“Yes, we have heard of agile delivery and also that it does not work from remote locations”. This is the most common question that arises in a product owner’s mind before planning for offshore product development. One of the major concerns for product owners is co-location vs. distributed teams for product development. People still think to work in an agile environment, it is important that the team is located at one place as it maximizes the team’s ability to communicate and run in an agile manner.
The author of “The Enterprise & Scrum”, Ken Schwaber, also said that face to face communication is the best and most effective. Well, no dis-respect to Mr. Schwaber, with a clear vision, the advancement in communication technology and following certain practices makes agile delivery not only possible but also effective in terms of cost and faster deliveries through remote locations.
Other concerns include time differences, project management from remote locations and collaboration amongst various teams at different locations with the help of continuous integration. I feel we can overcome these worries and adopt the distributed agile delivery model. Working with an Agile company, I see our delivery team handling projects simply by using few of the best practices like collaborative project management tools, centralized continuous integration servers, flexi work timings and many others.
For an in-depth detail you can download the White paper on Distributed Agile Delivery Model – 10 Best Practices
Author
Co-founder of People10, a 'total agile' software development and consulting company.