Offshore and Agile... - Martin Fowler...

Offshore development and agile... thoughts by Martin Fowler...

Offshore development seems opposed to agile development in a couple of ways. For a start it immediately goes against the notion of physical proximity, since by definition offshore developers are a long way away. Secondly most offshore organizations favor the plan-driven approach where detailed requirements or designs are sent offshore to be constructed.

So the fundamental question is whether agile techniques can be used in an offshore setting. If so how does it compare to using an plan-driven methodology (the term I'll use here for non-agile)?

- Continuous Integration
- Send Ambassadors
- Contact Visits
- Do not underestimate the culture change
- Use WIKIs
- Use Test Scripts
- Regular builds for feedback
- Regular short status meetings
- Short iterations
- Iteration planning meeting
- Start with bug fixes when moving codebase
- Separate terms by functionality not activity
- Expect to need more documents
- Get multiple communication modes working early

For details refer to http://martinfowler.com/articles/agileOffshore.html