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International Conference on Agile Software Development

XP 2012: Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming pp 62–76Cite as

Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing book series (LNBIP,volume 111)

Abstract

One of the hallmarks of a co-located agile team is the simple and open flow of information between its members. In a co-located setting, peripheral awareness, osmotic communication and simple information radiators support agile principles such as collective ownership, minimal documentation and simple design, and facilitate smooth collaboration. However in a dispersed agile team, where individual team members are distributed across several sites, these mechanisms are not available and information sharing has to be more explicit. Research into distributed software development has been tackling similar issues, but little work has been reported into dispersed agile teams. This paper reports on a field study of one successful partially dispersed agile team. Using a distributed cognition analysis which focuses on information propagation and transformation within the team we investigate how the team collaborates and compare our findings with those from co-located teams.

Keywords

  • Dispersed agile development
  • distributed cognition
  • qualitative study

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-30350-0_5
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Helen Sharp

  2. IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

    Rosalba Giuffrida

  3. Microsoft Patterns & Practices, USA

    Grigori Melnik

Authors
  1. Helen Sharp
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  2. Rosalba Giuffrida
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  3. Grigori Melnik
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden

    Claes Wohlin

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Sharp, H., Giuffrida, R., Melnik, G. (2012). Information Flow within a Dispersed Agile Team: A Distributed Cognition Perspective. In: Wohlin, C. (eds) Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming. XP 2012. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 111. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30350-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30350-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-30349-4

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