Agile software development approaches have emerged as a response to perceived frustrations of more heavyweight plan-driven methods, and have now become well established within the information systems field. More recently, there has been a tremendous growth in applying agile methods in globally distributed settings. In light of this, there is a pressing need to understand how agile practices are adapted which were originally conceived for collocated settings, and now actually being used in globally distributed settings, taking into account the challenges posed by such contexts. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this research gap, with a quest to better understand and unpack the "black-box" of how collaborative practices evolve within global agile settings. The value of this research lies in improving and advancing our understanding of the challenges the team members go through in adapting agile practices in global contexts. The research also explores how collaborative practices can support agility in globally distributed settings. In order to contribute to knowledge and increase conceptual clarity, there is a need to carry out in-depth and in-situ research within an organisational context. By taking a socio-technical perspective this study intends to extend our existing knowledge on how collaborative practices are evolving in real-time practice within globally distributed agile settings. The empirical evidence is drawn from a globally distributed team, operating in a global financial bank with offices based in London and Delhi. Interpretive research methods including semi-structured interviews and observations are used to understand team members' experiences of developing collaborative practices in a globally distributed context. Although existing literature on agile software development acknowledges the intrinsic significance of collaboration for effective functioning of agile methods, current studies fail to demonstrate a situated practice perspective on how collaborative practices are adapted in globally distributed settings. This study enlists the analytical concepts of boundary objects and Pickering's "mangle of practice" to better understand the process of how collaborative practices evolve in globally distributed agile teams. The resulting analysis provides us with a much more nuanced understanding of how interactions take place in developing collaborative practices in globally distributed contexts. The findings reveal that collaborative practices within such settings tend not to follow from pre-set expectations of how agile practices should work, but are temporally emergent. Team members have to revise collaborative practices through an ongoing process of mutual "tuning" within their situated contexts, in order to achieve a gradual state of interactive stability or a steadiness of practices. The results demonstrate how actors address the challenges in developing shared understandings to drive forward the joint software development process across global locations and move towards supporting agility within the projects. The thesis presents a pluralistic conceptual framework called the Collaborative Tuning Approach, which aids in gaining critical insights of issues related to adapting agile practices and also demonstrates how collaborative practices can act as enabler to achieving agility in such settings. The framework explains the challenges the team members face and how these are overcome when attempting to modify practices and indeed how these evolve through an ongoing state of flux and uncertainty leading to hybrid agile practices.

The   agile methods are becoming increasingly more common to use in distributed   work, the globally growing IT market has led to IT-system development often   being distributed. The fact that many   teams today choose to work distributed and agile has brought with it some new   communication problems. There has been some research related to communication   problems in agile distributed teams before, but when examining the previous   research we have identified that that the individuals own experiences usually   do not fall into focus. This study has investigated how the individuals   themselves perceive the communication problems within their agile distributed   team and why they believe the problems arise, as well as what the consequence   of their occurrence is and also how they perceive the positive effects of   well-functioning communication.   In   order to investigate problems and solutions related to communication in agile   distributed teams, seven semi-structured interviews have been conducted with   various project members who work with software development in distributed   agile teams. Also two meetings have   been analyzed. The study is made with a qualitative method.   The individuals who acted as respondents in   the study all work at a global IT company that we have gained access to. The   study has been developed on-site at this global IT company in an office   located in Östersund. Respondents were selected based on recommendations from   the company according to the roles requested in the study. / De agila metoderna blir allt vanligare att   använda vid distribuerat arbete, den globalt växande IT marknaden har lett   till att systemutveckling ofta sker distribuerat. Att team som sitter   distribuerat väljer att arbeta agilt har fört med sig en del nya kommunikationsproblem.   Det har gjorts en del forskning inom kommunikationsproblem i agila   distribuerade team tidigare, men det som märks när man granskar den tidigare   forskningen är att individernas egna upplevelser oftast inte hamnar i fokus.   Denna studie har undersökt hur individerna själva uppfattar   kommunikationsproblemen inom sitt agila distribuerade team samt varför de   tror att de uppstår och vad som är konsekvensen av att de uppstår, även hur   de uppfattar de positiva effekterna av en väl fungerande kommunikation.   För att undersöka området så har sju stycken   semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts på olika projektmedlemmar som jobbar   med utveckling i distribuerade agila team, även två möten har analyserats,   detta har genomförts med en kvalitativ studie. Individerna som agerat som   respondenter i studien jobbar alla på ett globalt IT-företag som vi har fått   tillgång till. Studien har utvecklats på plats hos detta IT-företag på ett   kontor beläget i Östersund. Respondenterna valdes utifrån rekommendationer   från företaget efter de roller som efterfrågats i studien.