Management of the distributed software development teams: practical recommendations

Dmitry Bashakin, Eugeny Chuvashov

Dmitry Bashakin

There are different reasons for having software development teams geographically distributed. These reasons will be briefly touched in the report – mainly just to stress: they are serious enough for this situation to be repeated more and more often. One of the most difficult situations is when a project manager realizes that all his or her team is located “somewhere there” – in the couple of different cities and even countries with large time differences between them. How should this person act to create and maintain team members’ feeling of work in a one joined team, how to prevent sub-teams’ isolation?
The main question is for sure “What to do?” The report will answer to this question by summarizing the large experience obtained by its author during several years of building effective distributed teams. The main distinguishing characteristic of the report is its practicality – no theories, just practical recommendations based upon real experience in real projects.