Suggested Leadership Actions

Inspect

• How tight are the feedback loops with your distributed teams? Are you committing any of the classic mistakes listed in this chapter?

• Review your sites’ differences in language, national culture, and site culture. Estimate the impact of those differences on communication mistakes.

• Are your teams organized in such a way that each team can have Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose?

• Are your distributed teams highly disciplined about converging to a releasable level of quality often—at least as often as they would if they were co-located?

• Have you systematized your distributed teams’ use of Inspect and Adapt so that they can learn how to work more effectively in their challenging configuration?

Adapt

• Reorganize your teams and communication patterns, if necessary, to tighten feedback loops.

• Develop a plan to improve communication and understanding across sites.

• Make a plan for supporting your distributed teams in having Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

• Communicate the importance of maintaining a releasable level of quality at all times to your teams, and make sure they are using an appropriate Definition of Done.

• Empower your teams to make changes based on the findings of their retrospectives.