Exploring communication challenges associated with Agile practices in a globally distributed environment

Co-located agile teams rely heavily on physical proximity, face-to-face communication, coordination and close collaboration. These tenets of agile methods are hampered in globally distributed environments and the shortcomings have to be consciously addressed and supported through various activities between the onshore and offshore locations. This paper reports on preliminary findings of the communication processes in one case study which highlights the necessity of providing multiple modes of communication to support the shortfalls of physical proximity and curtailed face-to-face interactions in distributed agile teams.