Is visibility a vital skill for agile teams working remotely?

Sprinting in the shadows.

There’s no doubt remote teams struggle with isolation from not being seen. What may feel like simple issues relating to loneliness and collaboration in a co-working space can often feel amplified in a remote setting.  Agile software delivery teams are no exception.   Our work is complex, highly variable and often not well understood or hidden from our peers. Sprints can often miss the mark and we miss opportunities to better align expectations and bring our peers along for the ride…and this is when we’re sharing an office. What’s going to happen now as the world shifts to working remotely and manages with ‘the new normal’ of working through a pandemic?

Visibility still isn’t seen as a vital remote skill.

‘Sawubona’ is the most common greeting in the Zulu Tribe.  It literally means “I see you, you are important to me and I value you.”  It’s a way to make the other person visible and to accept them as they are with their virtues, nuances, and flaws.

So much of our individual and collective sense of value and worth at work comes from being seen, acknowledged and affirmed.  In Perceived Proximity in Virtual Work research, teams build connection by communicating frequently and having a shared identity, by communicating in ways that signal their reliability and dependability.

Bring your team’s sprint practices out from the shadows with Umano.

Umano brings visibility to your team’s sprint practices, so you can communicate confidently with your team using data-driven insights to continuously improve and stay ahead.

Umano has released a package of 6 core metrics to bring balance to your team’s agile way of working.  We’re offering free access to help you continuously improve your team’s practices whilst working remotely.

As signals for the health of your team’s culture, Communication Balance and Responsiveness support your intra-team communication patterns.  Completed Work and Sprint Stability highlight your team’s cadence, predictability and confidence to deliver as planned.  Pull Request Size and Review Speed provides insight into governance controls and quality assurance of what’s being shipped.

Make your unseen work seen.

Visibility is your secret weapon to help distributed teams stay ahead.  See it to believe it. Take the power back and stop remote work from isolating team members and happening in the shadows. Experience improved collaboration by better aligning expectations with your peers and stakeholders.

Umano is on a mission to help self-directed teams succeed by providing real-time feedback with data-driven insights that help agile teams to continually improve and stay ahead.

Sign up here to access your complimentary Umano account and see how your team’s agile sprint practices are tracking.

Join our slack community to learn from others and be a part of the data-driven movement to improving team performance.