Extreme Programming in global software development

Reliable communication is essential for the success of global collaborative software development efforts. Software development organizations and methodologies must be tailored to avoid communications issues which may result in misunderstood requirements or missed project milestones. Extreme Programming (XP) was adopted for the Lattice^® Trading System reengineering project - a globally distributed software development effort. Customers in Boston worked with the offshore development in Hangzhou. Business knowledge and requirements were transferred iteratively throughout the project duration. Steps in the development process were executed at different sites at different times, depending on skill set match. An iterative development process reduced communication risk as development for one phase and communication for the next phase could be conducted in parallel. This approach allowed the team to avoid most of the communication delay and improved the quality of communication as well.