Corona Archives - Digital Innovation Blog

The current crisis, caused by COVID-19, is challenging the most companies worldwide for several weeks now. From one moment to the next nearly 95% of our colleagues moved in to their home office. Most of them are still working from home. How does that fact affect my work in the Sales and Marketing team?

While working in distributed teams and independent of the location is quite common (have a look at our last blog post: Software Development in Corona times – Business as usual?) it was a novelty for our central services (accounting, IT, HR, Marketing, …). As an internal service provider for the employees of ZEISS Digital Innovation the main focus of our work was to be a local contact for our „customers” and react directly to their requests. Simultaneous to our organizational affiliation to Team ZEISS and the high workload that came along with the related brand change, the shift to home office confronted us with new challenges.

*Figure 1: My workplace in the home office*

How did we manage this transition mainly trouble-free and while keeping up our high level of performance? By learning from agile methods!

For many years we are following the basic principles of agile procedures in our projects as well as in management and developed our own agile process based on Scrum. For our collaboration in the central services we implemented some of the values, artifacts, and methods as well. This is helping us in this difficult stage. In general, for our internal corporate communication and especially for the collaboration of my team, which now consits of five team members. At this occasion it is important to mention, that we are only orient ourselves towards these procedures and don’t apply them like they appear in textbooks.

With an iterative approach, including Planning, Review and Retrospective, we ensure that our campaigns remain innovative, that we focus on the right things even when there are many campaigns running in parallel, and steady questioning ourselves. Meetings for reflexion (similar to project retrospectives), where we deduce Lessons Learned, belong to our daily work as well as an open culture of communication, honest feedback and creative or brainstorming events. Creative work and an agile mindset require a certain readiness for flexibility, so wereorganized our collaboration methods and quickly acclimatised ourselves to the new situation.

*Figure 2: Team retro with improvised whiteboard*

But what does that mean in practice? Which „tools“ helped us to organize our work efficiently even in the home office and while working distributed?

Dailys

Because we didn`t meet in our office every day and did not notice directly and across the desk on which topics the other team members are working on, we quickly noticed a higher need for coordination. After a short time we established a daily meeting as a reaction. Every morning the team members sync their daily tasks and report about the tasks they dealt with the last day. We defined a timebox of 20 minutes for ourselves. It is important, that everybody gets the chance to speak and also shortly tells if there are maybe challenges that could affect their work (like too many meetings, childcare and home schooling, …). To make sure that we all stay in the defined timebox we nominated a Scrum Master who moderates the meeting. She has to ensure, that maybe upcoming discussions are clarified later in separate ad-hoc meetings and not block the daily.

Iterative Planning in short terms

In consequence of Corona and the accompanying ever-changing general conditions (like cancelled events, changing communication channels, …) we switched from a three-monthly planning cycle to a four-week period. So we can customize our tasks continuous to the quick changing priorities. To make sure that we nevertheless do not forget several long-term tasks, we have a backlog were we store all the activities which we want to work on in a long term, but are not urgent or important at the moment.

This backlog is closely linked to the next topic.

Visualization with suitable tools and a good infrastructure

Technical conditions are essential for working together. A Sharepoint or OneDrive for data sharing, video conferencing via Skype or MS Teams, a Wiki with a clear documentation of the campaigns and a joint task board are worth a mint and only a small set of the tools we are working with. To keep an eye on our tasks, we use MS Teams and the integrated Microsoft Planner. There we collect and record (similar to a Kanban Board) all our tasks and thus are able to evaluate in our Planning and Review meetings what we managed in the last sprint and what we want to do in the next iteration. As an internal service centre we have a lot and steady upcoming requests from different stakeholders, so we use the board to document all requirements the to ensure that (especially in the case of an unexpected absence or in Substitution situations) not been forgotten. In general transparency is one of our top priorities, but however we focus on the (a bit customized) agile manifesto: working ~~software~~ campaigns over comprehensive documentation (https://agilemanifesto.org/iso/de/manifesto.html).

Fair enough when tools and processes are working. But what about the interpersonal communication? We strive to have an atmosphere in our communication which is basing on open communication and values like trust, commitment, openness and mutual respect. And in the middle of this communication there are always humans and a working team, that must rely on each other. This team spirit also rises by the short talks in the meantime, by spending a lunch break together or making some jokes in the coffee kitchen. All this is really hard to put in practice when „social distancing“ and home office is on the daily schedule. To prevent that we drift apart as a team, we implemented a weekly virtual coffee break. We use this event to talk with a cup of coffee (or something else) about off topics and what concerns us at the moment. Just the things we would normally talk about in our breaks and in the corridor – not about thing what we have to deal with in our daily business. And of course, with video, to see each other from time to time.

*Figure 3: Weekly virtual coffee break in the team*

Also, beyond team level there are some established formats resulting from our agile management process, that help us – e.g. our ZEISS Stand-up (general company meeting). Normally in a six week regular circle, our management informs about all important topics, data and facts. Every employee who is interested in participation, has given the opportunity to follow the explanations in his working time via Skype or on-site and ask questions afterwards. As a important cornerstone of our company information and communication this is ensuring transparency und takes since the 20.03.2020 place every week, to inform about all the actual corporate development in the crisis and the measures we adopted because of that. Next to the economic situation there were also some special topics to talk about, like the hygiene concept or the „Corona parental benefit“ when employees with children have minus hours. Another small puzzle piece, that gives us security and trust and make the corporate collaboration easier in this crisis.

While observing social distancing, video conferencing with friends has replaced going down to the pub. During one the subject of how corona influences our work life, popped up very fast.

The consensus was, that the ability to work was greatly impacted and that for some it even had completely disappeared. Their employers were simply not able to supply the necessary infrastructure. And even after the infrastructure eventually was set up the reality set in: It is complicated! Who may talk? Camera on or off? Please mute your microphone the kid is screaming in the background! You want to talk? Please un-mute you microphone! The connection is bad I only get every second word… The list is endless.

People simply are not used to working like this. Not least, because communication is more than exchanging words. During phone and video conferences the interpretation of body posture, facial expressions and gestures is far harder. That is a new situation, which requires great discipline and change in behaviour by all participants!

The discussions carry on and they alternate between reviews of video tools and how working in this situation is impossible. Meanwhile I am frantically searching for something to add to the discussion. But no matter how much I search, I only find one answer to the question “What has changed in your work situation since COVID-19?”, “Nothing really“.

Admittingly that is a slight exaggeration! The commute, the collective lunch break with the colleagues, the chat at the coffee machine – all this currently does not take place, and these are drastic changes and great losses. For people like me where home office is also a day-care and both parents work full time, distributed work can become quite a challenge.

But even in this situation the starting point is the same for everyone. So, you only have the choice to accept it and make the best of it. This shows how important it is to have gathered experience with working in distributed settings.

ZEISS Digital Innovation (formerly Saxonia Systems AG) has been following the basic principals of working in distributed teams for years. Not least to ensure a healthy work-life balance for the employees, it is important for companies to ensure that services can be provided from basically everywhere. This keeps travel expenses low and ensures that the necessary infrastructure does not have to be provided by the customer.

Person sits in front of a laptop and severals screens during a video conference using the ETEOboard tool for distributed collaboration — *Figure 1: Distributed project work from a home office*

During the five years that I have been working for ZEISS Digital Innovation I have only encountered one project, that united the complete development team at one site. My current project, that was started in September 2019, is extremely distributed, the six project members of ZEISS Digital Innovation are split between five sites and the project stakeholders are at two sites. Therefore, the distribution existed pre-COVID-19 and was identified as a project risk to be addressed.

In my view this was achieved with a simple sounding solution: direct communication.

The developers often used pair programming to not only ensure knowledge transfer, but also to get to know the programming style of the other developers. Apart from this, code reviews belong to our standard procedure. These are not only a quality assurance measure, but also distribute knowledge throughout the team. Beside the daily meeting for all project members, we also have established a “DEV-Daily”, in which the developers can focus on mainly technical issues.

Business requirements are mapped to technical solutions during regular refinement meetings. Ideas are collected, checked, adapted, discarded and created in no-holds-barred discussions. This leads to an area of creativity and free development, that all team members can contribute to, which in turn feel valued and included. Even during the distribution of the team, a real team spirit has developed!

The establishment of this open communication culture has led to a more intensive and frequent communication within the team. Be it one-on-one or in a larger group. One must always carter for the preferences of the individual team members. Some are early birds, at 8 o’clock they are fully in their flow, bursting with ideas to present to their colleagues, some barely can open their eyes at that time in the morning. Some need planned meetings to have time for preparation, others easily hop between subjects and you can call them anytime.

To be honest, it is not enough to simply communicate more, to work efficiently in a distributed environment. Rather an elaborate concept is necessary, that takes all the aspects and challenges of distributed work into account. This is especially important for teams with little experience with distributed work.

Several years ago, ZEISS Digital Innovation already received attention with their ETEO-concept. ETEO (“Ein Team Ein Office” – One Team One Office) is a framework for distributed work in teams. It gives project teams a guide as to how distributed work can be achieved. A permanent video link between the sites and a digital work board for task assignment enables the teams to work spread out between different sites. Just like being at one site together. The video link is no requirement it is just a building block from ZEISS Digital Innovation’s toolkit for distributed work. There are specifically trained employees (ETEO-Coaches), that train and coach the team members, in techniques for distributed work, during ramp up and the project duration. It often leads to a “aha moment” with our customers that distributed work without performance impact can work.

Graphic of a house "One Team One Office" on four pillars based on the values for distributed scrum teams — *Figure 2: ETEO (“Ein Team Ein Office” – One Team One Office) – Our Collaboration Model*

In general, as with everything the rule applies, the tool is nothing, if you do not know how to use it. With this I mean that distributed work can only work with the discipline and right mindset of the involved. One thing is left to be stated, you have to commit yourself without reservations and just try the tools and techniques. And of course: Practice makes perfect. The longer a team works in a distributed environment, the stronger the best practices for distributed work are highlighted in the individual team setting. One must not forget that there is no such thing as the ultimate concept for distributed work. Interactions within projects are not between roles and responsibilities but between people and they are all different.

Each project is different and therefore also the requirements for distributed work. But the basic principles are basically the same. This can be compared with building a house. No matter how it looks, number of floors or type of roof it has, it always has a foundation it rests on.

The foundations of distributed work at ZEISS Digital Innovation are sound.