Three Reasons for Location-Independent Agile So why are most companies ignoring the Agile Manifesto’s Sixth principle? We believe it comes down to three reasons: They must tap important but rare skills from afar. Agile teams require skills from multiple disciplines these days: software development, business processes, data science, and more. And, of course, each team needs someone well-versed in agile. (For example, Spotify’s ‘squads’ each have an agile coach.) Many of these skills are in huge demand and short supply. Companies located in areas in which software development and analytics skills are not abundant must bring those people on their agile teams. In many cases, that will mean tapping into them from afar. Yet some companies still tap skills from afar even when they are locally abundant. Consider the immensely popular blog site WordPress, which generates 153 million unique monthly viewers in the U.S. alone. Its parent company (Automattic) is based in San Francisco. Yet nearly all its 699 employees work 71 from their homes in 62 countries. 71 Automattic, About Automattic - All Around the World, Building a New Web, and a New Workplace. Join Us!, accessed April 17, 2018, https://automattic.com/about/