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R. Vallon, S. Strobl, M. Bernhart, R. Prikladnicki, T. Grechenig:
"ADAPT: A Framework for Agile Distributed Software Development";
IEEE Software, 33 (2016), 6; 106 - 111.

AGILE DEVELOPMENT and distributed software development (DSD) seem like an impossible match. Agile processes are designed for collocated teams col- laborating closely, which appears incom- patible with DSD and its inherent coor- dination, control, and communication challenges.1 Nonetheless, 82 percent of respondents to VersionOne Inc.´s 10th Annual State of Agile survey, conducted in 2015, said they had at least some dis- tributed teams practicing agile develop- ment, a signi cant rise from only 35 per- cent just three years earlier.2
To gather evidence about the past and current state of research on teams us- ing both agile and distributed develop- ment, three of us conducted a systematic literature review of the topic covering 1999 to 2014. (For the review proto- col, see the Web extra at https://extras .computer.org/extra/mso201606 0106s1.pdf.) We found an increasing in- terest in applying agile practices to DSD from 2004 in the form of anecdotal ex- perience reports and from 2010 in the form of evaluation papers, mainly case studies that indicated a switch to more rigorous research approaches.
However, past research seldom fully reported contextual details, omitting information such as team size, thus limiting the results´ generalizability. In response, we created a checklist for
fully reporting the empirical context of case studies on agile DSD, as well as general information about projects. (For the checklist, see the Web extra at https://extras.computer.org/extra/mso 2016060106s2.pdf.)
Also, although past research reported lessons learned in agile DSD, no one has created a comprehensive framework de- scribing how to apply agile practices to DSD to which both researchers and in- dustrial practitioners can relate. We launched our multiyear research project primarily to create such a framework- ADAPT (Agile Distributed Adaptable Process Toolkit).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MS.2016.130