If you’ve been anywhere in a business community for the last five years you’ve likely heard of agile planning. Yet agile planning was never meant to be confined to a boardroom or a sprint wall lined with sticky notes. In fact, the entire structure is based on adaptability, fast feedback, and small course corrections, which makes it surprisingly well suited to remote-first teams.
However, just because the core principles fit doesn’t mean it all transfers smoothly. Remote work brings its own challenges, especially when it comes to communication habits you have in the team you run and the unique nature of the work you do. Maybe you mostly work online or only have an online customer base, for instance.
This means that as more companies settle into online work as the default rather than the exception, the need to rethink agile habits grows stronger. For instance, how do you stay agile while also working across multiple time zones where the critical person you need hasn’t woken up yet?
That said, now is better than ever to plan for adaptability thanks to how structural changes can be experimented with on the fly. Teams that figure this out early can often build stronger momentum.
So, what does it look like to adapt agile planning in a way that actually works online? In this post we’ll have a look:
Make Daily Check-Ins Asynchronous
Asking everyone to show up at the same time every morning might sound fine in theory, but it stops working the second you add multiple time zones or varied schedules to deal with, especially if you have more than one management structure operating at different times. Instead of trying to preserve a real-time stand-up, it helps to let go of the idea altogether.
That doesn’t mean scrapping daily check-ins, just reworking how they happen. For instance, a shared document or chat thread with three questions, including what was done yesterday, what’s next, and any blockers, can do the same job without forcing everyone into the same window.
You may also find that when you outsource development to an expert, you do so through the concept of “nearshoring,” that is not being afraid to go global to see the best talent, but trying to do so within relative proximity or time sync to your own location, especially for essential projects.
Use Fewer Tools, But Use Them Properly
There’s a whole industry in designing tools to make corporate life easier, including boards, timelines, card decks, task management systems and that’s just the start. The problem isn’t finding one that works of course, but rather having five that no one fully uses.
A better approach is to pick one core platform and get everyone comfortable with it and to add plugins or modular additions where that’s necessary. As staff are trained in the full utility instead of just using the core features, you’ll see them using labels properly, assigning tasks clearly, and not letting old items pile up until the archiving becomes a real nightmare.
Assign a Real Person to Clear Blockers
We may like to think a business can be fully automated now, and perhaps in some ways it really can, but agile planning only works if problems get solved quickly and sometimes you need someone for that. In an office setting, a live human being (you may have heard of them) can ask a quick question over the desk and keep moving. Online, the same question might sit unanswered for hours because no one’s sure who should pick it up.
That’s why it helps to assign someone on each project as the point of contact for removing blockers. Not a manager, necessarily, just someone who knows how to escalate, nudge, or find the answer fast.
This stops delays from turning into real issues or suffering downtime you can’t afford. It’s also nice to know when you r staff need something, they get it.
Use “Retrospectives” for Planning, Not Just Reflection
You have to debrief and go through past projects sometimes, as that has just as much value in the online world. But it’s easy for this to become a somewhat lip-service session where people discuss what could have been better, clock off, and then never change. The ironic offline disconnect of the online world can make that more possible.
This means that instead of listing every single thing that could be improved, it’s better to pick one or two adjustments the team agrees to try next time you’re managing projects.
With this advice, we hope you can adapt agile planning to an online world more successfully.