Cutting the Cord: Letting Your Remote Team Run Free

I recently led a remote team of 4 interns through an extremely short development project. Through the use of Agile, Design Thinking, and XP, I was able to cut the cord and let the interns run the project themselves, taking on the roles of stakeholder and end user, rather than project lead.

Extreme Blue is IBM’s elite internship program. I was recently lucky enough to have my project proposal selected from hundreds of submissions to participate in the program. There was just one catch: my local Extreme Blue program had filled up and my project would be run out of the RTP lab, while I would be in Austin. The duration for the entire project was only 12 weeks, including on-boarding, development, and a week for final presentations and transition. While I am no stranger to working with remote teams, doing so on such an expedited project was going to be a challenge, especially with 4 new interns unfamiliar with the project or the organization. Using a mix of Agile and Design Thinking, I was able to cut the cord and allow my team to run free with the project.

I am currently the Systems Assurance Tools and Automation Architect at IBM. The Extreme Blue project I submitted involved using Machine Learning and NLP to help origination of defects found in Systems Assurance by suggesting a course of action based on historical data. Technical aspects aside, this talk would focus on the hurdles of running a remote team and how Agile can help overcome those obstacles and enable remote teams to have more autonomy without sacrificing schedule or quality.