As the practice of Agile matures, teams find great value in shortening feedback loops to inspect and adapt more often. However, constraints in the physical seating of teams drive the way in which they interact - team members in the same building communicate via email and meet only for “meetings”. XP advocates Sitting Together, but due to a lot of constraints organizations are unable or unwilling to adopt this. In this presentation we will share what these constraints are and how we were able to overcome them so that our teams could Sit Together.

3. Zainab Alikhan Nirmal Merchant
▪ Global management consulting firm, App Dev department
▪ Adopted Agile 5+ years ago
▪ 300 technologists …and growing by the day
▪ Our people are in New York, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Atlanta,
Waltham, Austin, Dusseldorf, Cairo, Bangalore, Chennai…

4. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE made it happen.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

5. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE did it.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

6. What is Sitting Together?
▪ XP (Extreme Programming) concept
▪ The whole team sits together in the same
physical space
The Art of Agile Development, James Shore
Support the Agile Manifesto:
▪ Individuals and interactions over processes and
tools
▪ Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
PRODUCTIVITY = ~2X!!!
How Does Radical Collocation Help a Team Succeed? Teasley, Covey,
Krishnan & Olson

7. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE did it.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

15. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE did it.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

20. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE did it.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

21. What we looked like before

22. What we look like now
Alone
Time
Alone
Time
Alone
Time
Alone
Time
Alone Alone
Time Time

23. What our department has to say..
“Work gets done quicker…I save about an hour a day in a team
room” -- Developer
“It’s about the people…sharing and growing is what makes it
awesome” -- UX Designer
“Energy and creativity much higher…team rooms like a place
where there is action” -- Management
“I walk into a team room & everyone needed to answer a
question is there.. issues resolved much quicker” -- Architect
“It’s funny…privacy just seems less of an issue now. I can have
most personal conversations in front of my team members,
they know me better and I trust them.” -- Developer

24. Start small

25. Make it fun

28. Let the “users” design their space

29. Let the “users” design their space

33. Today we’re going to talk about..
▪ What is “Sitting Together”
▪ Why should we Sit Together?
▪ Why we DON’T Sit Together.. the barriers
▪ How WE did it.. and how YOU can
▪ What about distributed teams?

34. Smart staffing, smart travel
l

35. Leverage technology to enrich communication

36. Sitting Together…
▪ …shortens the feedback loop
▪ …reduces the cost of asking questions
▪ …enables “osmotic communication”
▪ …creates focus
▪ …promotes innovation
▪ …builds relationships and trust

37. To do it…
▪ …start small
▪ …make it fun
▪ …let “users” collaboratively design space
▪ …be conscious of adoption curve
▪ …create a multi-dimensional solution
▪ …lead by example