For most of us in enterprise product development, global teams are a fact of life. Even if we can get individual scrum teams co-located, the chances of an entire product suite being developed in a single location are pretty remote.
Having worked in global development environments for almost my entire career; whilst there are collaboration challenges, for the size of some projects I’ve worked on you’d have similar issues with the whole team being in a single building anyway.
Rather than worrying about the issues of working in global teams we can embrace the differences our sites provide for us in order to strike a cultural balance to our development activities.
Here’s what I’d like to make the most of for starters from my own experiences…
- The can-do attitude of teams in India without the lack of questioning.
- The attention to detail of teams in Germany without the formality.
- The work ethic of teams in the US without the heroics.
- The passion for quality of teams in the UK without the gold-plating.
Every culture has its pitfalls and benefits but don’t take my word for it – read a classic