Getting Back to the Basics – Agile in a Virtual World

Let’s go “Back to the Basics.”. This has been a repeated phrase since 2021 at Nationwide Technology. It is referencing a large initiative focused on teams improving their practice of Agile Principals. When Covid-19 caused a world wide Pandemic, the result was that all Nationwide employees had to shift to remote working. The pandemic has cause many changes. It has allowed for greater flexibility in work schedules and increased team virtual collaboration. It has also allowed teams to forget Agile principals and their value as remote working resulted in new daily norms. For example, “A Stand Up is 15 minutes”. You should physically stand up to remind yourself that this is a very brief meeting; Virtually dialing in to the call, people are able to sit down and easily forget that the concept is focused on ‘QUICK” updates. This can cause the very popular Agile meeting to lose it’s value. In this session, I will cover how I have helped one of my new Agile Lines focus on getting back to the basics. Some of the coaching was “big bang” style, while others involved making incremental changes each sprint. The overall objective: Educate and Coach the team to leverage Agile Practices without impacting delivery.