Question

Your distributed agile team spans three time zones (San Francisco, New York, and London) with 3-4 members in each location. After four sprints, several patterns have emerged: the London team members are disconnected from decisions made during daily standups that occur at 9 AM Pacific; sprint planning sessions run 4-5 hours as teams debate estimates and approach; and sprint reviews lack engagement because stakeholders in Europe attend at 7 PM their time. The team's definition of done includes peer code review, but reviews are delayed 12-16 hours waiting for reviewers in other time zones. One team member has suggested abandoning agile practices in favor of a more asynchronous waterfall approach. What strategy would most effectively address these distributed team challenges?

Accepted Answer

Require core collaboration hours where all team members are available simultaneously for 3 hours daily, compress ceremonies into these windows, and cross-train team members across locations to enable code reviews within each time zone

Answer

Implement asynchronous standups using a collaboration tool where team members post updates, create rotating facilitation for planning sessions to ensure all time zones lead discussions, and record sprint reviews with asynchronous feedback mechanisms

Answer

Reorganize into location-based teams where San Francisco, New York, and London each work on separate features to minimize cross-timezone coordination needs

Answer

Establish a 'follow-the-sun' model where work items are passed between time zones to enable 24-hour productivity, with clear handoff protocols

PMP Practice Question: Process — Agile, Hard

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