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Asked: 2026-05-13T20:48:45+00:00

I’m working on a software project which several members are working from home and

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I’m working on a software project which several members are working from home and some other are part-timers. We meet physically one time each month at least. We communicate mostly by emails. Our source code repository (mercurial) is on a jungle disk (workgroup) that we share together.

We have a working product and one customer. But, we are not agile enough (ie: one change in the code sometimes break something else, we don’t have unit testing, code is not documented, etc.) I want to use an Agile methodology to coordinate our work and track our progresses. I also want to use TDD.

The team has no experience with agile methodologies (or other methodologies).

What is the best approach to use an Agile methodology with a geographically distributed team? Which methodology is best with that kind of team? How to implement it efficiently with the least resistance possible?

Thanks!

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  1. Editorial Team

    I have done this as part of a distributed XP team sharing source code and stories across 3 sites, each site being 12 hours apart (Seattle, Bournemouth UK, and Singapore).

    Here are some write-ups of what we did:

    We found that it helps to get everybody physically together at the start of the project to establish standards and to build relationships.

    We also found that it helps to have “ambassadors” – shipping different people around between teams to spread knowledge and build trust.

    We were lucky to have three sites that were each 12 hours apart – so we could have a stand-up meeting first-thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. We called them “hand-over meetings” and did them over video-conference between the incoming team and the outgoing team.

    We also found remote pair-programming worked – between a local pair and a remote pair (i.e. four people) but that it’s very intense and draining and best done only for short periods of time when it’s really critical to see what other people are doing remotely.

    Aside: Kent Beck’s Advice for people using Eclipse to remote pair: http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=584

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