| Lisa's large team, which was both large and split into two geographic locations, used the following procedures to successfully complete iteration planning in a timely manner and to complete the tasks during the iteration: The teams met in each location and connected via speakerphone. Aids to remote collaboration such as NetMeeting, VNC, or a Webcam trained on a whiteboard were sometimes employed. All members were present, including testers, analysts, project managers, technical writers, anyone who would help deliver the software. Analysts, working with the customer, wrote up the narratives of the stories in advance. Analysts and/or testers wrote the high-level acceptance tests for each story before iteration planning. At the meeting, someone (usually the analyst) read the stories for the entire team (both locations). Before the meeting, each story was assigned to a programmer, who used the stories and acceptance tests to do an initial task breakdown. Each programmer who had been thus assigned wrote these tasks up on the whiteboard. Each geographic subteam prepared a subset of stories. The teams broke into small groups within their geographic locations and did a more detailed task breakdown for their assigned stories. The teams got back together by speakerphone and went through the tasks for each story. Individual programmers chose stories for estimating. Task cards were written up and each location received a set of tasks. Each day, programmers chose tasks to perform. The programmer who ended up with the task was free to reestimate it if necessary. Each day at the standup, pairings for that day were decided. Programmers from separate locations paired using VNC or NetMeeting and phone. Estimates, actual time spent so far, and estimated remaining time were tracked every day during the standup. Planning the iteration together, having story tasks spread across both locations, and practicing remote pairing allowed both locations to achieve collective code ownership. |
