How Are Software Teams Changing? Part I -- Teams Are Flat

by E.M. Bennatan

A recent Cutter Consortium survey found that half of all software development organizations have globally distributed teams -- a marked increase compared to a similar 2004 Cutter survey. Teams are also now more collaborative and are less regimented. Can we therefore conclude that software teams are also becoming geographically flat? This year's survey studied software development teams at more than 100 software development organizations and collected the same type of data as in the survey six years ago. In this, the first in a series of three Executive Updates comparing the results of the two surveys, we begin by exploring continued growth of both distributed and agile teams and their effect on team structure. We then look at how these changes affect project management, and we attempt to conclude whether software teams are indeed becoming geographically flat.