Collaboration, Coordination, and Success Factors

Shift in kinds of collaboration on large projects

Many Agile work practices are based on the efficacy of face-to-face communication. Much information exists only as part of a team’s oral tradition. For example, Agile requirements writers explicitly say that a major part of any requirement is the conversation about the requirement. Teams have found this works well on small projects.

Large projects, by their nature, have more people, the people are more spread out geographically (even if in different buildings on the same campus), the projects take longer, new people join the project over time, and long-term team members leave the project over time.

For large Agile projects to be successful, the expectation that all knowledge can be expressed through an oral tradition must be moderated. More work must be done up front, and more of that work must be documented in ways that are understandable by ...