Lessons Learned from Distributed Agile Software Projects: A Case-Based Analysis

Agile software development in a distributed setting is challenging. The teams involved in the process face difficulties in communication, personnel selection, work culture, and knowledge management. The shortcomings associated with working in different time zones and the inabilities to develop trusting relationships between developers are well known. Companies often take recourse to agile software development methods in a distributed environment in search of reduced cost, higher efficiency, increased flexibility, and good customization. However, it is not clear whether agile methods can be successfully followed and their benefits realized in a distributed setting. This paper revisits and synthesizes the lessons learnt from twelve case studies detailing successful implementation of distributed agile software projects. The cases are analyzed from the perspective of the agile manifesto to determine how closely they follow its values and principles and to what extent they realize the benefits of the agile methodology. The cases lead to the discovery of disparate and innovative solutions adopted by different companies for overcoming the challenges of distributed agile software development. Some solutions are commonplace and others are unique and their combination in the context of the challenges is enlightening. The list of solutions can suitably guide companies that plan to adopt the agile methodology in distributed software development environments in future

OpenScrum: Scrum methodology to improve shared understanding in an open-source community

While we continue to see rise in the adoption of agile methods for software development, there has been a call to study the appropriateness of agile methods in open-source and other emerging contexts. This paper examines Scrum methodology adopted by a large, globally distributed team which builds an open-source electronic medical records platform called OpenMRS. The research uses a mixed method approach, by doing quantitative analysis of source-code, issue tracker as well as community activity (IRC logs, Mailing lists, wiki) in pre and post Scrum adoption, covering a period of 4 years. Later we conducted semi-structured interviews with core developers and followed it up with group discussions to discuss the analysis of the quantitative data and get their views on our findings. Since the project is "domain heavy", contributors (developers and implementers) need to have certain health informatics understanding before making significant contributions. This puts knowledge-sharing and "bus factor" as critical points of management for the community. The paper presents ideas about a tailored Scrum methodology that might better suited for open-source communities to improve knowledge-sharing and community participation, instead of just agilit

Applying Agile Lean to Global Software Development

Although challenges of Global Software Development (GSD) are well known in the industry, practitioners and the organizations look for ways to improve results and overcome challenges. Companies have tried to implement many workable solutions possible to solve issues like poor communication, lack of trust, low morale and many other such issues prevalent in the distributed setting. With the success of agile, the methodology gained interest in leveraging its benefits to alleviate some of these challenges. Similarly, lean was also implemented in distributed software development to resolve issues. While each methodology provided some improvement in the results achieved in global software development, many issues persisted and the desired growth/results were not received. Recent years have seen an increased interest of applying a combination of agile and lean software development paradigms to resolve current industry issues in the area and meet the needs of rapid changing environment. This study aims to study the current practices of the combination of agile lean existing in the industry and how it can be utilized in the global software development. The study focuses on challenges faced to implement agile lean and successful sustainable implementation of agile lean in an environment of global software development