A case study of a geographically distributed multi-national software development team’s decade long agile evolution. How the team managed to unleash its hidden powers by giving room to diverse individuals to drive the development of their specific fields of interest while simultaneously boosting the team’s cohesion with regular meetups and with irregular interventions whenever needed. This is a real-life case where sprints get interrupted, whole frameworks ditched mid-sprint, and where there was always time to help a friend in need. This is a story of what it takes to reach the global top in a niche area of software development. This is a real story of what happened – without a masterplan, without the full support of the outlying organization – a group of talented individuals who wanted to be the best in their field – as a team.
The presentation concludes with an analysis of why we pulled it through, what were the enablers and costs of success and how nowadays we focus more on sustainable pace vs maximal efficiency. What kind of an environment was needed to boost the needed learning and to allow diverse individuals to take lead of their respective fields of expertise.