Dana.Caulder

Genentech Research & Early Development does a significant amount of in-house software development to support its drug discovery effort. In the last several years our software development staff has more than doubled, employing both local and remote contractors.   Although expanding this quickly and working with remote team members has been challenging, we've had great success. We attribute this success to our emphasis on creating mixed in-house/remote teams where:

• there are no second-class citizens
• everyone is encouraged and willing to make contributions and compromises
• we all strive for effective, but not overly burdensome communication

In this session we will explore some of our specific practices that contribute to our team’s effectiveness, including:

• adaptations of agile methodologies to improve communication and delivery
• alignment of development processes and tooling that support iterative improvement
• processes to mitigate team member turnover and speed-up onboarding

After attending this session you will be able to take a critical look at your team's characteristics and develop a process that actually works for all of you. We will share with you a variety of concrete examples of process changes that have worked (or not) for us and send you away ready to take your own first steps towards developing a more effective mixed in-house/remote team.