Telecommuting

There may be updates and changes to this page.

All activities will be online

No physical presence on KTH premises will be required during the whole course. This may be changed if necessary.

Lectures, seminars and tutorials will be online only. Tutorial is "handledning" in Swedish.

For the project weeks, current recommendations mandate students working from home. We will use Zoom for communication. Work will require a web-camera and a headset, to communicate with team-members working remotely.

You probably have a web-camera on your computer, and/or a camera for live video on your smartphone. You probably also have a headset for your smartphone. We recommend that you install Zoom on your smartphone as well as on your computer. Have your charger at hand, since your phone may be in heavy use.

Please exchange phone numbers with all your team members. You will need a fallback solution if there is a problem with the Internet-based systems.

Telecommuting Rules

The Team's Zoom Meeting. During the project weeks, each team has a dedicated Zoom meeting. To set this up, the Scrum Master must make some settings well in advance, see below.

Some hours are mandatory for the team's Zoom meeting, see below. We recommend that all team members stay in the Zoom meeting during all working hours, with the microphones of but with speakers on. This makes it easy to call the team members' attention when necessary.

The team can agree on a separate system for voice communication, such as Discord.

Mandatory hours: all team members must be in the team's Zoom meeting, with the live-video camera on, during the hours and occasions specified below.

Specific occasions:

• Sprint planning
• Daily Scrum
• Instant Meetings, whenever they happen
• Any other kind of meeting with the whole team
• Sprint Retrospective
• Backlog Refinement
• End of each working day

Teachers may join the team's Zoom meeting at any time during working hours.

Zoom Etiquette

If you are connected through Zoom, keep your microphone muted (so the microphone is off). Turn on the microphone when you are going to say something. Keep the microphone on only during a continuous discussion.

Choosing your microphone

When in Zoom, please use a headset with a microphone boom. This improves the sound quality for everyone, and particularly for those who listen to you.

The second-best option is usually a wired in-ear headset for your mobile phone, where the microphone is in a "bump" on the cable. You may have to move the microphone closer to your mouth to be heard.

The microphone built into your laptop is the third-best option. There may be problems with echoes, and any typing will be loudly heard by everyone.

Generally speaking, a wireless headset for a mobile phone is the worst option. This particularly applies to "fully wireless" in-ear headsets. These headsets often have the microphone near your ear, and not near your mouth. Therefore, many people will not hear what you say. Please speak very loudly and slowly to ensure that everyone can hear you. Asking if you can be heard is not enough, since many people will be too polite to say no.

Zoom meetings

To enable the examiner to setup the team's Zoom meeting, the Scrum Master of each team must allow the examiner to set up meetings on the behalf of the Scrum Master. This requires the following procedure by the Scrum Master:

1. In a web browser, log into Zoom - kth-se.zoom.us Links to an external site.
2. Click ”Sign in”.
3. Enter the Settings.
4. Scroll down to Assign scheduling privilege to (near the bottom of the settings page).
5. Click the plus sign, and add the examiner's e-mail address flu@kth.se, so that the examiner can set up the Zoom room for you.
6. Confirm that this has been done by emailing the examiner.

More information on Zoom: https://intra.kth.se/it/kth-videoconferencing/zoom and https://intra.kth.se/en/utbildning/e-larande/webbmoten

Telecommuting services outside Zoom

For documentation, notes and the Project Backlog, it is recommended to use the team's own files in Canvas. Go to People, then Groups, then to your team, then to Files. You may want to bookmark your team's Canvas page for quick access.

Using the team's own files for the team's Scrum board is possible, but can be somewhat inconvenient.If the team cannot agree on a system for the Scrum board, this is your fallback option.

Many teams prefer to use Trello for the team's Scrum board. Each team-member has to create an account; the zero-cost option works fine. If all team-members agree to use Trello, go ahead. If a team-member disagrees, that person has veto rights, and you cannot use Trello. The reason is that Trello is not endorsed by KTH. Trello is offered by Atlassian, which is a well-renowned Australian company.

Link: https://trello.com/ Links to an external site.

For source code, use Github. To clarify a possibility for confusion, Github is both a kind of server software, as well as a commercial operation for hosting source-code using the Github server-software. There are at least two options:

1. KTH GitHub, available to all staff and students. Your code is stored at KTH, and will be available according to KTH policy under Swedish and European law. The code will be available until you leave KTH. This works well for typical student-projects. If you cannot agree on what to use, this is your fallback option.
   Link to info: https://intra.kth.se/en/it/programvara-o-system/system/kth-github/kth-github-1.500062
2. Github.com, the commercial operation with the same name. Your code is stored at a US company, and will be available according to company policy under US law. Github.com is well-regarded and used for many open-source projects. Each team-member has to create an account; the zero-cost option works fine for open-source projects. If your project is an open-source project, this may be a good choice. If all team-members agree to use Github.com, go ahead. If a team-member disagrees, that person has veto rights, and you cannot use Github.com. The reason is that Github.com is not endorsed by KTH.
   Link to homepage: https://github.com/ Links to an external site.

If you hesitate, start out with KTH GitHub. A project can be copied to a new Github server relatively easily.