Why a post about Visas on an agile software blog, you ask? Well, if you have a distributed team with members around the globe, and you believe in the agile principle that the most effective method of conveying information is face-to-face communication, then you might need to have some people hop a plane. Here is a summary of the types of US Visas that you might pursue for offshore team members.

• B-1: for conferences, meetings, business events

These can typically be used for visits of 2-4 weeks, and they must not involve US employment. In the past many companies got away with much longer visits on B-1, but the government has cracked down on that abuse recently.

• H-1B: for temporary employment in the US

Only about 65,000 H-1B visas are granted each year, and most of those are claimed by large companies. Visa holder must be compensated at US market rates.

• L-1: for intra-company transfer to a US-based branch.

For L-1 The US & foreign company must share common ownership, and applicant must already be employed by the foreign affiliate. Larger companies can obtain blanket L status.

• H-3: for training at a US company that is not available in the applicant’s home country*

* Many restrictions apply

• J-1: “exchange” visitors in pre-approved areas of study.*

* Again, many restrictions apply with the J-1 program.

For all types of visas, applicants that don’t have strong ties to their home country (such as a spouse, children, and property) may be denied. There is a Visa waiver program for visits of 90 days or less from 27 countries (mostly European, also Japan, Singapore, NZ).

Allow lots of time for visa applications to be approved, too. Plan on several months for applicants from places like India and China.

Are you thinking about pushing your luck on a B-1 Visa? Tread carefully. Attempting to obtain a visa by the willful misrepresentation of a material fact, or fraud, may result in the permanent refusal of a visa or denial of entry into the United States.

On the bright side, it’s very easy for US citizens to obtain visas to almost any country – unless your offshore team is in Cuba, that is.

There are about a hundred Scrum Master courses for every one Scrum Product Owner training course. Yet the product owner is an absolutely key role in agile/Scrum projects. During the Agile 2008 conference, some people from Innovel presented on the product owner role and have made publicly available some great material for training product owners. It’s a hands-on role playing exercise based on a hypothetical product called Beer Miles, a credit card that gives users reward points for purchasing beer from participating retailers. The product-owners-in-training are presented with a business case for the product and a set of product capabilities (aka user stories or features) that they must categorize and prioritize.

Cheers to the folks at Innovel that made this available!

I accepted a job offer today to be Director of Integration Delivery at IP Commerce, a company based in Denver. The company is building a software platform to enable and simplify electronic payments over the internet. So what will I be doing? Building and managing teams of developers that will build software to connect the system to various banks and payment service providers. I’m excited about the opportunity, and I’ll be among friends – I’ve worked with many people there in the past.

I’ve enjoyed my 2nd tour of duty with BoldTech, and the unique opportunity I had to work in China and build a cool video web site at the same time while using agile techniques. This new position should be a great opportunity for me, though, and I look forward to it.

It’s a bit premature for me to say how agile methodologies will figure into the work, but I will write more about it later.