Episode 10: Agile Software Development on a Global Scale

Guest: Jutta Eckstein Host: Daniel Steinberg Agile software development methods grew up in a context of in-house development, collocated teams, and relatively shared cultural expectations. This made their emphasis on face-to-face communication and common code ownership. But these days, software development is as likely to be developed by international teams as it is by teams sitting in the same room. Terms such as "outsourcing", "offshoring", and "nearshoring" indicate the degree to which agile software developers must work in a context rather different from the one in which their methods have been honed. Over the last decade, Jutta Eckstein, of IT Communication in Germany, has developed a wealth of experience developing object-oriented applications in large organizations, precisely the ones most likely to develop software with distributed, international teams. She has identified ways in which it is possible for such teams to overcome the challenges that global software development, as well as the success factors for implementing an agile software development process within such constraints. Eckstein will teach a tutorial at ooPSLA, titled Agile in Face of Global Software Development, that shares this experience with conference attendees. In this podcast, Eckstein joins Daniel Steinberg of DimSumThinking to talk about how agile software development in the face of trends toward global teams. She offers concrete suggestions for overcoming problems of distance, culture, and time zone in implementing agile approaches.