Many people are trying out Agile Work in software development. The current industry climate is one that has focused business stakeholders’ attentions on re-examining their core priorities. Where Agile optimizes on “Time to market”, the offshoring “over-the-wall” approach to software development seeks to optimize on raw dollar cost.

What do you do if your organization is attempting both? There are some good resources on-line about this already, however I have yet to see good case-studies with published figures. Also, much of what’s out there comes in the form of mini-articles that are no more than promotional ads for X proprietary “agile-offshore” solution. Regardless, some of the following may help avoid the worst problems of integrating two quite different approaches.

Using an Agile Software Process with Offshore Development: by Martin Fowler
A look at Valtech’s approachfrom within the project. This calls itself a case-study, but no metrics are provided
The sad and understandable ruminations of Jonathan Nolen on his blog, regarding Agile offshoring and his expectations of the project. These attitudes and cocerns are quite common – this is a good poster for the kind of feeling you might find from developers.
Vincent Massol’s presentation to Javapolis. No proofs or metrics, though some lessons learned are provided.
A forrester research article on Agile Outsourcing. Note: this is only the abstract – the article is $350. (I should ask for a commission. 🙂
Some practical advice on agile offshoring from a Thoughtworks fellow.
Good points about customer proxies that are very applicable to offshoring with agile
A very good summary of an ongoing conversation about fixed-bid contracts and Agile. It relates to the agile-offshore issue given that often projects are offshoring because of cost-sensitivity, and are thus fixed-bid.
A look at criteria for choosing offshore partners based on Agile business readiness.
Article by Scott Ambler on agile outsourcing.