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Handling Sprint Events With Distributed Teams

Last post 05:50 am October 12, 2019 by Ian Mitchell
2 replies
08:31 pm October 11, 2019

A common issue that I've faced with Distributed Teams is that some events are hard to setup and facilitate because all members may not be available due to time differences. Commonly affected events are Sprint Review and Retrospective. Strictly speaking, these events should be within the boundaries of the Sprint, however, if we truly want to involve all our people, then its hard to adhere to this rule.

I can say I am conflicted between whether to follow the rules of Scrum or to give importance to the interactions with people. What I am saying is, if we can't have the Retrospective before the end of the current Sprint, then would it be considered okay to conduct it when the next Sprint starts? I assume I won't be following Scrum in this scenario because I am violating the time-box.

What are your thoughts? How would you handle this and still follow Scrum?


09:44 pm October 11, 2019

There are times with my teams where team member(s) are out, and the team prefers to defer the Sprint Retrospective so that as many can attend as possible.   It is the team's call, and even if it is outside the regular sprint event cadence, I don't view it as a 'violation' of Scrum.   

It is definitely a challenge when working with distributed teams.   What are their ideas/opinions about conducting the Sprint Review and Retrospective?   My advice is to just work with the team so that they know the purpose and value of these events, and see what they come up with.

 


05:50 am October 12, 2019

What are your thoughts?

If this presented a significant challenge, I’d wonder how team members collaborated during the Sprint.


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