Distributed agile, as we practice it today, is too synchronous for anyone’s benefit
This results in burnout, a highly interrupted work environment and a workplace that can accommodate only certain kinds of people. The casualties are work-life balance for the teams in question; deep, meaningful work for everyone involved and diversity and inclusion at large.
There’s a better way to work, and that’s to include more remote-native, async-first work practices in the way we build software. I envision the following benefits.
Work life balance
When people don’t have to work synchronously with each other, they can choose the work hours that work best for them. That way they get to give their life the time it deserves.
Diversity & inclusion
Introverts and non-native English speakers can use the safety of tools and writing to communicate freely. Flexible hours and location independence allow people with various personal situations to become part of your team.
Knowledge sharing
Regular writing and curation helps build up referenceable team knowledge that you can use for knowledge sharing and onboarding. It also reduces FOMO.
Optimising for scale
Everyone can’t be in every meeting. People can read faster than they listen. They don’t remember every piece of information they encounter. Writing allows your team to share information at scale. It’s referenceable and fast to consume.
Deep work
When you don’t have unnecessary meetings on your calendar, you can now free up large chunks of time to get deep, complex work done without interruptions.
Defaulting to action
Whenever we face a choice between waiting to be perfect and being wrong at speed, we choose the latter. The focus is on getting things done. If something’s wrong, we choose to refactor and adapt.
To dive deeper into these benefits I suggest you begin reading from the start. If you’re curious about specific kinds of content, the following categories may interest you.