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.