(The following is a repost of my response to a question about outsourced BI and geographically distributed teams on LinkedIn’s TDWI BI and DW Discussion Forum. Here is the entire thread.)

I’ve been practicing and consulting on Agile BI since 2004 and have worked with teams that are “dislocated”. Since Agile BI values individuals and interactions as a more effective way to build the right thing, colocation is favored. However, outsourcing and geographic distribution are unavoidable realities in today’s business. Take a look at Scott Ambler’s recent blog about Agile and Geographic Distribution in which he discusses 3 key challenges caused by dislocation:

1. Communication – Just being in two separate buildings reduces the preference for face-to-face communication.
2. Temporal – The farther apart the time zones, the greater the impact on synchronous collaboration.
3. Cultural – Different work ethics, values, etc. affect the effectiveness of team interactions.

So, outsourced BI in India for example, is about an 11 hour difference from North American timezones, communication is asynchronous, and there are distinct cultural differences. All risk factors to true agility.

But, all is not lost – The best example of a high-functioning but dislocated agile team I’ve worked with was a situation that had experienced/talented people in both the US and India. The company brought 3 of the senior Indian developers to the US for 2 months to work face-to-face with the US team. Two BIG things occured during this 2 months:

First, the project envisioning, chartering, speculating and planning was a shared face-to-face process that got everyone galvanized around a shared vision and set of expectations (including senior management). Plus the first three project sprints were face-to-face, so the team established shared working agreements.

Second, The US members hosted the Indian members, including showing them the local attractions; taking them to shows; and generally hanging out with them (this was done voluntarily by the US members). The result was an invaluable building of friendships and trust between both groups.

After the Indian contingent returned home, the team figured out ways to divide the work in each sprint to minimize the dependencies between teams; and maximize the separation of concerns so that each team could work relatively autonomously. Every sprint both contingents integrated their work into one system and partnered in the feature showcase for the user community.