Making the Location-Independent Team Click: Four New Agile Principles At the risk of sounding like I’m writing my own Agile Manifesto (trust me, I am not), I do want to offer some new agile principles for companies that want their location- independent teams to thrive. These are messages for the leaders of an organization who can play a highly influential role in setting the rules for how globally dispersed, eclectically skilled, and ethnically and culturally diverse people need to work together. 1. Ensure intellectual harmony. Make sure at the outset that all agile team members understand each other’s domains and terminology, to achieve a common understanding of the terms and manners in which they must work together. 2. Promote role equality. Ensure unwavering respect for everyone’s expertise (i.e., no caste system). 3. Protect strongly. Fiercely protect the dispersed agile team from the internal corporate attackers (especially when the investments mount and the returns are still in the future). 4. Convert widely. Convince skeptical executives to become agile advocates—i.e., why this approach is essential to their and the organization’s success.