This is a sticky subject. In all the books about Agile and Scrum, there are comments regarding the importance of having co-located, dedicated, persistent teams. The idea is that teams who work together closely and consistently daily will grow together, perform better, and be more predictable.

In this day and age, co-located teams are not the norm. With most employees working from home and teams distributed around the globe, this leads to more opportunities to hire the best people for the job, but it also creates communication challenges.

Teams need to be more conscious about their communication, be more proactive in their actions, and become even more transparent. To ensure these activities become the norm, it’s critical to build trust within the team.

How do you do that? Make sure your team is holding meaningful retrospectives. Encourage team members to engage in virtual events, such as coffee breaks, lunch, and even happy hours. Facilitate activities that allow team members to get to know more about each other on a personal note.

The list of ways to build trust are endless, but it’s a must for becoming a mature, high-performing team.

Without trust, you lack transparency and without transparency, you lack the opportunity to inspect and adapt. Teams who are spread around the world need to have open feedback loops to ensure high-quality deliveries. Focus on building trust and watch your teams thrive.

All my best,

Paulie Skaja
your mindset muse 🙂