Virtual by Design: How a Work Environment can Support Agile Distributed Software Development

Even though agile methods have been flourishing in the last decades, their implementation in (globally) distributed arrangements still present hard challenges. Due to this tension, practices are either modified or added to compensate with the additional control required by the setup. In this paper, we present a case study about a company that managed to incrementally design a process that does not compromise the foundations of the agile philosophy by embracing the characteristics of distributed development. We show how a virtual work environment has been crafted by continuously improving practices and carefully selecting technologies to allow each team member to fully participate regardless of the actual physical location. Aware of the single nature limitation of the reported case, we present extensive information to frame the context allowing meaningful comparisons by researchers and providing concrete examples for practitioners.