VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM
FACULTY OF SCIENCES
AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN A GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT
A STUDY ON THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Non-public (Niet openbaar)
Date: 02/01/2012
Thesis
Master of Science in
Information Sciences
Supervisors:
Author:
Prof. Dr. J.C. van Vliet
R. Noordeloos (1571338)
C. Manteli
Master Thesis
“Agile software development in a globally distributed environment: A study on the benefits
and challenges”
Author
R. Noordeloos
O.Z. Achterburgwal 191-C
1012DK Amsterdam
[email protected]
Student number: 1571338
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Faculty of Sciences
De Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. J.C. van Vliet
[email protected]
Co-Supervisor
C. Manteli
[email protected]
Capgemini
Capgemini Nederland B.V.
Financial Services GBU – B60
Papendorpseweg 100
3528 BJ Utrecht
Supervisor
F. Nordkamp
[email protected]
It is not allowed to publish this document without permission of the author and Capgemini
Netherlands.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
ABSTRACT
In the past few years the use of Agile methodologies in Global Software Development (GSD)
has become an emerging trend in software engineering. Usually organisations turn either to
offshore development or Agile development to deal with the software engineering
challenges like reducing development costs, improve quality, align business and IT. Given
the Agile aspects like intensive collaboration and low-weight documentation, the two
approaches seems to be diametrically opposed to one another. Intensive collaboration is
quite challenging when one part of the team is located at another location offshore.
Furthermore, offshore development often requires more documentation and a fixed plan.
Nevertheless, it seems that organisations who successfully master the complexity of
merging the two approaches can gain advantages from both.
In this study we first conducted a literature review to identify the most well-known benefits
and challenges of using either offshore development or Agile development in software
engineering. Subsequently, we identified through the literature the challenges and benefits
of using Agile in an offshore context. A field study is conducted at two offshore projects
where they recently adopted the Agile way of working. Through this field study we tried to
acknowledge and extend the findings from the literature.
Our findings from the field study show that through the use of Agile in offshore
development many of the well-known offshore challenges seems to be mitigated. In
addition, the general benefits of using Agile methodologies in software engineering seems
also to be applicable to offshore development. More specifically, the use of Agile in an
offshore project with distributed team members seems to improve communication,
knowledge management, team cohesion and team satisfaction. Overall the quality and
performance of the project has been greatly improved. Furthermore, the challenges that
arise from the combination of Agile and Offshore can be simply tackled through the use of
several tools and practices. In this case also well-known GSD solutions were used to
overcome some general issues related to the use of Agile development in a distributed
context. This study shows that Agile and GSD can be successfully combined and that the
combination of Agile and GSD practices can lead to successful distributed collaboration.
This research is relevant to anyone who is seeking ways to apply Agile methodologies in
their globally distributed software projects.
Keywords: Global Software Development, Offshore Projects, Distributed Development, Distributed
Agile Development, Distributed Scrum, Literature Review, Field Study, Benefits and Challenges.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It would not have been possible to write this thesis without the support and input of many
people. For this reason I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who helped me
during this process. I especially want to thank my supervisors, Prof. Dr. Hans van Vliet and
Christina Manteli for their attention, guidance, critical notes and review of my work. I also
would like to thank my supervisor from Capgemini, Fabian Nordkamp, and Paul Rispens,
the current project leader of the two projects where I conducted my field study.
Furthermore I would like to thank all the participants from the interview sessions from
both Capgemini Netherlands, Capgemini India and ING for their input, openness and
willingness to participate. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and family for
keeping on supporting and motivating me.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
II
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ I
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................II
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................... III
List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... VI
List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... VI
1
2
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1
Context ....................................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2
Capgemini ................................................................................................................................................. 2
1.3
Problem statement ............................................................................................................................... 2
1.4
Research method ................................................................................................................................... 2
Global Software Development.................................................................................................... 4
2.1
2.1.1
Reduced Development costs ................................................................................................... 4
2.1.2
Reduced time to market............................................................................................................ 4
2.1.3
Larger labour pool....................................................................................................................... 5
2.1.4
Closer proximity to market ..................................................................................................... 5
2.1.5
Innovation and sharing best practices................................................................................ 5
2.2
3
Benefits of Global Software Development .................................................................................. 4
Challenges of Global Software Development ............................................................................. 5
2.2.1
Strategic issues ............................................................................................................................. 6
2.2.2
Culture and language ................................................................................................................. 6
2.2.3
knowledge management .......................................................................................................... 6
2.2.4
Infrastructure ................................................................................................................................ 8
2.3
The impact of Distance on GSD ........................................................................................................ 8
2.4
Approaches for Global Software Development......................................................................... 9
2.4.1
Reduce coordination complexity: ......................................................................................... 9
2.4.2
Reduce cultural distance ....................................................................................................... 10
2.4.3
Reduce temporal distance..................................................................................................... 10
Agile in Global Software Development................................................................................. 11
3.1
Agile software development .......................................................................................................... 11
3.2
Agile Alliance........................................................................................................................................ 12
3.3
Agile Methodologies .......................................................................................................................... 13
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
III
4
3.3.1
Scrum ............................................................................................................................................. 13
3.3.2
eXtreme Programming ........................................................................................................... 14
3.3.3
Crystal development ............................................................................................................... 14
3.3.4
Feature driven development (FDD).................................................................................. 14
3.4
The core Aspects of Agile software development ................................................................. 15
3.5
Agile in Global Software Development ...................................................................................... 17
3.5.1
Distributed Agile development (DAD) Challenges ..................................................... 17
3.5.2
How GSD can benefit from Agile practices ..................................................................... 21
Practical work ............................................................................................................................... 24
4.1
4.1.1
Team structure .......................................................................................................................... 24
4.1.2
Interviewees ............................................................................................................................... 25
4.2
Used Agile Practices .......................................................................................................................... 25
4.2.1
the Framework .......................................................................................................................... 25
4.2.2
The scrum practices ............................................................................................................ 27
4.2.3
Scrum team aspects ................................................................................................................. 28
4.2.4
Agreements ................................................................................................................................. 29
4.2.5
Overview of all the mentioned changes due to Scrum .............................................. 29
4.3
Perceived Benefits of Agile ............................................................................................................. 30
4.3.1
Communication ......................................................................................................................... 30
4.3.2
Knowledge Management ....................................................................................................... 31
4.3.3
Team cohesion ........................................................................................................................... 33
4.3.4
Team satisfaction ...................................................................................................................... 34
4.3.5
Quality & Performance ........................................................................................................... 35
4.3.6
Relating Benefits to literature ............................................................................................. 37
4.3.7
Relationships between the categories ............................................................................. 38
4.4
How the projects handled the DAD-Challenges ..................................................................... 39
4.5
The mentioned challenges from the field study .................................................................... 42
4.5.1
Technical issues......................................................................................................................... 42
4.5.2
Language & Culture issues .................................................................................................... 42
4.5.3
Trust issues ................................................................................................................................. 43
4.5.4
Business and Agile processes alignment issues ........................................................... 43
4.6
5
Case description.................................................................................................................................. 24
discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 44
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 45
5.1
Limitations ............................................................................................................................................ 45
5.2
Further research ................................................................................................................................. 45
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 47
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
IV
Appendix A: Agile Manifesto ............................................................................................................. 51
Appendix B: Interview Structure .................................................................................................... 52
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
V
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1: Research model ................................................................................................................................ 3
Figure 2-1: Knowledge Capture and Acquisition, adopted from. ........................................................ 7
Figure 3-1: Survey of used Software methods among 1.298 IT professionals............................. 13
Figure 3-2: Incremental gains of adding either Offshore or Agile development......................... 17
Figure 4-1: The ScrumPlus Framework ....................................................................................................... 26
Figure 4-2: An eye-catcher tool ....................................................................................................................... 28
Figure 4-3: Traditional- vs. Agile way of working.................................................................................... 31
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3-1: Challenges of DAD related to the Agile aspects ................................................................... 20
Table 4-1: Interviewee profile.......................................................................................................................... 25
Table 4-2: Overview of functional changes................................................................................................. 29
Table 4-3: Communication related benefits ............................................................................................... 31
Table 4-4: KM related benefits ......................................................................................................................... 33
Table 4-5: Team cohesion related benefits ................................................................................................. 34
Table 4-6: Team satisfaction related benefits ........................................................................................... 35
Table 4-7: Quality & Performance related benefits ................................................................................. 36
Table 4-8: Benefits from literature related to the benefits in the field study............................... 37
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
VI
1
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this chapter is to provide some contextual background on the purpose of this
Master thesis. Furthermore, this chapter describes the organisation where the research is
conducted, the main research question and the research method.
1.1
CONTEXT
These days Agile methodologies become more and more popular in software engineering as
an alternative to traditional (plan-driven) approaches (West & Hammond, 2010). Agile
methodologies are characterized by its high flexibility, small teams and short production
cycles. One of the fundamental tenets in Agile development is the importance of
communication between the various stakeholders involved in the developing process. At
the same time communication is preferred to be face-to-face in a single open development
space where the team can work closely together (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001).
Another trend in software engineering is offshore development (Ågerfalk, B, Holmström
Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008). In offshore development much of the work is done in lowwage countries like India. In these low-wage countries, compared to onshore development,
the same amount of work can be done for a fraction of the cost. Offshore development has
become broadly possible since the deployment of cross-continental high-speed
communication links (Ågerfalk, B, Holmström Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008). Though this
globally dispersed team members can easily communicate and sharing knowledge through
several communication channels.
It may seems contradictory, but also in Global Software Development (GSD) Agile
methodologies are gaining more popularity (Balasubramaniam, Lan, Kannan, & Peng,
2006). Agile methodologies can help to improve communication and collaboration in
offshore development which often results in better business / IT alignment and
responsiveness to business changes (Moore & Barnett, 2004). However, when using Agile
methodologies in GSD, the main principals of Agile become more challenging: direct face-toface communication occurs less and the team is not working closely together in the same
room anymore. In offshore development communication and collaboration is always more
challenging (Ågerfalk & Fitzgerald, 2006). But since Agile relies more on good
communication and face-to-face contact than any other software development
methodology, the implications will be far higher (Berczuk, 2007).
Although more and more scientific literature on this topic becomes available, still more
research can be conducted about how Agile can be successfully combined with Offshore
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
1
development. Therefore, in this study we attempted to further research the implications of
using Agile methodologies in GSD and investigate how organisations can successfully use
the benefits of both Agile and offshore development in their software engineering projects.
1.2
CAPGEMINI
The research was conducted at the Financial Services Global Business Unit of Capgemini
Netherlands. Capgemini is a French global IT and business consultancy firm with a staff of
114,274 people (June 30, 2011) operating in 40 countries (Capgemini, 2011). Capgemini
delivers different services through 4 disciplines: Consulting, Technology, Outsourcing and
local professional services. The last discipline is delivered through their daughter company
Sogeti.
More precisely, the study was conducted at two globally distributed projects. The
projects were carried out for one of their clients, namely, ING Netherlands. ING is a global
financial institution offering several services like retail and commercial banking. The ING
projects of Capgemini had combined team members of both Capgemini and ING. There
were several reasons to choose for Capgemini. Firstly, since Capgemini is one of the
largest IT and business consultancy firms, it has many interesting opportunities for
research within the field of software development. Secondly since offshoring and Agile
are two of their competences, there is also a lot of experience and thereby knowledge
available on these two domains.
1.3
PROBLEM STATEMENT
As described in the context, using Agile practices in Global Software Development (GSD)
brings new challenges regarding communication, collaboration and control. On the other
hand, Agile practices also seems to bring certain benefits to GSD. This leads us to the main
research question of this thesis:
What is the impact of Agile practices in Global Software Development
The aim of the study is to investigate what the impact is of using Agile practices in Global
Software Development projects. We will both look at the benefits and challenges and use
them to generate an more overall conclusion (chapter 5).
1.4
RESEARCH METHOD
The research itself includes two parts. First a literature research will be conducted to
determine what empirical information is already available about:

The challenges and benefits of GSD in general.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
2

The main principles and aspects of Agile development.

The challenges and benefits of using these main principles and aspects of Agile in
GSD projects.
The second part of the research is based on a field study. This field study is conducted by
interviewing several participants from two Distributed Agile Development projects of
Capgemini and ING. From this field study we will:

Identify the benefits and challenges of using Agile compare to traditional methods in
GSD.

Compare the identified benefits and challenges with the results from the literature.
Structure
The overall structere of the study consists of four phases (see figure 2-1). In the first phase
a literature review is conducted to gain more knowledge about the problem domain and to
find out what already identified benefits and challenges are in this area. The second phase
consists of a field study. The data from this field study will be obtained by semi-structured
interview sessions with several participants of two distirubeted Agile projects. In the third
phase the data from the field study will be analysed and compared. Finaly, in the fourth
phase the conclussions and thereby the answer to the main research question will be
Literature
Review
Phase 4
Phase 3
Phase 2
Phase 1
formulated.
Field Study
Comparative
Analysis
Conclusion
Figure 1-1: Research model
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
3
2
GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Since the deployment of cross-continental high-speed communication links the
globalization of software development has been an emerging trend in the field of software
engineering (Ågerfalk, et al. 2008). Documentation, source-code can easily be transferred
from one site to the other site. Today globally dispersed team members and distributed
teams can now easily communicate with each other through telephone, audio conferencing,
video conferencing, etc. (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). Furthermore global markets and
businesses also have created a need for developing software close to the customer
(Lehtonen, 2009).
2.1
BENEFITS OF GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
In this section the well-known benefits of GSD are described. The different benefits are
initially adopted from a research of Ågerfalk et al. (2008) and have also been previous
acknowledged in other researches about GSD (Ågerfalk, B, Holmström Olsson, & Ó
Conchúir, 2008).
2.1.1 REDUCED DEVELOPMENT COSTS
One of the most obvious reasons for organisations to step in the field of GSD is attributed to
the potential of reducing development costs (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). Because the
differences in wages across regions can significantly differ, the same amount of work in
low-wage countries can be done for a fraction of the cost. Although this is one of the
strongest business drivers to offshore software development in low-wage countries, some
of the savings are offset by the increased costs (Keil, Paulish, & Sangwan, 2006). This
offsetting costs are related to costs of quality resulting from misunderstanding, cost due to
extra technical resources and to certain staffing roles which may not exist in onshore
software development projects.
2.1.2 REDUCED TIME TO MARKET
Time zone differences bring also new advantages to software development projects.
Development teams who are distributed across different time zones around the world can
increase their number of development hours in a 24-hour day. This can even be increased
to a full 24-hour development process in a day. This is also called a “Follow-the-sun”
development model and is also known as round-the-clock development (Ågerfalk, B,
Holmström Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008). This 24-hour development model can be achieved
by handing off the work of one team at the end of their working day to another team in a
different time zone.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
4
2.1.3 LARGER LABOUR POOL
GSD provides organisations the possibility to leverage their resources across distance.
Companies have access to a large pool of skilled workers to extend their software
development activities (Ågerfalk, B, Holmström Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008). The large
availability of skilled engineering talent in emerging economies and the increasing difficulty
in finding such talent in advanced economies have led to a new trend for organisations to
globally source staff (Mannin, Massini, & Arie Y, 2008). Nowadays, getting access to talent in
emerging countries is even so important that organisations have to compete for it (Lewin,
Massini, & Peeters, 2009).
2.1.4 CLOSER PROXIMITY TO MARKET
When established at the location of your customer, GSD makes it possible to develop
software close to the customer and thereby increase your knowledge of the local market
(Ågerfalk, B, Holmström Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008). This can be especially important
when intensive communication and relationships are needed between the customer and the
developer. Also, from a strategic point of view it can be beneficial to be closer to your
customers and be globally present in your market.
2.1.5 INNOVATION AND SHARING BEST PRACTICES
Organizations can take advantages of increased innovation and share best practices that
arise from the collaboration of team members who come from different national and
organizational backgrounds (Ågerfalk, B, Holmström Olsson, & Ó Conchúir, 2008) . Small
changes originated from sharing best practices within GSD can have a huge positive effect
on the entire project (Ebert & Philip, 2001).
2.2
CHALLENGES OF GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Developing software is not a simple task, even when using well-defined development
methods and plans, the quality of the software still depends on the quality of the process
used in its preparation (Prikladnicki, Audy, & Evaristo, 2003). Furthermore, successful
software development highly depends on effective communication across and within teams
(Cataldo & Ehrlich, May 2011). Developing software with globally dispersed teams makes
this process even more challenging since people from different organizational and national
cultures and time zones are involved in the same development process (Damian & Zowghi,
2003).
In this section we will discuss the most well-known challenges in GSD as described by
Herbsleb and Moitra (2001).
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
5
2.2.1 STRATEGIC ISSUES
New strategic challenges arise when organisations are involved in GSD. Organisations have
to decide how to spread work across sites which can be a difficult and complex task
(Herbsleb & Moitra, 2001). Solutions are constrained by the infrastructure, availability of
resources at the sites, their levels of experience, etc. Another challenge is that organisations
have to deal with resistance to GSD. This resistance often occurs because of misalignment
about the perceived benefits of GSD between different management levels (Herbsleb &
Moitra, 2001). Due to this employees might experience loss of control and believe their jobs
are threatened by the much cheaper employees at the offshore site. This might cause trust
issues between the distributed team members which directly threatens the success of the
entire project itself since trust is one of the fundamental factors for the success of a GSD
project (Moe & Šmite, 2008).
2.2.2 CULTURE AND LANGUAGE
GSD requires close cooperation of people with different cultural backgrounds. Co-located
teams may consist of people with different national and organisational backgrounds. Some
people might find these differences enriching, but they can also lead to serious
misunderstandings among people who do not know each other well (Herbsleb & Moitra,
2001). For instance, norms of acceptable work hours can differ between countries and
within companies differences in culture may exist on norms and values, different view on
authority, and dress code. Furthermore language barriers can have a huge impact on the
performance of a team. Language barriers affect communication between team members
but can also have effect on the communication between client and customer. A study from
Damian et al. (2003) shows that this can have a significant impact on achieving a common
understanding and negotiation of requirements. Those misunderstandings may lead to
requirements which are only meaningful in context of certain cultural beliefs and values.
2.2.3 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge management plays (KM) a key role in GSD. Without effective information and
knowledge sharing mechanism, organisations can not benefit from the advantages of GSD
(Herbsleb & Moitra, 2001). KM involves the capture and acquisition of knowledge.
Knowledge capture is the process of recording knowledge in a medium, and transforming
and encoding it into information. Knowledge acquisition is the process of gaining
knowledge and therefore the process of learning and understanding information. Figure 4-1
shows the interaction between these two phenomena.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
6
Figure 2-1: Knowledge Capture and Acquisition, adopted from (Correia & Aguiar, 2009).
The effectiveness how knowledge is captured in artefacts and acquired by other team
members is of crucial importance on the success of an software engineering project
(Correia & Aguiar, 2009). KM-processes in the field of software engineering encompasses
requirements gathering, designing, development, testing, deployment, maintenance and
activities regarding project coordination and management. In GSD, organisations might fail
in uniformly sharing information between the customer and its market. Poor
documentation can also cause ineffective collaboration between the different sites and
misunderstandings of the requirements and their priorities.
Within the field of KM there can be made an distinction between tacit and explicit
knowledge (Nonaka, 2007). Most software development companies traditionally focus on
explicit knowledge, but both are equally important (Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2000).
Knowledge creation is a continuous process of dynamic interaction between tacit and
explicit knowledge (Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2000).
-
Tacit knowledge: This type of knowledge consists of technical skills which are informal
and hard to pin down if someone would ask you to do that. It can also be seen as
someone’s know-how or insight on a certain practice or topic and is based on individual
models, perceptions, and beliefs. For this reason tacit knowledge is highly personal,
hard to formalize and relatively difficult to communicate to others.
-
Explicit knowledge: This type of knowledge is, in contrast to tacit knowledge, formal
and systematic. Explicit knowledge exists in the forms of documentation, a scientific
formula, a manual, etc. For this reason explicit knowledge can relatively easy be stored,
transferred, and processed.
In software engineering the share of tacit knowledge is more challenging when team
members are globally dispersed. Effective and successful transfer of tacit knowledge
requires extensive personal contact and trust (Parviainen & Tihinen, 2011). Furthermore,
the backgrounds of team members and thus the tacit knowledge are often different in GSD,
causing different interpretations of ambiguous or limited defined concepts (Parviainen &
Tihinen, 2011).
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
7
2.2.4 INFRASTRUCTURE
The infrastructure available at the offshore site will affect the quality of the outsourced
service (Hirschheim, George, & Fan Wong, 2004). Telecommunication, internet connections
and maybe even the supply of power may not be very reliable in some of these countries.
Because of this, long-distance relationships may suffer. However governments of emerging
countries are becoming more aware that reliable power supply and a good IT-infrastructure
are fundamental drivers for enabling growth in their IT industry (Hirschheim, George, &
Fan Wong, 2004).
2.3
THE IMPACT OF DISTANCE ON GSD
As described in the previous two paragraphs, GSD does both have opportunities and
challenges for organisations. According to Ågerfalk et al. (2006), these opportunities and
challenges are mostly about communication, coordination and control and can be related to
temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distance between the different team members.
Table 2-1 provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges of GSD by relating the
software development processes of communication, coordination and control to three
dimensions of distance.
Socio-cultural Distance
+ Innovation and sharing
best practice
- Cultural
misunderstandings
+ Coordination needs can
be minimized
- Typically increased
coordination costs
+ More flexible
coordination planning
- Reduced informal contact
can lead to lack of critical
task awareness
+ Greater learning and
richer skill set
- Inconsistent work practices
can impinge on effective
coordination
- Reduced cooperation
arising from
misunderstanding
+ Time zone
effectiveness
can be utilized for
gaining efficient 24x7
working
- Management of project
artifacts may be subject
to delays
+ Communication channels
can leave an audit trail
- Difficult to convey vision
and strategy
- Perceived threat from
training low-cost rivals”
+ Pro activeness inherent in
certain cultures
- Different perceptions of
authority can undermine
morale
- Managers must adapt to
local regulations
Communication
+ Closer proximity to
market
+ Access to remote skilled
work forces
- Face-to-face meetings
Difficult
Coordination
+ Improved record of
communications
-Reduced opportunities
for
synchronous
communication
Geographical Distance
Control
Temporal Distance
Table 2-1: Opportunities and Challenges in GSD, adopted from (Ågerfalk & Fitzgerald, 2006)
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
8
2.4
APPROACHES FOR GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
To deal with the challenges of GSD, different approaches might be useful. The most obvious
approach is to use technical solutions for reducing distance. Literature on GSD has
traditionally focused on those technical solutions for reducing distance (Kotlarsky & Oshri,
2005). However, there are also some emerging non-technical approaches in GSD (Carmel &
Agarwal, 2001). This section will focus on these non-technical approaches.
2.4.1 REDUCE COORDINATION COMPLEXITY:
The transition and coordination of tasks between the onshore and the offshore site is one of
the main organizational difficulties in GSD (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). Usually the onshore
site is a company in a developed country and the offshore site is located in an emerging
developing country. The tasks that can be divided between those two sites range from welldefined and structured to poorly defined and unstructured. The level of coordination
complexity between the two sites increases when tasks are not well defined and
unstructured (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). However, figure 2-1 shows this is not always the
case. Organisations can move to the far right or to the far left to reduce coordination
complexity.
Figure 2-2: Alternative paths for alleviating intensive collaboration (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001)
Organisations situated at to the lower left corner of figure 2-1 are outsourcing relative
simple straightforward tasks which are quite easy to manage over distance since they
require less communication and the tasks are fairly stable. On the other hand organisations
at the right lower case of figure 2-1 are outsourcing relative complex and unstructured
tasks. Here the offshore site takes full responsibility which alleviates many of the distance
problems (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). Organisations which are using the follow-the-sun
approach have to deal with more complex coordination since both sides are adding their
own value to the product and have shared responsibilities.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
9
2.4.2 REDUCE CULTURAL DISTANCE
Cultural distance is the degree of difference between the onshore and the offshore site
(Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). As described in chapter 2.2.2. the differences manifest in the
form of organizational culture and national culture. Organizational culture is about the
norms and values within an organization which also includes the use of methodologies for
software development. National culture encompasses an ethnic group’s norms, values and
spoken language. Carmel & Agarwal (2001) describe four common arrangements to reduce
cultural distance between the different sites:
1. (Bridgehead): This arrangement is also known as the 75/25 rule. 75 percent of
personnel work occurs offshore and 25 percent occurs onshore. The people who work
onshore have more experience and are culturally assimilated. They act to understand
the costumer’s requirements and translate them to the offshore employees. This results
in less misunderstanding and higher understanding of the costumer.
2. (Internalization of foreign Entity): Companies in North-America and Europe, primary
technology firms, are opening internal-to-the-firm foreign software centers. Because all
the employees are within the same firm, organizational cultural distance is reduced.
3. (The cultural liaison): A project manager or key executive who travels back and forth
between the key stakeholders sites can bridge between culture, mediate conflicts and
resolve cultural miscommunications.
4. (Language): Spoken language is an important component of national cultural distance.
Many decision makers on high executive levels hesitate to engage in international
alliances in which the command of English is weak. This is also the reason why
countries with strong English language capacities benefit from the offshore trend of
software development.
2.4.3 REDUCE TEMPORAL DISTANCE
Although many asynchronous technologies are available in GSD, synchronized work is still
preferred (Carmel & Agarwal, 2001). Synchronized communication includes telephone,
audio conferencing, video conferencing and application sharing. The advantage of
synchronized work is that misunderstanding, miscommunications, and small problems can
relatively easily tackled before they become bigger. The approach to reduce temporal
distance is to minimize the time-zone differences between the different development sites.
However, this approach eliminates the benefits as described in chapter 2.1.2 of a follow-thesun approach.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
10
3
AGILE IN GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
In this chapter Agile is discussed in relation to GSD. First we will discuss what Agile
software development is and what the main aspects of Agile development are. Secondly, we
will discuss what the challenges and benefits are of using Agile methodologies in GSD.
3.1
AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Agile software development is a term used to describe a group of software development
methodologies based on iterative and incremental development. Agile development is
characterized by its high flexibility, small teams and short productions iterations (1 to 4
weeks). In every iteration a complete development life-cycle is finished that results in a
working piece of software that is ready for release.
Agile software development originated in the 1990’s as an alternative to the traditional
plan-driven development methods (Larman & Basili, 2003). The traditional methodologies
were experienced as very detailed, rigid and bureaucratic. Most of the those methodologies
were based on the often used waterfall model. During the development process
requirements can change over time. Caused by for instance market changes or new insights
that developers can have during the development process. For this reason software
methodologies had to become more adaptive and flexible.
The word ‘‘Agile’’ itself means that something is flexible and responsive, so Agile methods
implies its ‘‘ability to survive in an atmosphere of constant change and emerge with success’’
(Anderson, 2004). An Agile team is self-managing, consists of different functional
disciplines and has a team size between 5 to 10 people. The focus of an Agile team is on
communication which is preferred to be face-to-face. For this reason it is also preferred that
Agile teams work in a single open development space. After every iteration the product is
briefly evaluated. If necessary new priorities can be set or requirements can be added or
changed. Through this the project can constantly meet the demands and requirements of
the customer in a constant changing business environment.
What Agile really makes different other than traditional (non-Agile) methodologies is not
it’s practice but their recognition of people as the primary driver of project success, this
together with focus on effectiveness and manoeuvrability (Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001).
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
11
3.2
AGILE ALLIANCE
The Agile Alliance is a group of software developers that classified a group of comparable
software development methodologies, all focused on flexible an iterative development, as
“Agile development methods”. Next to this they also came up with “The Agile Manifesto”
where the principles and goals of Agile development has been put down.
The Agile Manifesto is as follows:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others
do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions
over
processes and tools
Working software
over
comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration
over
contract negotiation
Responding to change
over
following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
The four value statements have all a certain form. In each point, the first part indicates a
preference, while the second part describes an item that is of less priority but still is
important in software development.

In the first one, The Agile Alliance recognizes the importance of processes and tools
but moreover it recognizes the interaction of skilled individuals is of even greater
importance.

Similarly, comprehensive documentation is not a bad thing, but the primary focus
must remain on delivering working software.

The third point emphasizes that contract negotiation is not a bad practice, but an
insufficient one. A contract may provide some boundary conditions, but only
through on-going collaboration and interaction can a team better understand and
deliver what the client really wants.

The last point is about following a plan which also has not to be a bad thing. But in
the constant changing world of business and technology, following a tight plan can
becomes dangerous when it blinds you to change. Therefore, responding to changes
should be considered as more important than following a plan.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
12
3.3
AGILE METHODOLOGIES
As mentioned in paragraph 3.1, we use the word Agile to describe flexible and iterative
software development methodologies. Nowadays many software methodologies exist which
can be considered as Agile. Figure 3-1 shows an overview of the popularity of different
software development methodologies based on a survey by West & Hammond (2010)
among 1298 IT professionals. This study show that 35% of the used software development
mythologies in 2010 can be considered as Agile. In this paragraph some of them will be
described in more detail.
Figure 3-1: Survey of used Software methods among 1.298 IT professionals, adopted from (West &
Hammond, 2010)
3.3.1 SCRUM
Scrum is an Agile project management framework for software development. Scrum does
not define specific software development techniques, but it concentrates how the team
should function. It was designed to increase development speed, align business objectives
and individuals, create a performance driven culture, achieve stable and consistent
communication, enhancing individual development and quality of life (Sutherland, Viktorov,
Blount, & Puntikov, 2008). The term ‘Scrum’ originally derives from a Rugby strategy with
the aim of getting an out-of play ball back into the game with teamwork (Schwaber &
Beedle, 2002).
The main idea of Scrum is that the development of software involves several environmental
and technical variables (e.g. time frame, requirements, resources and technology) that are
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
13
likely to change during the development process. This can make the process unpredictable
and complex. Scrum is designed to be flexible and therefore able to response to those
changes resulting in an useful system when delivered.
3.3.2 EXTREME PROGRAMMING
Extreme programming (XP) was created by Kent Beck during a project at Chrysler. His aim
was to create a new method suitable for an object oriented way of working with small
teams at one location. The method is based on five pillars: Communication, Simplicity,
Feedback, Courage, and Respect. The individual pillars are not new in software engineering,
but XP tries to integrate them into a new methodology. The term “Extreme” is derived from
the idea of taking these principles and practices to an extreme level.
3.3.3 CRYSTAL DEVELOPMENT
Crystal development is a family of methods. The person who thought up Crystal
development, Alistair Cockburn, came up with this approach because he believed that there
is no “on-size-fits-all” development process (Williams, 2007). The crystal development
family consists of four different methods with all their own set of recommended practices,
roles, work products, notations and techniques. The most Agile version is called “Crystal
Clear”, followed by “Crystal Yellow, “Crystal Orange” and “Crystal Red”. A graph is used to
determine which crystal method should be used as a starting point. Based on team size and
the criticality, the corresponding Crystal methodology is identified.
In Crystal development there are two main rules that hold for all methods. The first one is
that incremental cycles should not exceed four months. The second rule is that after a
delivery a reflection workshop must be held so that the methodology is self-adapting.
3.3.4 FEATURE DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (FDD)
Feature Driven Development (FDD) is a development methodology based on the principle:
“Just enough process to ensure scalability, repeatability, encourage innovation and
creativity”. A condition of FDD is that there are good skilled workers available and strong
domain experts. FDD has five incremental and iterative processes. Process 1 through 3 are
done at the start of a project and updated throughout the project. Process 4 and 5 are done
incrementally on two week cycles. Each process is constrained by a certain amount of time
that should spend on.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
14
3.4
THE CORE ASPECTS OF AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
In this section the different aspects of Agile software development will be discussed. Since
this thesis is about Agile in GSD, we will later relate the aspects to GSD. To do this
systematically, we defined 6 core aspects of Agile in software development. These core
aspects are derived from the Agile Manifesto (see Appendix A: Agile Manifesto) and
different papers about Agile software development. In chapter 5 we will also take a look on
them in relation to the field study done at a Distributed Agile development project.
A1.
Intensive Collaboration
This aspect reflects that all the team members should work daily together thorough the
project in a very close way with frequent communication. Communication is vital in any
software development project but since in Agile the work is partitioned into increments
which may be developed in parallel, intensive communication and collaboration is of even
more importance (Miller, 2001). In the Agile Manifesto this aspect can be found in principle
4 that says that: “business people and developers must work together daily through the
project”, principle 6 which state that: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying
information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.“, and principle 11
that says that: “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing
teams.”.
A2.
Team ownership
This aspect concerns that what is produced belongs not to an individual but to the entire
team. This means that any team member can change and is fully responsible for the code, its
quality and the overall performance of the process. This may seems to be the most
controversial aspect of Agile development. If a team owns its process and can manipulate it
to meet the needs of the project, how can quality be ensured? However, providing the
development team with the authority of owning their own process seems to radically
improve their effectiveness (Turner, 2007). When looking into the Agile Manifesto this
aspect could be found in principle 11 (described in aspect A1) and to a certain extent in
principle 5: “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and
support they need, and trust them to get the job done”.
A3.
Adaptive development
During the development of a project new risks may be exposed which require additional
work that was not planned (Miller, 2001). Moreover, the customer may demands new
requirements caused by some changes in business which may also lead to additional
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
15
activities. Agile encourages these changes rather than discourages it. The tolerance of
change in a methodology should be based on the change rate of a specific environment and
not on the internal view of how much change is acceptable (Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001).
In essence Agile is about creating and responding to change which, in the end, leads to a
more valuable product for the customer. The Agile Manifest states about this in principle 1:
“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of
valuable software.” and principle 2: “Welcome changing requirements, even late in
development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.”.
A4.
Short iterations, incremental development, and continuously integration
Agile development is done in short cycles (called iterations) of some weeks. Each cycle
delivers an incremental component of business functionality to the product. In most cases
more cycles are needed to make the product fully functional. During the development the
work should be integrated and built as frequent as possible. By doing so, problems can be
detected in an early stage before they are more difficult to deal with. In the Agile manifesto
we can find this in principle 1 (described in A3), principle 3: “Deliver working software
frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter
timescale.”, principle 7: “Working software is the primary measure of progress.”, and principle
9: “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility”.
A5.
Simplicity
This aspect implies that Agile development favours simplicity. By designing simple
solutions and avoiding unnecessary complexity and extra code, there will be fewer changes
and the changes itself are more easy to handle (Abrahamsson, Salo, & Ronkainen, 2002).
The aspect is also based on the assumption that changes are likely to happen during the
project. The Agile Manifesto mentions this in principle 10: “Simplicity, the art of maximizing
the amount of work not done is essential.”.
A6.
Continuous improvement
Agile development methodologies continuously strive to improve their processes. Through
retrospective or reflection meetings the effectiveness of the performed work, used methods,
and intentional goals are analysed. This review support the teams learning and estimation
for the upcoming iterations. The Agile manifesto states about this in principle 12: “At
regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its
behaviour accordingly.”.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
16
3.5
AGILE IN GLOBAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Agile development has steadily gained acceptance as a feasible approach to software
development. At the same time, since software developing continues to take advantage of
the opportunities of GSD, Agile methods are also being attempted in software development
with globally dispersed teams (Taylor, Greer, Sage, Coleman, McDaid, & Keenan, 2006). On
the other hand organisations who are already involved in Agile development can also adopt
offshore development into their processes. The drivers for using Agile processes in GSD
differ from both points of views. In figure 3-2 this difference is depicted.
Figure 3-2: Incremental gains of adding either Offshore or Agile development, adopted from (Moore
& Barnett, 2004).

Companies already involved in Offshore development can adopt the Agile principles
into their processes. Offshore projects have already demonstrated that high quality
software delivery is possible at lower cost. However, these benefits do not
automatically enable improvement in business and IT alignment or the
responsiveness to business changes. Adding Agile processes to offshore projects can
improve business and IT alignment and responsiveness to business changes (Moore
& Barnett, 2004).

Companies already committed to Agile development can extend their processes
with offshore development. Offshore development can improve further cost
reducing due to cheaper labour rates, give access to global talent which may not be
available in the location of the company, and give access to global markets (Moore &
Barnett, 2004).
3.5.1 DISTRIBUTED AGILE DEVELOPMENT (DAD) CHALLENGES
Software development is always a challenging undertaking which requires high
commitment from all the participants in it (Kontio, Höglund, Rydén, & Abrahamsson, 2004).
These challenges are even greater in Distributed Agile Projects since Agile emphasis the
need for communication and efficient information sharing, but distributed development
makes this more difficult. The challenges regarding from this are stated in this paragraph.
Each challenge consists of a contradistinction between Agile and GSD as identified by
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
17
Balasubramaniam et al. (2006). Every challenge also comes with one or more questions
which later will be answered through the field study (paragraph 4.4). We will also relate the
challenges to the core aspects of Agile software development, as described in paragraph 3.3.
An overview is given of all the challenges in relation to the different core aspects of Agile in
table 3-1.
DAD Challenge 1: Communication need versus communication impedance
Communication is probably the most obvious challenge of DAD. As described in chapter 2.3,
communication and knowledge management are a big challenge when teams are dispersed
between various locations around the world (Mockus & Herbsleb, 2001). In Agile,
communication is a vital part of the process (Miller, 2001). Frequent face-to-face
communication between the different team members is of great importance as described in
the first aspect of Agile development in paragraph 3.4. This conflicts with GSD where team
members can be dispersed between various location around the world which makes
communication more challenging due to distance.
Q1. How could daily face-to-face communication be arranged?
Q2. What kind of communication practices and media are suitable for communication?
Q3. How could informal communication be encouraged?
Q4. How could the risk for misunderstandings (e.g. requirements) be minimized?
Q5. How could trust be built and retained between team members to ensure open
communication?
DAD Challenge 2: Fixed requirements versus evolving requirements
Due to the limited ability to control activities of globally dispersed teams, global software
development often relies on fixed commitment and requirements (Balasubramaniam, Lan,
Kannan, & Peng, 2006). On the contrary, Agile processes are adaptive and emphasize
changes during the development process (Aspect 3). In Agile development, requirements
can change overtime and are derived from a constant negotiation between the developer
and customer.
Q6. How can we achieve a balance between fixed and evolving requirements?
Q7. How could frequent communication between on-site customer and offshore
developer be encouraged?
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
18
DAD Challenge 3: People-oriented versus process-oriented control
In GSD control is often achieved by establishing formal processes (Balasubramaniam, Lan,
Kannan, & Peng, 2006). Oppositely, Agile is more people-oriented and control is achieved by
informal processes (Aspect 2: Team ownership). However, when introducing Agile to
offshore development, Agile gives people more autonomy and decision-making power than
most of the offshore developers are used to (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2006). It is not
obvious that every team member can adopt this new way-of-working.
Q8. What would be the right balance between people- and process oriented control?
Q9. How could we introduce Agile to the offshore site and ensure that the principles of
Agile are well adapted?
DAD Challenge 4: Formal agreements versus informal agreements
In
Agile
development
project
contracts
are
sketchy
and
informally
defined
(Balasubramaniam, Lan, Kannan, & Peng, 2006). Besides that, project designs and plans are
in Agile as simple as possible (described in Aspect 5) and the focus is on creating customer
value in a constant changing business environment rather than following a fixed plan
(Aspect 3). In contrast, global software development often relies on explicit targets and
detailed specifications of the requirements to make the process more manageable
(Balasubramaniam, Lan, Kannan, & Peng, 2006).
Q10. How can we use the informality of Agile in a distributed context?
DAD Challenge 5: Short iterations versus distance complexity
Agile methodologies use short iterations, frequent builds, and continuous integration
(Aspect 4). These practices bring challenges to configuration management and version
control in software engineering in general (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2006). But this is even
more challenging in distributed development were this has to be manageable over different
(offshore) sites. When teams are dispersed over different countries, long distance and bad
infrastructure can cause extra challenges. When even different companies are involved, it
might be difficult to use a common set of tools and solutions.
Q11. How could Agile development function in GSD regarding the technical and legal
differences between companies and countries?
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
19
DAD Challenge 6: Team cohesion versus team dispersion
Agile processes encourage collaboration among team members (Miller, 2001). Projects in
which team members work intensively together perform better based on the increase in
both information flow and amicability across the specialties (Cockburn, Agile Software
Development, 2001). In Agile aspect 1 and 2 the importance of team cohesion is also stated.
Furthermore during retrospectives and reflection meetings team cohesion is also of
importance. Team members should feel free to discuss difficult topics and give comments to
each other (Aspect 6). In distributed development team members are likely less to perceive
themselves as part of one team (Balasubramaniam, Lan, Kannan, & Peng, 2006). Team
members can be dispersed between different locations, countries and time zones which
makes communication and thereby team cohesion more difficult. This has a direct effect on
the performance of a DAD team since Agile is based on constant collaboration on all the
different aspects of the project. Another issues within this subject is that offshore team
members often have a deep-rooted and rigid perception of their responsibilities and do not
feel collectively responsible for the overall development (Kajko-Mattsson, Azizyan, & Katrin
Magarian, 2010). This directly conflicts with the Agile principles of collective code
ownership, self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
Q12. How can team cohesion be improved in DAD?
Overview of the Challenges in DAD related to the Agile Aspects:
DAD Challenge / Agile Aspect
1: Communication need versus communication impedance
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6
X
X
2: Fixed requirements versus evolving requirements
X
3: People-oriented versus process-oriented control
X
4: Formal agreements versus informal agreements
X
5: Short iterations versus distance complexity
6: Team cohesion versus team dispersion
X
X
X
A1
Intensive collaboration
A2
Team ownership
A3
Adaptive development
A4
Short iterations, incremental development, and continuously integration
A5
Simplicity
A6
Continuous improvement
X
Table 3-1: Challenges of DAD related to the Agile aspects
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
20
3.5.2 HOW GSD CAN BENEFIT FROM AGILE PRACTICES
This section presents some benefits of using Agile practices in GSD. For every Agile aspect,
as described in paragraph 3.2, we will discuss how distributed teams can benefit of applying
that aspect in GSD. We will also relate them to the different challenges of GSD as described
in paragraph 2.2.1. In Chapter 4 we will further discuss the benefits in relation to the results
of the field study.
Aspect 1: Intensive collaboration
Although collaboration and communication are one of the biggest challenges, it can also be
seen as a great benefit of using Agile in GSD. Agile methods emphasize communication and
provide useful communication and collaboration practices. Applying those practices in
offshore development can help improve many issues related to distance (Holmström,
Fitzgerald, Ågerfalk, & Conchúir, 2006). Increased collaboration and communication
between the dispersed team members can even reduce cultural differences between the
participants (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2006). Frequent and open communication between
team members and the frequent releases to the customer builds trust and helps to better
understand each other’s culture. Within the field of KM, intensive collaboration and
communication can increase shared tacit interpersonal knowledge between the distributed
team members and reduces the need of sharing explicit knowledge (Ågerfalk & Fitzgerald,
2006). In other words, it can helps to improve the knowledge on for instance the business
domain of the customer at the offshore and it lowers the need to make these requirements
clear through extensive documentation.
When looking to the challenges of GSD and the benefits of Agile, aspect A1 seems to be
beneficial to GSD challenge C1 (Strategic issues) since Agile can improve trust. challenge C2
(Culture and language) and C3 (Knowledge Management).
Aspect 2: Team ownership
Team ownership can serve as an important safety net in GSD (Šmite, Moe, & Ågerfalk,
2010). Project teams are able to identify any defects or deviations from the customer
requirements that may have been introduced by a team member who was making those
changes or implementations. As described in Chapter 2, in GSD misunderstandings due to
culture differences and the distance between the different development sites, are more
likely to happen. For this reason Agile aspect 2 could be very helpful to GSD challenge C2
(Culture and language) and C3 (KM).
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
21
Aspect 3: Adaptive development
Applying Agile methods in offshore development brings also additional flexibility to the
project. The customer can apply changes during the development phase without big
consequences related to contract negotiations (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2006). The
costumer also does not have to specify all the requirements at forehand since Agile
processes are adaptive and focus on creating value to the customer. On the other hand, in
situations where companies have established their software development at the offshore
site of their customer, Agile can increase the advantages of closer proximity to market
(described in paragraph 2.1.4) since the customer is relatively more involved than in
traditional software development. So aspect A3 seems to be beneficial to challenge C1
(strategic) and C2 (Culture and language).
Aspect 4: Short iterations, incremental development, and continuously integration
Frequent integrations and testing’s also help to ensure that every team member has
understood the requirements correctly (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2006). This is especially
helpful if the participants in a globally dispersed team are from different cultures and have
not worked together before (challenge C2). Through frequent integrations and testing’s,
team members will get a lot of feedback and any misunderstandings become visible in an
early stage of the project. This prevents problems to grow or accumulate (Paasivaara &
Lassenius, 2006). Short iterations bring also transparency of the work progress to all
participants. As well as developers, project managers and customers can get frequently a
good picture of the overall progress. And as said before, the offshore developers can get
instant feedback on their work which helps to motivate them and build trust between the
different participants in the project. Generally, A4 seems to be helpful for GSD challenge C1
(strategic issues), C2 (Culture and language), and C3 (KM).
Aspect 5: Simplicity
As described before, Agile favours simplicity. This approach also seems to be beneficial to
distributed development projects. By using simple low-tech techniques and solutions;
control and coordination (Challenge C1) is more easier to handle (Holmström, Fitzgerald,
Ågerfalk, & Conchúir, 2006). Easy things are simple to explain, to understand and to debug,
therefore simplicity will also reduce the change of any misunderstanding due to cultural
and language differences (Challenge C2) and makes KM (Challenge C3) more easy between
the different sites when code, architecture and the used standards are kept as simple as
possible.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
22
Aspect 6: Continuous improvement
In GSD project retrospective and reflection meetings can also be very useful. The main
benefit from this is that it provides time for a team to reflect upon its own behaviour and
how to improve it (Šmite, Moe, & Ågerfalk, 2010). It also helps to increase team cohesion,
commitment, and common ground in GSD projects. When relating this to the GSD challenges
it seems that A6 helps to improve strategic related issues (C1) and to improve challenges
due to culture and language (C2).
Overview
Table 3-2 provides an overview of what aspect of Agile is beneficial to what specific well–
known challenge in GSD as described in paragraph 2.2.
Agile Aspect :
Related benefits:
A1: Intensive
collaboration
Provides useful practices for improving collaboration and
communication between sites
Reduces culture differences between the participants
Better understand of each other’s culture / business domain
Builds trust
Increased shared tacit-knowledge between sites
Less need for sharing extensive documentation (explicit
knowledge) to make requirements clear
Early detection of defects or deviations due to cultural
misunderstandings
Customer can easy apply changes without new contract
negotiations.
Increase advantages of closer proximity to market
Misunderstandings become clear in an early phase of the
development through frequent integrations and testing
More feedback on implementation through short iterations
Feedback helps to motivate offshore team members and build
trust between sites
More transparency of the work progress to all participants
Control and coordination of project is easier to handle
Reduce the change of misunderstandings
Team can reflect upon its own behaviour and how to improve
it
Helps to increase team cohesion, commitment and common
ground.
A2:Team
ownership
A3:Adaptive
development
A4:Short
iterations
A5: Simplicity
A6:
Continuous
improvement
C1
Strategic issues
C2
Culture and Language
C3
Knowledge management
C4
Infrastructure
GSD Challenge
C1 C2 C3 C4
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Table 3-2: Agile benefits related to the GSD Challenges
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
23
4
PRACTICAL WORK
4.1
CASE DESCRIPTION
The field study was conducted at 2 Distributed Scrum projects of Capgemini with combined
team members from ING Operations & IT Banking (ING-OIB), ING Business, Capgemini
Onshore and Capgemini Offshore (Hyderabad, India). The two projects were derived from
an initial project were they used Scrum for the first time in an offshore context. After
successfully delivering the first software in 2011, another Scrum project was set-up in the
same manner and with some team members from the first project.
In both projects two different independent applications are built, but there are also a lot of
similarities between them. Because of this, team members do often switch from one to the
other project if needed. Furthermore, at the onshore site the two projects are also located in
the same room. For this reason we will not make a distinction between the two projects in
this field study when analysing the results.
What this case makes interesting is that both projects used initially traditional software
development methodologies. They first used the Rational Unified Process (RUP) as their
main development methodology. In 2010 the head of the ING-OIB challenged his employees
to come up with an approach to deliver twice as much value for the same amount of money.
The employees answered this questions with Scrum. From that moment they started to
apply Scrum as their new approach. Most team members who are now working on the two
projects do have experienced this transition from RUP to Scrum and thereby do have
experience in this project with both RUP and Scrum. For this reason this case is interesting
to research what the resulting changes, benefits and challenges are of using Agile
methodologies compared to RUP in a GSD-project.
4.1.1 TEAM STRUCTURE
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the field study was conducted at two projects.
Both projects have combined members from ING Business, ING IT, Capgemini Onshore and
Capgemini Offshore. Each project has a Scrum team consists of a Done-team, a Ready-team,
and a Scrum master. Some members from the Done-team do also belong to the Ready-team.
In paragraph 5.2 the difference between the Done-team and Ready-team is explained. The
two Scrum teams are composed as follows:

Team 1 (Lisa): 4 persons from Cap-NL, 5 from Cap-India, and 10 from ING.

Team 2 (Kijkglas): 3 persons from Cap-NL, 5 from Cap-India, and 7 From ING.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
24
4.1.2 INTERVIEWEES
During the field study we interviewed 13 team members from both projects in a period of 1
month through semi-structured interview sessions. Each session took about 1 hour. The
questions were predefined but open ended (See appendix B for the list of questions). During
the period of interviewing we have worked in the same room as where the teams were
located and we did also participate in some typical Scrum practices like the daily Scrum
meeting and the demo meeting. Through this we could also observe and experience their
way of working during the field study.
Data triangulation is applied by interviewing team members with different roles, locations
and employers. By analysing data from multiple perspectives, validity can be checked and
established in qualitative research (Guion, Diehl, & McDonald, 2002). Table 5-1 provides an
overview of the different interviewees with their role, current project, site and company.
Role
Current project
Company
Site
Software architect & developer
Software architect & developer
Developer
Developer
Project Leader Capgemini
Project Manager
Scrum master & Business analyst
Scrum master & Test manager
Tester
Tester
Tester
Tester
Tester
Lisa
Kijkglas
Kijkglas
Lisa
Kijkglas & Lisa
Lisa
Lisa
Kijkglas
Lisa
Kijkglas
Lisa
Kijkglas
Kijkglas & Lisa
Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini
ING
ING
ING
ING
Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini
Capgemini
NL
NL
India
India
NL
NL
NL
NL
NL
NL
India
India
India
Table 4-1: Interviewee profile
4.2
USED AGILE PRACTICES
In this section we describe the used Agile practices in the two projects. Furthermore, during
the interview sessions, the interviewees also mentioned several benefits and challenges
related to the use of these Agile practices. These benefits and challenges are mentioned in
paragraph 5.4 and 5.5.
4.2.1 THE FRAMEWORK
In the two projects the ScrumPlus framework was used. This framework is created by
Capgemini and is based on the well-known Scrum framework. The ScrumPlus framework,
see figure 4-1, allows an additional phase and practice that is not included in the core Scrum
process. At the end of a project life-cycle, a Wrapper Sprint is added which allows
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
25
performing all specific release, handover and documentation tasks. Many of this Wrapper
Sprint activities can also be performed during the sprint by co-workers that are not part of
the Scrum team.
Figure 4-1: The ScrumPlus Framework, adopted from Capgemini
In the project different teams are involved. As we already have mentioned, a Scrum team
consists of a Done-team and a Ready-team. Beside the Scrum team there is also Shippable
team. The descriptions of the different teams are as follows:

Done-team: is responsible for getting the product backlog items to the Definition of
Done. The team consists of Java-developers, testers, and requirements analysts.

Ready-team: supports the product owner. The main goal of this team is to create
items on the Backlog and make them adhere to the definition of Ready. The team
mainly consists of ING-OID and ING-Business people.

Scrum-team: this is the Done-team + Ready-team + the Scrum-master.

Shippable team: supports the Scrum-team during the Wrapper Sprint in meeting
their goals and are also responsible for executing the final tasks that makes it
possible to go into production (making the product shippable).
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
26
4.2.2 T HE SCRUM PRACTICES
By the use of Scrum several new practices were introduced into the two projects. In this
section we list the most mentioned practices by the interviewees. All the practices in this
section are part of the original Scrum framework (Schwaber & Beedle, 2002) .
o
Daily Scrum meeting: The daily Scrum meetings between the two sites were
arranged using an eye-catcher at each site. The meetings took place at common
working times. During this meetings every team members had to answer the three
Scrum questions: “What have you done since yesterday?”, “What are you planning to
do today?”, and “Any impediments or stumbling blocks?”.
o
Scrum board: A Scrum board was used onshore to monitor the overall process. An
equivalent in the form of an excel sheet was used at the offshore site and was
updated by the offshore team members during the Daily Scrum meeting. In the past
the project manager used different tools (e.g. Microsoft project) and documents to
monitor all the processes and the overall progression. Today the Scrum board with
the backlog items and a corresponding burn down charts are sufficient enough.
o
Planning meetings: At the beginning of a sprint cycle a sprint planning meetings is
held. During this meeting, the backlog is filled with items and the items are
prioritized through planning poker (also called Scrum poker). Through planning
poker the team estimates the relative size of a task.
o
Smaller tasks: If during the planning meeting a particular task is seen as to big
(more than 12 hours of working time needed), the task is decomposed into smaller
sub-tasks. This is a big difference with RUP were individual team members could
work on a single task for more than a week.
o
Demo meetings: At the end of a sprint cycle a demo meeting is held. During this
demo meetings the Scrum team demonstrates the completed work. Incomplete
work is not demonstrated. During this meeting all the important stakeholders are
present. The offshore site is also participating in this meeting through video
conferencing. Often the offshore site demonstrates the product while the
stakeholders at the onshore site can see this live through a screen capture tool
which is showed onshore.
o
Retrospective meetings: After the Demo meeting a retrospective meeting is held
to reflect the completed sprint. In this meeting the whole Scrum team is presented
and two main questions are asked: “What went well during the sprint?” and “What
could be improved in the next sprint?”. The main goal of this meeting is to make
continuous process improvement.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
27
4.2.3 SCRUM TEAM ASPECTS
Changes were also mentioned on how the two project teams were organized and how the
different participants were involved.
o
Cross functional team members: Since Scrum prescribes that every team
members should be cross-functional this is also applied in the two projects.
Although all team members still have their primary role, they are now also involved
into other tasks like elaborating stakeholder requests.
o
Team involvement: The cross-functionality of team members also changed the
way how individual team members are involved into the project. During the RUP
approach India was for instance only involved in the development and testing phase
of the project. With Scrum they are involved from the beginning with other tasks.
The same applies for some onshore team members.
o
Business involved: In Scrum intensive collaboration is needed with the business
site. This does also happens in this project. The Scrum team is supported by the
Shippable team which mainly consists of members from the business. Within the
Scrum team, the Product Owner represents the business site.
o
Intensive collaboration: All the above changes have led to more intensive
collaboration between the onshore site and offshore site but also between the
business and the developers. Intensive collaboration is further supported since all
the team members at the onshore site working in the same room and through
several technical solutions which makes intensive communication and collaboration
possible. Onshore- and offshore team members can easily communicate with each
other through email, MS Office Communicator, telephone and an eye-catcher tool
(see figure 4-2). Almost every day a so-called knowledge transfer session is held in
which an onshore and offshore team member having a meeting for sharing
knowledge on a particular subject through the
eye-catcher. The eye-catcher is than located in a
separate room where the two team members can
talk to each other in private. This is often used
when new stakeholder requests need to be
explained in more detail to a developer at the
offshore site. For simple questions MS Office Figure 4-2: An eye-catcher tool
Communicator and email are used.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
28
4.2.4 AGREEMENTS
The use of Scrum did also had impact on the agreements between Capgemini and ING.
o
Informal contracts: Because of the use of Scrum also the formal agreements
between Capgemini and ING have changed. In the past they always had fixed-price
agreements in which all the to be delivered functionally was predefined. For any
additional feature new negotiations about the price were needed. This doesn’t work
very well with Scrum were requirements are not fixed and the focus is on adapting
change. For this reason also the formal agreements between Capgemini and ING has
changed to more informal agreements in which there is room for requirements
changes during the project.
4.2.5 OVERVIEW OF ALL THE MENTIONED CHANGES DUE TO SCRUM
Table 4-2 provides an overview of all the most mentioned changes in the projects due to the
use of Scrum. During the interview sessions the interviewees did mention many specific
benefits related to those changes. For this reason we gave all the changes a number so we
can easily relate the benefits in the next paragraph to the mentioned changes in this
paragraph.
Nr.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Change:
Daily Scrum meeting
Scrum board
Planning meetings
Smaller tasks
Demo meetings
Retrospective meetings
Team is cross-functional
Team involvement
Business involvement
Intensive collaboration
Informal contracts
Table 4-2: Overview of functional changes
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
29
4.3
PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF AGILE
Resulting from the use of Scrum in the two projects many benefits where mentioned during
the interviews. Overall it seems that both business, onshore- and offshore team members
experienced the use of Scrum as very positive. One of the onshore interviewees even said:
‘I am still working on this project because we now use Scrum which works a way better and is a lot
more fun to do. If we would have continued working in the traditional way I would have already
gone to another project.‘
In this section we will discuss the most common mentioned benefits. During the analysis of
the interviews we identified 5 main categories: communication, knowledge management,
team cohesion, team satisfaction, and quality & performance. Each category comes with an
overview of some more specific related benefits and their relations to the Scrum changes as
described in table 4-1.
4.3.1 COMMUNICATION
One of the benefits of using Agile in the two projects has to do with communication. As
mentioned in paragraph 3.5.2, communication can be seen as one of the biggest challenges
of using Agile in GSD, but it can also be seen as a great benefit for GSD. In these two projects
communication seems to be greatly improved by the use of several Agile practices. In
general the improvement here is that the business site and the offshore site do now more
often and daily communicate with each other. Since the offshore site is fully part of the
Scrum team, thereby participating in all the Scrum practices and are more easy to approach
through several tools like the eye-catcher, the business experience less communication
barriers (B1) and shorter communication lines with the offshore site (B2). Figure 4-3 shows
this difference in communication between the business (client) and the offshore site. An
onshore interviewee from the business site said:
‘In the past a lot of parties were involved in communicating things to India. This adds a lot of noise
and delay in the communication process. Now we can directly talk to the Indian team members
and explain them certain things face-to-face, this really improves progress of the project and the
quality of the delivered work.’
In the traditional way of working certain request from the client for the offshore site
needed to be passed through Capgemini NL. This was experienced as a great
communication barrier. Today this barrier is gone and communication has been improved
since the offshore site is now fully participating in the team. Furthermore, through the
improved and more frequent communication, the offshore site gets more and better feedback
on their delivered work from the business site (B3). An offshore developer said about this:
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
30
‘Because of Agile we now daily communicate with the business. This helps us better understand
what they want and this results in a better product. It is also more interesting to work with the
business people and hear what they find about the product. In the past we never saw the business
and only got the requirements through documentation.’
Figure 4-3: Traditional- vs. Agile way of working
Benefit:
B1 Less communication barriers experienced between business and
offshore site.
B2 Communication lines are shorter between the business and offshore
site.
B3 Offshore site gets daily face-to-face feedback from the business site.
Related to:
1, 8-10
1, 8-10
1, 8-10
Table 4-3: Communication related benefits
4.3.2 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The interviewees mentioned several improvement regarding knowledge management (KM)
since the use of Scrum. As described in paragraph 2.2.3, KM involves the capture and
acquisition of knowledge. We also identified two types of knowledge: Tacit-knowledge and
Explicit-knowledge and made clear that both are equally important in SE. In GSD the share
of Tacit-knowledge is more challenging since team members are globally dispersed. On the
other hand, Agile processes put more emphasis on sharing tacit-knowledge than traditional
methods seems to do (Chau, Maurer, & Melnik, 2003). Therefore using Agile in GSD may
improve to the share of tacit-knowledge.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
31
In the two studied projects the use of Agile seems to have a positive influence on the share
of Tacit-knowledge. Through the use of several Scrum practices, interviewees mention
many improvements on KM and particularly in the field of sharing tacit-knowledge.
However, the share Explicit-knowledge is also effected by Agile. Since they use Scrum less
documentation is needed to communicate requirements and specifications to the offshore site
(B4). An offshore software developer said about this:
‘In the past we only got specifications on requirements through documentation. Today we directly
communicate with the client which lowers the need of documentation. If more clarification is
needed we can directly contact the business site. Furthermore, because of the daily communication
we also understand the requirements from the business better than in the past.’
Back to Tacit-knowledge, we can see from the above quote that also through the daily
communication the offshore site better understand what the business site want (B5). This is
mentioned by almost all the interviewees on and offshore. Furthermore, interviewees
mention that Scrum also help to increase knowledge on the business domain at the offshore
site (B6). An offshore tester said about this:
‘Through the interaction with the business site I learn a lot about the their domain. For instance,
during the last months I have obtained a lot of knowledge on retail products in the Netherland.
This helps me better understand the context of the product were I am working on.’
Other KM related benefits that were mentioned are about the control and coordination of
the work between the different sites. Through the Daily Scrum meetings, knowledge
transfer sessions and by the use of several supporting tools like a common repository and
the Office messenger, work is now more easily aligned and synchronised between the two
sites (B7). An onshore interviewee from the business site said about this:
‘It is easier to handle business when people working together. Handling business only through
email doesn’t work. During the RUP period I always said that people should work more together
and see each other on daily basis. Now we are finally doing this through the Scrum practices.’
The use of the Scrum board also have other benefits on KM. Through the Scrum board all
the participants have a good overview of who is working on what and what the overall
progress of the project is (B8). In the past several tools were used like Microsoft Project and
Excel to monitor all the processes. This was experienced as more complicated and difficult.
Benefit:
B4 Less need of documentation to make requirements clear.
B5 India site better understands what the business wants.
B6 Better insight in business domain by offshore site.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
Related to:
1-5, 7-10
1, 5, 7-10
1, 5, 7-10
32
B7 Synchronising and aligning work between on- and offshore site is
more easy.
B8 Better overview on the overall progress of the project.
1-3
1,2
Table 4-4: KM related benefits
4.3.3 TEAM COHESION
The interviewees reported that since the use of Scrum there is more trust between the
onshore and offshore site and that there is more feeling of being one team instead of two
teams (see figure 5-3). Onshore team members do mention that they have more trust in
their offshore colleagues since they now see each other on daily basis and do experience
that the offshore site is fully committed and are able to deliver high quality work.
Many interviewees from the onshore site mention that they experience that their offshore
colleagues feel more free to talk (B9) and do sooner ask critical questions since they are less
afraid to say what is on their mind (B10). An onshore interviewee said:
‘During the Daily Scrum meeting we can see each other through the eye-catcher which makes it
more easy to detect if someone from the offshore site is holding information back. During the
meeting it is also easy to break the ice through little jokes for instance. As a result the Indian
people are more comfortable to speak.’
The business site, which had in the past no or very less direct face-to-face contact with the
offshore site, do also more appreciate their offshore colleagues and show more respect to
them (B11) since they are participating in the same Scrum practices and see each other
daily. An onshore Capgemini interviewee said about this:
‘In the past there was no face-to-face contact between India and the business people. Often it
happened that an Indian team member had some questions about a particular subject and asked
this through email to a team member from the business site. As a result the team member from the
business site came to me saying: ‘That person from India with that strange name is asking me all
those strange questions again… ’. This reflects how the business site was seeing the India site.
Today this has totally changed since India and the business are fully involved and see each other
on daily basis. ’
Since the use of Scrum in the project all interviewees do experience that that there is a lot
more synergy between the two sites. Most interviewees mentioned that they have the feeling
of being one team instead of two (B12) since they are working now more closely together.
They also do mention that since the use of Scrum there is less feeling of culture difference
(B13). Although most interviewees do mention that there is off course always a difference
in culture between the two sites, they now experience through the Scrum practices that
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
33
they are more aware of each other’s culture which makes it more easie to communicate and
collaborate with each other. An offshore interviewee said this about team cohesion:
‘In the past it felt like the Dutch colleagues were our clients. Since Scrum this has changed and we
feel we are now one team working on the same product.’
The last mentioned benefit in the field of trust and team cohesion is about the feeling of
being collectively responsible. In the past all the team members had their own specific
tasks and where only involved in specific phases of the project. For instance a tester was
only involved in the testing phase and a requirements analyst only in the requirements
phase. Now with Scrum all team members are involved throughout the whole project and
are working more closely with other disciplines in the project. This results in more feeling
of being shared responsible for the overall performance (B14) instead of just doing your
own part. This is mentioned by both onshore and offshore team members.
Benefit:
B9
Offshore team members feel more free to talk.
B10 Offshore site does sooner ask important questions and is less afraid
to say what is on their mind.
B11 Business site shows more respect and empathy to the offshore site.
B12 Greater feeling of being one team instead of 2 teams as in RUP
B13 Less feeling of culture differences between the two sites.
B14 Team members (on- and offshore) feel more shared responsible for
the overall performance of the project.
Related to:
1, 3, 6, 8, 9
1, 3, 6, 8-10
1, 3, 8-10
1, 3, 5-10
1, 3, 5-10
1, 7-10
Table 4-5: Team cohesion related benefits
4.3.4 TEAM SATISFACTION
Motivation among the onshore and offshore team members seems also to be increased by the
use of Scrum (B15). In particularly the offshore site highly benefits from the use of Scrum
when looking at motivation. The Daily Scrum meeting helps to keep the offshore site
involved in the team and motived in delivering their work properly. During the Daily Scrum
meeting they have to give a status update on their work. Almost all the offshore
interviewees mention that this helps to keep them motivated and focused. This also holds
for the onshore site as mentioned by several onshore interviewees.
The Daily Scrum meetings do also help to create more team cohesion as described in the
previous paragraph. This team cohesion does also have a positive effect on the motivation
of the offshore site since they feel more part of the team and more responsible to deliver
good work. Furthermore since the offshore site is now more involved in other tasks, see the
onshore site on daily basis and get more appreciation about their work from the business
site, motivation is more increased. An offshore interviewee said the following:
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
34
‘In the RUP model we worked more isolated and I often felt I was like a robot since I was just
developing what I got through documentation without knowing where it was meant for. Today we
are interacting with the business and I can now also increase my knowledge on their domain
which makes the work more interesting to do. The Daily Scrum meetings also helps to keep you
motivated’
Overall, both onshore and offshore interviewees mention that they not only feel more
motivated but that working in this Scrum way is just more fun to do compare to RUP (B16).
Some interviewees even said that they are still working on this project because they
liking this way of working so much.
Benefit:
Related to:
B15 Increased motivation of team members (both onshore and 1-10
offshore site).
B16 Increased team satisfaction through use of Scrum
1-10
Table 4-6: Team satisfaction related benefits
4.3.5 QUALITY & PERFORMANCE
The last identified benefits of using Scrum in this globally distributed project have to do
with the quality of the delivered work and the overall performance of the project. Because
Scrum encourage daily communication and intensive collaboration, the offshore site makes
less mistakes which results in less change requests after delivering a certain peace of work
(B17). Change requests did often happen during RUP period. Another major benefit of the
daily communication practices is that impediments are now identified much earlier in the
project and are resolved more quickly (B18). An onshore interviewee said this:
‘Today misunderstandings and impediments are identified much earlier than in RUP. Now they
can work on something wrong for a maximum of one day. In the past they could work on a
particular task for more than a week before any misunderstanding or impediment was identified.’
Another practice of Scrum which helps to improve the quality and performance is the crossfunctionality of the team members. This is beneficial in two different ways: Firstly, since
offshore team members are also involved in for instance elaborating stakeholder requests
they already gaining some kind of domain knowledge. This helps to them later when they
actually doing the development in making a better product. Several onshore interviewees
mention improved quality of the delivered work from offshore site (B19) because of this.
Secondly, another improvement here is that they now can always work on something if
there is no work to do in their specific discipline which results in more efficient use of the
resources offshore (B20). An onshore interviewee said about this:
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
35
‘During RUP it was quite common that the India site had nothing to do since they had to wait for
tasks from the Netherlands, but it did also happened that they worked the whole weekend to get a
certain task done. Since the introduction of Scrum the offshore site can easily pick up other tasks
from the Scrum board. Also, no overworking hours are any longer reported.’
Another important benefit resulting from the previous mentioned benefits within this
paragraph is that the overall productivity has increased (B21). Although there was no hard
evidence available, interviewees from both business, Capgemini onshore and Capgemini
offshore, do mention that productively has increased between 25 to 40 percent since the
use of Scrum.
The last benefit that all the business site interviewees did mention is about the adaptive
development approach of Scrum. Since they use no longer fixed price agreements between
ING and Capgemini the business interviewees experience that the focus by their Capgemini
colleagues is more on creating customer value (B22) than making money through extra
changes. An onshore interviewee from the business site said this:
‘Since we have different agreements with Capgemini I experience that the Capgemini colleagues
are more open for changes from the business. In the past we had to negotiate about the price for
every additional feature which was not part of the initial agreement.’
Benefit:
B17 Less mistakes are made by offshore site resulting in also less
change requests after delivery.
B18 Impediments are identified and resolved more quickly.
B19 Quality is higher of the delivered work from offshore site.
B20 More efficient use of the offshore resources
B21 Increased overall productivity.
B22 Focus is more on creating as much value as possible for the client
Related to:
1, 5, 7-10
1, 5, 7-10
1-10
2, 7
1-11
11
Table 4-7: Quality & Performance related benefits
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
36
4.3.6 RELATING BENEFITS TO LITERATURE
In paragraph 3.5.2 we identified through a literature review several potential benefits of
using Agile practices in GSD. With the results of the field study we can now validate these
previous identified benefits. Table 4-8 provides an overview of the benefits from the
literature and if they are acknowledged by the field study.
Agile Aspect :
Related benefits (from literature):
Confirmed in:
A1: Intensive
collaboration
Provides useful practices for improving collaboration and
communication between sites
Reduces culture differences between the participants
Better understand of each other’s culture / business domain
Builds trust
Increased shared tacit knowledge between sites
B1-B3, B7,
B12, B20
B12, B13
B3, B5, B6,
B9–B13
B1, B3, B5, B7B10
B1-B3, B5, B7B10
B3, B17, B18
A2:Team
ownership
A3:Adaptive
development
A4:Short
iterations
A5: Simplicity
A6: Continuous
improvement
Less need for sharing extensive documentation (explicit
knowledge) to make requirements clear
Early detection of defects or deviations due to cultural
misunderstandings
Customer can easy apply changes without new contract
negotiations.
Increase advantages of closer proximity to market
Misunderstandings become clear in an early phase of the
development through frequent integrations and testing
More feedback on implementation through short iterations
Feedback helps to motivate offshore team members and
build trust between sites
More transparency of the work progress to all participants
Control and coordination of project is easier to handle
Reduce the change of misunderstandings
Team can reflect upon its own behaviour and how to improve
it
Helps to increase team cohesion, commitment and common
ground.
B22
n/a
B18
B3
B11, B15
B8
B7
B3, B5, B17
B12, B15
Table 4-8: Benefits from literature related to the benefits in the field study
Table 5-8 shows that we can confirm almost all the identified benefits from the literature in
the field study. Except the benefit “Increase advantages of closer proximity to market” we
couldn’t acknowledge, but this is quite obvious since the strategic reasons in the projects to
choice for offshore development were not about closer proximity to market (§2.1.4), but
about the financial benefits (§2.1.1) and accessing a larger labour pool (§2.1.3). The benefit
“Team can reflect upon its own behaviour and how to improve it”, we also couldn’t directly
acknowledge. We believe that this benefit still holds in this project but that we simply could
not directly identify it through the 13 interview sessions.
When looking at all the mentioned benefits from the field study compare to the benefits
form the literature we can conclude that no new benefits have come forward through this
field study. Nevertheless, we were able to acknowledge that working with Agile can indeed
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
37
have a very positive impact on the overall performance of the project and on several
specific aspects which are often quite challenging in GSD like communication and team
cohesion.
4.3.7 RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE CATEGORIES
As described in the paragraph 4.3.5, in the field study we were able to identify five
categories which were positively affected by the use of several Agile practices. These
categories were: communication, knowledge management, team cohesion, team
satisfaction and Quality & performance.
During the interview session we also noticed that several interviewees related specific
benefits on the improvements that were made on other categories. For instance, the
improved communication was not only related to the use of the Daily Scrum meeting, but
also because of the overall improved trust and team cohesion in the project. Furthermore,
the increased Trust & Team cohesion was also related by interviewees to the improved
communication. This shows that the 4 categories are somehow inter-related with each
other. This is depicted in figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1 also shows that the benefits which belong to the fifth category: Quality and
Performance, can been seen as a result from the improvements that were made on the
other four categories. Many interviewees mentioned that because of all the Agile practices,
the overall quality and performance has increased. A follow-up study should be conducted
to get more insight in these precise inter-relations between the these categories.
Working with Agile in GSD
Improved Team
Cohesion
Improved
Communication
Improved Quality
and Performance
Improved Team
Satisfaction
Improved
Knowledge
Management
Figure 4-4: Agile improvements on 5 categories
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
38
4.4
HOW THE PROJECTS HANDLED THE DAD-CHALLENGES
In paragraph 3.5.1 we mentioned 6 challenges related to the use of Agile methodologies in a
globally distributed environment. These challenges consisted of a contradistinction
between Agile and GSD. From this one or more questions where formulated. In this
paragraph we will discuss how the two projects from the field study handled these
challenges. Per challenge we will give an short description and the answers on the related
questions. In paragraph 4.5 will also come with some other identified challenges from the
field study.
DAD Challenge 1: Communication need versus communication impedance
This DAD challenge was about the friction between Agile where communication is a vital
part of the process and GSD where communication is often minimized. From the field study
we can conclude that the two projects could successfully overcome this general DAD
challenges.
DAD Challenge 1 Questions and Answers
Q1 How could daily face-to-face communication be arranged?
A2 Daily communication was successfully arranged through the Daily Scrum meeting
with the use of an eye-catcher tool at both sites. Almost all the interviewees did
mention that this worked very well.
Q2 What kind of communication practices and media are suitable for
communication?
A2 The practices that were successfully used for communication are the Daily Scrum
meeting, Scrum planning meeting, Scrum Demo meeting and the Retrospective
meeting. The different used communication media were: eye-catcher, video
conference room, telephone, email, Office messenger and a common repository.
Q3 How could informal communication be encouraged?
A3 Informal communication was encouraged through the knowledge transfer
sessions and the Office Messenger.
Q4 How could the risk for misunderstandings (e.g. requirements) be
minimized?
A4 Through the Daily Scrum meetings and the intensive collaboration with the
business site, the risk for misunderstandings was minimized.
Q5 How could trust be built and retained between team members to ensure
open communication?
A5 Trust was built and ensured by bringing people from the offshore site for a short
period of time to the onshore site. Also by letting the offshore team members
actively be involved in for instance the Demo meetings, trust could be built and
retained.
As mentioned in paragraph 4.3.1, the successful use of the Scrum practices through several
tools, communication was improved and many additional benefits were identified. The two
projects demonstrate that intensive communication with an offshore site in India is
possible.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
39
DAD Challenge 2: Fixed requirements versus evolving requirements
This challenge was based on the principle that there is a limited ability to coordinate and
control offshore activities. For this reason GSD often relies on fixed requirements while
Agile processes are adaptive an emphasize changes.
DAD Challenge 2 Questions and Answers
Q6 How can we achieve a balance between fixed and evolving requirements?
A6 In the two projects an iteration took 1 month. This implies that during this period
requirements stay fixed and cannot be changed as Scrum prescribes. Through this
it seems that there was a right balance between fixed and evolving requirements.
Furthermore new requirements could easily adapted by the offshore site since
they were fully part of the Scrum team.
Q7 How could frequent communication between on-site customer and offshore
developer be encouraged?
A7 Frequent communication with the on-site customer was arranged through the
Daily Scrum meetings, the knowledge transfer sessions and the Demo meetings.
DAD Challenge 3: People-oriented versus process oriented control
In GSD, control is often achieved by formal processes in contrary to Agile where informal
and people orientated processes are often used to achieve control. The following questions
were derived from this:
DAD Challenge 3 Questions and Answers
Q8 What would be the right balance between people and process oriented
control?
A8 In the two projects of the field study they did not fully overhand all the control to
the Scrum teams. Instead of this they partially gave control through the team
members. All the team members still had their own primary task. Next to this,
several extra rolls were introduced in the project to help the Scrum team support
and control its process. At the India site still an on-site manager was supervising
the employees. Onshore also an additional project manager was involved beside
the Scrum master. Through this they mostly work in an Agile way while still
retaining control within and between both sites.
Q9 How could we introduce Agile to the offshore site and ensure that the
principles of Agile are well adapted?
A9 Several interviewees mentioned that offshore team members can have some
difficulties in adopting this Agile way of working in the beginning since they are
not used to open communication. Several interviewees mentioned that it can take
some time before the offshore site is ready for using Agile, but eventually when
they have more experience with Agile and there is more trust, the offshore site can
successfully participate in an Agile/Scrum way.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
40
DAD Challenge 4: Formal agreements versus informal agreements
GSD often relies on explicit targets and detailed specifications which are formulated in
formal agreements while in Agile, agreements have to be informal to ensure an open and
adoptive environment with focus on creating customer value.
DAD Challenge 4 Questions and Answers
Q10 How can we use the informality of Agile in a distributed context?
A10 The two projects demonstrate that the informality of Agile can be retained by the
use of the right agreements. When they started to use Scrum, an explicit change
was made in the agreements between Capgemini and ING as described in
paragraph 3.5.2. Though this and by the use of the ScrumPlus framework, the
informality of Agile could be successfully applied in an Offshore development
project.
DAD Challenge C5: Short iteration versus distance complexity
In Agile short iterations, frequent builds, and continuous integration bring additional
challenges to configuration management and version control software. When different
offshore sites are involved this can even be more challenging regarding technical and legal
differences.
DAD Challenge 5 Questions and Answers
Q11 How could Agile development function in GSD regarding the technical and
legal differences between companies and countries?
A11 In the two projects some difficulties were mentioned on this topic. Firstly, the
team could not be fully cross-functional since it was simply not allowed to carry
out some tasks at the offshore site. For instance, one part of getting a task in the
“Done” status is integration testing. It would be ideal if a tester from India could
perform those tests, but it is simply not allowed due to legal rules that a person
from outside the European Union has access to financial systems of a company in
the European Union. For this reason the integration testing was only done
onshore. Secondly they worked with two different environments. One Capgemini
environment where the Capgemini onshore and offshore people worked on and
an environment from ING where the ING people worked on. Every day the two
environments were synchronised.
DAD Challenge 6: Team cohesion versus team dispersion
In GSD, team cohesion is more challenging when team members are globally dispersed
while in Agile team cohesion is very important.
DAD Challenge 6 Questions and Answers
Q12 How can team cohesion be improved in DAD?
A12 As mentioned under DAD Challenge 1, team cohesion between the onshore and
the offshore site was encouraged by bringing people from the offshore site to the
onshore site for a short period of time. Several interviewees mentioned (both
onshore and offshore) that after such a period there were improvements in
communication and collaboration between the two sites. Also through the Daily
Scrum meetings team members at both sites felt more team cohesion.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
41
4.5
THE MENTIONED CHALLENGES FROM THE FIELD STUDY
In the previous paragraph we discussed how the two projects handled the DAD-challenges
that we identified from the literature. In most cases these challenges were not directly
applicable on the two projects from the field study. However, during the interview sessions
the interviewees did mention some challenges regarding the use of Agile practices in a
globally dispersed project. All of these challenges cannot been seen as new challenges that
derive from the combination of Agile and GSD. The mentioned challenges were either wellknown GSD challenges or well-known Agile challenges. Still, the challenges did affect the
distributed Agile way-of-working in the two projects and for this reason we think is still
valuable to mention them in this section.
4.5.1 TECHNICAL ISSUES
Agile highly depends on open face-to-face communication and intensive collaboration
between the different team members. Intensive communication and collaboration between
the two sites is often arranged through technical solution like the use of the eye-catcher tool
during the Daily Scrum meetings for instance. Technical issues (e.g. loss of internet
connection) do sometimes happen and do effect the project since many Agile practices
highly depend on those communication channels. When tools did not work they often tried
it again after a few minutes or they switched to another communication medium. Although
some of these technical issues did happen sometimes, all the interviewees did not
experienced it as a big obstacle for working Agile.
4.5.2 LANGUAGE & CULTURE ISSUES
The differences in language and culture can also be an issues in Agile projects. Issues
mentioned by the interviewees were about that Indian people find it difficult to understand
the Dutch people and vice versa due to difference in English accents. Although most team
members do get used to each other’s accent in time, it can be still an issue. In this project
they had one offshore team member working at the onshore site. He often served as a
communication bridge between the onshore and the offshore team members. It could also
happen that during the Demo meetings, that the onshore stakeholders did not felt
comfortable talking English. Especially when they needed to talk about very complicated
matter. In these situations they often switch back to Dutch and later summarized it to the
offshore site in English. The last mentioned issue was about the problem that the onshore
and offshore site were not always aware of each other’s holidays and working hours. To
minimize this problem the onshore site used two different clocks. One with the local
onshore time and the other with the local offshore time to create more awareness of each
other’s working hours.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
42
4.5.3 TRUST ISSUES
Although trust has been greatly improved between the onshore and offshore site since the
use of Agile (§4.3.3), still some progression can be made. Some onshore team members find
it still difficult to hand over work to their offshore colleagues. An onshore interviewee said
about this:
‘When looking at trust and working cross-functional the onshore site can still make some
improvements here. I experience that other team members from the onshore site still find it
difficult to hand over work to their Indian colleagues because of a lack of trust.’
Most interviewees did also mention that trust is essential for using Agile in GSD projects.
They also mentioned that it can be quite hard to build trust when team members are
globally dispersed. In this project they often brought team members from the offshore site
for a certain amount of time to the onshore site. This helps to build trust and most
interviewees did mentioned that afterwards they felt improvements on this. The same
interviewee from the previous quote also said about this:
‘When our Indian colleagues were back at the offshore site again after a visit in the Netherlands, I
directly saw improvements on trust. Team members from the Netherlands could hand over work
more easily since they better know their colleague from India and the Indian team members did
also started to ask questions sooner since they know us better. Bringing people from both sides
together for a certain amount of time helps to improve trust in both directions’
4.5.4 BUSINESS AND AGILE PROCESSES ALIGNMENT ISSUES
The last mentioned challenge is about the alignment between different business units and
Agile processes. Agile is a very fast and a very different way of working compare to the
more plan-driven software development methodologies. In this project they often
experienced that the business site was not fully capable or ready to support these fast Agile
practices. When developing software often many parties from the business site are
involved. They often experience that these parties were not used to the Agile way of
working. An interviewee said about this:
‘When we developing software and we need some sort of input from another department from the
business, you can’t in wait in Scrum for 10 days on their answer. However, according the SLA’s
they are in their right to do this within 10 days. These agreements do not really fit in the Scrum
process anymore’
Almost all the onshore interviewees mentioned this problem and said that no longer
working with the offshore site is the biggest challenge, but working with those different
business units.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
43
4.6
DISCUSSION
In this chapter, we described how the use of Agile practices based on Scrum had been
applied to two distributed software development projects. We also examined what the
impact of those practices were on the two projects. Although some challenges were
mentioned about using Agile practices in an offshore project, broadly spoken it is perceived
as a great improvement by all the participants. The improvements are even so great that
they are implementing this Agile approach for a third combined offshore software
development project of Capgemini and ING.
When looking to the benefits of using Agile practices in a GSD project we can see that many
of the general GSD challenges, as described in paragraph 2.2, can be mitigate by using Agile
practices. Furthermore several other benefits were identified related to communication,
knowledge management, team cohesion, team satisfaction and quality & performance of the
delivered work. The first four categories are most likely a result from the use of specific
Agile practices. The benefits from the last category can been seen as benefits which emerge
from the use of Agile in general.
The challenges that emerged from use Agile in GSD as identified in paragraph 3.5.1, could be
simply tackled by the use of several Scrum practices and tools that could support those
practise. Other challenges that were mentioned in the field study were about technical
issues, language & culture issues, trust issues, and business & Agile alignment issues.
Important to note is that none of these issues were experienced as a real threat for the
overall progression of the project. Furthermore, the identified challenges were either more
typical GSD related challenges or typical Agile challenges. Nevertheless they did had some
impact on the Agile way of working in these GSD projects. For these reason they should also
be seen as DAD-challenges.
Beside the use of the Scrum practices there were also some well-know GSD practices used
to support the distributed way of working in the two projects. One offshore team member
was permanently situate at the onshore site. He often served as a so-called bridgehead
(paragraph 2.4.2) to reduce cultural distance. Also frequent visits were used to build trust
between the two sites. It seems that the combination of several Agile and GSD practises
with the right set of tools to support those practises can lead to successful distributed
collaboration.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
44
5
CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to investigate what the impact is of Agile practices on GSD
projects. This was also formulated in the research question in chapter 1. Based on the
literature review on GSD, Agile, and the combination of both, we were able to identify
several benefits and challenges related to the use of Agile practices in GSD. Through the
practical work we were able to validate these identified benefits and challenges in two
running distributed Agile projects of Capgemini and ING.
We found that the impact of Agile in a GSD project can be very positive. We identified many
benefits resulting from the use of Agile in GSD and related them to specific Scrum practices.
We were also able to generalize the benefits into 5 main categories: Communication,
Knowledge Management, Team Cohesion, Team Satisfaction and Quality & Performance.
Additionally we found some challenges related to the use of Agile in GSD, but these
challenges were not experienced as big impediment. Furthermore, the identified challenges
were either more typical GSD related challenges or typical Agile challenges than challenges
resulting from the combination of both.
We succeed in our aim to identity the impact of Agile in GSD through the literature review
and the practical work. From this we can also conclude that Agile practices can have a
positive impact on GSD projects and can help to mitigate many of the well-known
challenges of GSD.
5.1
LIMITATIONS
This conducted single-field study in a single organization clearly has some limitations. It
was unfortunately not possible to research another GSD-project that used Agile instead of
plan-driven methodologies. It would be very interesting to compare this research to other
projects and see if the findings from this study are also applicable in other organization
with different team members, Agile practices, tools and offshore locations. For this reason
the findings of this study are limited generalizable to other projects with different
parameters.
5.2
FURTHER RESEARCH
As argued in the previous section more research is needed to further underpin the findings
from the field study. This could be done through studies with a qualitative or quantitative
design. Field studies in other projects with different configurations on used Agile practices,
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
45
development locations and team members can give more insight in the benefits and
challenges that come with the use of Agile in GSD.
Quantitative research is also interesting. The mentioned benefits from this study could be
further investigated and underpinned with hard quantitative data. Quantitative research
could deliver more insight in the precise inter-relations between the identified categories.
Quantitative research can also be used to find other sources (e.g. bug reports) that can give
more empirical evidence on for instance the statements that were made on improved
quality of the delivered work.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
46
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APPENDIX A: AGILE MANIFESTO
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do
it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions
over
processes and tools

Working software
over
comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration
over
contract negotiation

Responding to change
over
following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more
The 12 Principles behind the manifesto:
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness
change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months,
with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and
support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a
development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and
users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing
teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes
and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.
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APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW STRUCTURE
Interview duration: ± 60 minutes
Target group: People who are involved in Distributed Agile Devolpment (e.g. software
developers, testers, project managers, business analysts etc.). Important is that they are
currently involved or have (recent) experience in Distributed Agile Development. From
each roll I will interview a representative number. My target is to interview 15 people.
Interview setup:
Step 1 (introduction, 3 min):
The interviewee will be informed in advance about the purpose of the interview (research
about Agile in multi-site software development), duration, confidentiality and that the
interview will be recorded (audio). Before start I will ask if there are any question regarding
these topics.
Step 2 (warming up, 10 min):
This step consists of simple non-treating questions to break the ice and make people feel
comfortable.
1. Getting some basic information about the interviewee:
a. Name (if unknown!)
b. Job title
c. Experience in software projects (# of years, type of projects, responsibilities,
etc.)
d. Experience in Distributed Agile Development (like 1c)
2. Getting some basic insights into the distributed Agile project:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
Name of project
Customer/Client (type)
Project deliverable/goal
Jobsite of interviewee (location where they work)
Distributed onshore or offshore (outsourced in same or other country )?
Agile method
Iteration length
Team formation (size and roles)
Task allocation between sites
Step 3 (in-depth interview, 40 min):
The questions in this step are broad and open-ended. If the answer is to general or the
interviewee comes up with some interesting details further questions will be asked like: “what
did you mean when you said…” or “can you give me an example of that?”.
Benefits and Challenges of Agile in a Globally Distributed Environment
52
The questions:
3. Can you describe (in short) a typical work day?
Agile:
4. Can you tell me something about the daily standup meetings?
5. Can you explain the differences between Agile and non-Agile in offshore projects (if
experienced with both)?
6. Can you describe how Agile might be helpful (or not) to overcome some issues
which are related to a more traditional way of working?
7. Can you give me your opinion on Agile in multi-site software development?
Knowledge sharing:
8. Can you explain how you communicate and collaborate with each other?
9. Can you tell me more about how you plan and synchronize work with the other site?
10. Can you give me more details about how data, documentation etc. is stored and
shared in the project.
11. Do you use any tools or solutions which encourage collaboration and what is your
experience with this (did it work or not)?
12. Can you tell me something about your relation and contact with the other
development site?
13. Can you tell me how you experience the differences in culture within the project?
Step 4 (Cool off, 5 min):
Some simple straight forward questions.
14. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?
15. Can I contact you later in case I‘ve some additional questions?
16. Are you willing to participate in a focus group meeting (if relevant)?
Step 5 (Showing Appreciation, 2 min)
Showing appreciation and say goodbye. During this step I have to remain alert for maybe a
‘half-way out the door’ confessions, once the recorder is switched off. When meaningful
information is given afterwards I shall ask permission to use it for the research.
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