The Impact of Collocation on the Effectiveness of Agile IS Development Teams

Abstract

This article looks at the impact of collocation on the effectiveness of information system development teams. The research objective was to investigate which features of the collocation environment have the greatest influence on team effectiveness and how these can assist in a better design for a collocation working environment. The empirical foundation for this research was a number of agile software development teams. The two key factors which were found to impact team effectiveness were the impact of noise and interruptions, the use of war room layouts and the need for break-away areas.