originally captured at Agile2014 Open Jam session hosted by MarkKilby (last update Jan2015) Contributors: George Dinwiddie, AgileBill Krebs, missing anyone?

• all online
• some together (in an office) and others remote
• clusters in offices
• small (3-4) or large (>10)
• Mega (>40?)

• *NOTE: You need multiple tools. There is no silver bullet (tool); can’t rely on just one tool*
• Touch screen / smart board
• Dual monitors
• Video (2-way)
• Google Apps is a good default collaborative tool for small teams (10 or less)
• Otherwise, for larger groups Adobe Connect - goes far beyond WebEx, Go2Meetings and others. Allows for “break out” sessions.
  • Plug-in: Sticky pages
• Other collaboration tools:
  • GroupMap - can do mindmapping, sticky notes and other types of exercises; use templates or create your own
  • Anonymous polls: http://strawpoll.me/
• Gathering Feelings data
  • https://www.mercuryapp.com/
  • http://www.nikoniko.co/
• Collaborative white boards
  • https://realtimeboard.com/
  • https://awwapp.com/plugin/
  • http://www.webwhiteboard.com/
  • http://www.groupboard.com/products/
  • http://cosketch.com/ - another George Dinwiddie discovery
• Collaborative Sticky-note apps (i.e., these apps have “sticky note” objects that you can manipulate)
  • Noteapp
  • Lino.it
  • Stormboard
  • BoardThing - with nice “extras”:
    • can load a background image and write on it (good for preloading an exercise)
    • first virtual whiteboard (IMO) where you can easily affinity group; still no dot voting
    • Thanks George Dinwiddie for heads up
• Collaborative Drawing apps
  • Cacoo - also available as a Google App
  • LucidChart - also available as a Google App
• Collaborative Mindmapping apps
  • Mindmeister
  • MindMup (free, open source; also supports ImpactMapping)
• Online templates for planning exercises and retrospectives:
  • http://www.innovationgames.com
  • George Dinwiddie's version of the FRIM retrospective exercise as a Google Spreadsheet
  • Bryan Glenn's Google Doc template for Start/Stop/Continue retro exercise
  • Templates (from MarkKilby ):
    • A simplified Temperature Reading retrospective in Google Spreadsheet
    • A virtual lean coffee template in Google Docs
    • An virtual lean coffee-ORID template in Google spreadsheets
    • A Community of Practice Canvas (useful to reflect back on your user group activities)
    • Big Remote Retrospective template v4 (note there are different exercises on each tab; some tabs have more than one exercise combined)

• using tools
  • you need to learn before you use in a meeting
  • you need to give training time for meeting participants; don’t jump right into tool in beginning of retrospective
• Lean Coffee – using Google spreadsheet or Google Doc (see templates above)
• Agile retrospective framework (Derby & Larsen)
  • See also http://retrospectivewiki.org/
  • See also Templates: like retr-o-mat (more for face-to-face, but can be adapted for online)
• Reviewing past actions from prior retrospectives
  • Can review at start of next retrospective
  • Can send out reminders of actions mid-iteration
• Helps to have co-host to monitor the tech
• Buddy system (via chat)
• Pair design and facilitate
• 2010 slide deck of techniques from Cory Foy

• Jesse Fewell’s free e-book on distributed teams, “Can You Hear Me Now?”, talks about some of the common reasons, challenges and strategies for working with distributed teams.