Remotely Agile

A collection of 37 posts

hybrid-remote-facilitation

Remotely Facilitating for Connection: A Manifesto

The last two years of being remote gave us isolation, distraction, rushed meetings, repeat meetings (because we didn’t finish the work) and lost participants.  And it doesn’t have to be like that.  It can actually be better than in person. Working remotely for the last several years brought

Agile

Capture That Concept In 3 to 4 Words

I’ve spent time reflecting these last few months, but it’s not for a new business idea.  I’m thinking about what I want to leave behind. What can I put out in the world that will help people work and live better? What can help them learn and

hybrid-remote

Return Gently to the Office - Rebuild Routines Slowly

Can you feel it?  We are so close to going “back”.  Or are we?  Whenever I faced something major that disrupted my normal routines, I’ve found that it takes much longer to get back to “normal”. That Sudden Jolt A few years ago, I experienced a shoulder injury. Walking

Community

A March Mashup of Remote Facilitation

On 18 February 2021, a bunch of facilitators and coaches got together from around the world to share stories from some of their favourite remote sessions. It ended up being pretty inspiring and fun, so we’ve compiled a list with some of the activities shared, with links and ideas

hybrid-remote

The key to better hybrid-remote work environments

In my prior posts, you may get the impression I don’t see hybrid remote as a viable path.  You would be partially correct.  As I stated in a past blog post, many people now see hybrid remote as THE solution to moving back into offices after the pandemic.  They

hybrid-remote

Your Next Workplace - Any, all or inclusive remote?

We are all ready to go back to the office. Or are we?   As mentioned in my previous post on resilience, your next workplace may adjust work hours and workspaces to help “keep our distance”.  Hygiene may influence office schedules and space layouts next.   But what will teamwork look like?

hybrid-remote

Buddy System, Copilots, and Async for Hybrid Remote Work

You may have heard of the working agreement that “when one is remote, all should be remote”.  This agreement applies to remote hybrid teams where some team members may be in the office and some team members are either working from home or other locations.    Such working agreements encourage all

hybrid-remote

Your Next Workplace - Office, Remote, or Resilience?

2020 presented many twists and turns for all of us, and there are more to come. In August 2017, I began to co-author a book on successful distributed agile teams with Johanna Rothman. Our first chapter was titled “Distributed Agile Teams Are Here to Stay.” We did not realize how

Facilitation

Exploring Who Controls Your Meetings by Process and Tools Used Online

As people moved to completely online and distributed work in the early part of 2020, interesting patterns in training and collaboration tools emerged.  While many trainers have focused on tools and process and the best way to keep teams connected online, it seems we slipped into a control trap for

Convert Exercises for Online

Converting Exercises for Online Facilitation - the Dot Game

In a previous post, I described a process for converting a location-based exercise into an online exercise and walked through an example.  Those steps included: * Find the key physical steps in the location-based exercise * Consider three options to replace the physical steps with virtual steps * Choose plan A and plan

Convert Exercises for Online

Converting Exercises for Online Facilitation - the Jumpstart Storytelling Exercise

Many coaches and trainers new to the virtual workplace ask many “how to” questions around virtual facilitation and exercises.  I’ve converted many location-based exercises to online using a wide range of tools. This is a LONG post, but I wanted to explain my typical approach and provide an example.

Change

Navigating Change While Being Rapidly Remote

As we currently face the challenges of the COVID-19 (corona) virus, I see many individuals and teams being forced to rapidly go remote.  I’ve been resistant to post on the COVID-19 topic so as not to add to the noise.  However, some of the hype around remote work during

Coaching

A Distributed Team Stroll Through Agile2019

Agile2019 showed a subtle theme of supporting distributed teams this year.   As you may have heard in some of the podcasts I’ve joined, our book on successful distributed agile teams was inspired by a stroll on the last day of the Agile2017 conference.  On that day, Johanna Rothman and

remote-facilitation

Distributed Facilitation at MileHighAgile2019

Taking my Facilitating Distributed Agile Teams talk back on the road. I’ll be at Mile High Agile today and I’ll be speaking tomorrow at 2p MT. I’ll have a few copies of my book to give away as well, but my talk on Facilitating Distributed Teams goes

Choice

How can remote work be wrong and right for you?

Recently, a friend pointed me to yet another long online conversation debating whether remote work is good or bad.  Who was right?  Both sides actually.  However, they were arguing over outcomes and experience. They missed examining the initial conditions.  Looking at the initial conditions will determine if your experience with

Agile

Why my Distributed Agile countdown for Agile2018 is 8-3-2-1

I know it’s been quiet on this blog, but much has happened behind the scenes.  In fact, there has been a countdown happening as I prepare for Agile2018 next week. * 8 chapters are now available in the pre-release beta version of my book with Johanna Rothman * 3 podcasts are

Facilitation

FYI - Virtual facilitation options beyond #SGMSP18

Taking a break from book writing today,  I saw on Twitter there was a conversation in the open space at Scrum Gathering Minneapolis (#SGMSP18). For those of us who have been working remotely for years, there are actually several good options for online facilitation.  Some are adapting techniques you probably

hybrid-remote

Create your Distributed Team’s Workspace with These Six Tools

Many people ask me what is the best tool for distributed agile teams.  It’s the wrong question. What many people miss is that a distributed agile team needs a common workspace and a collection of tools that work together in that space.   While the team members may not be

Agile

Connect at #Agile2017

Monday is the official start of the Agile2017 conference.  It can be overwhelming to be with over 2500 people, choose from over 200 topics in over 20 tracks.  It can be over–stimulating and, for an introvert like me … exhausting.  So how can you successfully navigate such an event. * Set

Remotely Agile

A distributed agile team guide for LeanAgileUS participants - remotelyagile.info

UPDATE (Aug 2020) – I finally took down remotelyagile.info as the entire world was remote.  Near impossible to track it all. If you attended my talk at LeanAgileUS.com, I likely mentioned many references on distributed teams.  I keep those references at RemotelyAgile.info (which you can also access via

Remotely Agile

Rare beasts and more resources on remote jobs

UPDATE (Aug 2020): With the pandemic, these rare beasts were not so rare any longer.  See my resources section – https://www.markkilby.com/remote-jobs/ Last year I wrote a blog post on how to find a remote job.  Even though I warn people that it’s a different way of

Agile

What shall we explore at Agile 2016?

Agile2016 starts one month from now.  Here are three things I’m looking forward to: * The new Audacious Salon track (especially Monday and Tuesday morning, 7/25-26) * A gathering of Agile User Group leaders (Tuesday evening, 7/26) * My workshop with David Horowitz on Distributed Communication and Collaboration (Thursday afternoon,

hybrid-remote

Is there a better way to talk about distributed teams?

There is an enormous amount written about distributed teams and I find most of it very frustrating. It’s not that the observations or the ideas are bad. The problem lies with the primary tool we have for exploring the principles and practices of distributed teams: the English language. Terms

Choice

What's the Secret Joy of Working Remote?

While speaking recently at a conference, I realized two important things about the nature of remote work. First, I choose to work remotely. Second, many of the people who work remotely, particularly in large organizations, did not choose this way of working. I had roughly 200 people attend my talk

Agile Florida

Rocking the Global Scrum Gathering #SGFLA with a Community of Volunteers and Slack

In my prior blog post, I mentioned how we formed our group of volunteers for the Global Scrum Gathering in Orlando. Now let me share how we stormed, normed and performed at the gathering! Warning: this may be a bit long (TL;DR) unless you are interested in how we