital technologies or a cloud-based workforce management software that becomes your central repository of data and a medium for exchanging information and ideas in real-time. Such a tool helps in setting up meetings, sending automated alerts for timelines, process and project documentation, and even tracking resource utilization and productivity. The team leader or project manager can easily monitor the status of projects while keeping a tab on how various team members are performing and the upcoming deadlines.
6. Focus on quality improvement
If you want to aim for continuous quality enhancement, you will need to ensure that all processes, methodologies, and practices being followed by your team are efficient and effective. Your key objective must be to keep making iterative improvements to realize specific goals. For example, improving the quality of your deliverables, reducing timeframes, ensuring seamless communications, or mitigating probable risks. All this and more is possible if you implement the right workforce management software.
Manage Remote Agile Teams Seamlessly with a Top-Rated Workforce Management Software – eResource Scheduler
If you want to nail your resource management and effectively manage your remote Agile teams, get an on-premise or cloud version of award-winning workforce management software, eResource Scheduler. Enbraun’s flagship tool comes with state-of-the-art features and becomes your platform for all organizational resources and projects. It helps project managers balance workload distribution. It also enables employees to monitor the time and effort spent on various activities and brings clearer visibility while working in distributed teams. The tool also flags any conflicting priorities, sends reminders of the schedules, and offers detailed dashboards and reports. So, if you want to check out the features or have any questions about this tool, click here and get a free trial. Enbraun also assigns an Account Manager who can assist in configuring the software as per your specific requirements. So, optimize your resource planning, project and resource management, resource utilization, and other processes by implementing this top-rated tool.
