Dispersed Agile Development
At OOPSLA 2001, a panel of the most distinguished methodologists of the day was asked "How would you do agile development where the team are a geographically distributed workforce, each working in his own home?"
They more or less unanimously said "We wouldn't even try!"
- Distributed open source projects have worked successfully for some years.
- Yes, but they don't work to commercial deadlines and requirements; nor within commercial confidentiality. And they don't get paid!
- There are commercial precedents, even as early as the 1970s.
- In Cobol....
- Distributed Pair Programming has been shown to be feasible, especially with broadband connections.
- But only in internal projects or academic exercises.
- The use of agile methods reduces the scope for misunderstandings between co-workers.
- Ha ha ha! Ho ho ho! Tell me another one!
- We have some patterns for distributed agile development, and want to compile more.
- Oh yes? Let's see them then....
- See PatternsForDispersion.
- Distributed working means you can earn money while living on the beach or up your favorite mountain, or wherever you like, without having to commute every day and without wearing a tie all the time, or sharing a smelly grey office with people who smoke or cough.
- This exciting new method of software development is clearly the way of the future. When can I start?