perspective. But what if you have the choice to do or not do distributed development. What if you’re the decision maker?
My recommendation is simply to avoid it if you can. A tightly knit development team operating in a single location will have a synergy of its own. As soon as you introduce a second site, there is a natural tendency for an “us” versus “them” mentality to take a hold of team members whenever an issue arises. Yes, this can happen locally as well, but it is easier to deal with when you can regularly put all of the people involved in the same room together.
You can’t always avoid global development. Perhaps your team may eventually outgrow the building and split into two locations. Whatever the reason, do your best to understand the technical issues that will help you succeed, because the non-technical issues will be challenging enough.
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About the author
Joe Farah is the President and CEO of Neuma Technology and is a regular contributor to the CM Journal. Prior to co-founding Neuma in 1990 and directing the development of CM+, Joe was Director of Software Architecture and Technology at Mitel, and in the 1970s a Development Manager at Nortel (Bell-Northern Research) where he developed the Program Library System (PLS) still heavily in use by Nortel's largest projects. A software developer since the late 1960s, Joe holds a B.A.Sc. degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto. You can contact Joe at farah@neuma.com
