Coping Strategies for Temporal, Geographical and Sociocultural Distances in Agile GSD: A Case Study

Paper i proceeding, 2019

Globally distributed software development teams face a number of challenges in their work that are associated with temporal, geographical and sociocultural distances. This case study explores the relationship between agile practices and these three distances in global software development. Data were collected by interviews and secondary data analysis. The results show that the three distances affect agile practices and the case team modifies the agile practices accordingly. Agile practices, in turn, affect the three distances by reducing communication, control and coordination challenges. Non-Agile coping strategies such as specialised communication strategies also play an important role to alleviate the effects of the different distances.