Some Agile software teams struggle to colocate their members so the software developers and testers can be near each other at work. What happens when development team members have the luxury of sitting together, but still want something more? We took the bold step of colocating some development teams with their end-users. We had lofty goals and some specific expectations, but ended up with some unexpected results, as well.

This presentation covers a case study and a retrospective on our company's effort to colocate development teams with their end users. It discusses reasons for moving the teams, as well as the lessons learned and the changes made to our process. The experiment caused our development organization re-examine its best practices and processes. We think these lessons are applicable to teams regardless of their industry and experience.

About the speaker...

Mary Panza is the scrum master at Parametric Portfolio Associates in Seattle, Washington. She has supported, tested and managed software for the past twenty years for various companies around the Puget Sound area. Mary’s passion has always been problem-solving and process improvement, as well as seeing the human side of software development. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering for the Seattle Mountaineers, an outdoor education non-profit.