How Osmotic Communication Works For NearShore Team

#SridharPeddisetty #Agile #Scrum #Strategy #Osmotic #Communication #Strategy #AgileTraining #AgileBestPractices #NearShore 

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others  -Tony Robbins

What is Osmotic Communication?

Osmotic Communication is a term coined by Alistair Cockburn and the definition is: "Osmotic communication means that information flows into the background hearing of members of the team, so that they pick up relevant information as though by osmosis. This is normally accomplished by seating them in the same room. Then, when one person asks a question, others in the room can either tune in or tune out, contributing to the discussion or continuing with their work"

What is a NearShore Team?

A NearShore team provides services to the client from a country, which is having proximity in terms of time zone and geographic location to client's country. Its a virtual team providing quality services to the client by overlapping for more time with the client by working in similar time zone, collaborating in realtime. 

How Osmotic Communication Works For NearShore Team?

In my earlier post Active Listening Is Key For A Successful Delivery, I had shared how in Agile, requirements and solutions evolve through communication and collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. Also in another post Everyone's Perspective Is Key In Retrospectives, I had shared how the best teamwork comes from the team members who are working independently but toward one goal in unison and working in an environment where everyone’s perspective is encouraged, heard and respected.

Looking at the above illustration, its understandable that NearShore team cannot have the benefits of a face-face white boarding or in person conversations, but now with robust communication mediums including tools available, the communication gaps are shortened. Below are examples of few collaboration tools, which bridges the communication gaps working with virtual teams. 

1. Skype
2. RealTimeBoard
3. Jira
4. Confluence
5. MindMeister

Using the advantages of NearShore time zone proximity, virtual team works realtime with onsite team and using collaboration tools like Skype for communication. For instance, group chats in Skype provides the perfect opportunity for the onsite teams and virtual teams to have a real time discussion and Osmotic communication is possible with the inputs shared by random team members instead of relying on 1:1 communication. It does not work in all situations but group chats go a long way in facilitating Osmotic communication in which a Scrum Master or a Product Owner operating from onsite could be seeking an answer from a remote developer but the remote QA member could chip in, if the person has same or better understanding. In another example, say a remote developer has a question on specific feature and posts the question to PO or stakeholder in group chat. Response of which could not only benefit the developer but also the remote QA, who in turn use the information in creating more specific test scenarios or automation scripts. Another major advantage of tool group chat is archiving of the communication for future reference, which is something that is not possible for a collocated team when having in person communication instead.  

Summary

Osmotic communication keeps the cost of communications low while keeping the feedback rate high. This in turn, helps keep the overall cost of quality low as while working with NearShore team, its evident for the client that the requirements are disseminated faster and errors are corrected quickly. With strong delivery management best practices, frequent face time with client, NearShore virtual teams can take the advantages of Osmotic communication. 

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Everyone's Perspective Is Key In Retrospectives
• Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities
• Active Listening Is Key For A Successful Delivery

Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Based Projects

A man realized that he could not hear very well and that he had to buy a hearing aid, but did not want to spend too much money on it. So he went to the store and asked the clerk...

"How much do hearing aids cost?" The clerk responded "It depends, they run from two dollars to two thousand." "Let me see the two dollar model" the man said.

The clerk hung a string around the man's neck.

"Just put this button in your ear and stick this string in your pocket." "How does it work?" asked the customer. "It doesn't work, but when people see it on you they'll speak louder."

Actually our communication problems are not due to people speaking softly but mostly due to the fact that many of us are not good listeners. The biggest communication problem is that we do not listen to understand but we listen to reply. Presently you see more organizations acknowledging the importance that people want to be listened to, hence one company's motto: "We listen better” and another stating, "We hear you".

Agile development is more of an iteratively incremental approach in which requirements and solutions evolve through communication and collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. Agile promotes ‘building the right thing’ through customer involvement, adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement and encourages rapid & flexible response to change in delivering high quality product or service.

Now since Agile encourages team to be cross-functional, most challenging aspect of a cross-functional team is the functional or technical silos, which often results in team deliverables ‘thrown over the wall’ between Architects, BAs, SAs, Designers, Developers and Testers. The problem here is not due to lack of coordination, but more due to lack of collaboration in which teams are not syncing on overall shared objectives. So for a cross-functional team to work as a collaborative unit, ‘Active Listening’ is the key in which each team is ‘listening to understand and not listening to reply’. Practicing the basics of ‘Active Listening’ includes:

• Focusing your complete attention to the speaker.
• Asking open-ended questions to gather elaborative information.
• Documenting gathered information in tool or a document.
• Getting the summarized information reviewed.

For any project, Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID) are very critical for its successful execution. Instead of making a lot of assumptions, ‘Active Listening’ helps us clear up many of the gaps when we detach emotions and instead pay focused attention to the speaker. Please share your thoughts on ‘Active Listening’ and how you think it's key for any project, but more for an Agile based project.

Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Based Projects was originally posted under Prokarma blog on Feb 12th 2015.

The Art of Writing an Email

The Art of Writing an Email was originally posted under Prokarma blog on Sep 3rd 2014

Effective communication is key for an open, transparent and honest environment and more so in a virtual setup. Writing an email that is precise and courteous is one effective way of communicating, so it is very important to understand the art of writing an email.  While writing an email, have empathy towards the recipient(s) and ask yourself whether the email will actually be read, understood, not annoy and not take too much time to read. Always remember the principle of 'Keep it simple stupid' (KISS) while composing the email and stick to facts instead of using too much verbiage to make a point.

Sometime back I received this email while working at a client site.

Dear All,

Mysteriously, a sweater appeared on my chair at some point yesterday morning. If it was a gift, thank you. It's not really my style but I would wear it to any company parties we might have to show my appreciation - but you have to tell me who you are so I know who to thank.

If it wasn't a gift and you left it here inadvertently, I have protected it from the people who have come to ask if they can have it but I don't know how much longer I can fend them off. Best if you come back and retrieve it at your earliest convenience.

This just in: It was found in the bathroom in the hallway on the 9th floor and was believed to be mine. Nope. It is multi-colored with brown, red, blue and green triangles all over it. Made by CRT8CO, 85% acrylic and 15% wool. Made in Taiwan, size small. If you're not sure, I can provide more details.

Is it yours?

Intent of sharing above email is to cite an example of how an email can be used effectively to communicate. This email while stating the intent and the message in clear terms, also includes sense of humor. This makes the email both easy to read and at the same time gives you a reason to smile.