Rapidly growing born-digital companies like Spotify are held out as agile exemplars. As two Forrester research analysts Amanda LeClair and Jeffrey S. Hammond stated in a 2017 report, “Co-locating software development 64 teams is the ideal.” We certainly understand the sentiment. But it’s outlived its usefulness, as most organizations that use agile methods are now saying. Despite the benefits of co-located teams, several studies have found that the clear majority of those organizations are using remote members in their agile teams: € According to Forrester, only 12% of agile development shops at large companies have 100% co-located teams. The survey was based on 1,867 respondents.65 € A VentureOne survey of 3,880 people at mostly North American and European organizations found 86% had agile teams whose members 66 worked at multiple locations. The company’s 2015 survey on agile practices found more than twice as many (82%) had location-independent agile teams compared with the number three years earlier (35%). € Scott Ambler + Associates’ survey found 71% of companies had agile team members who worked offsite.67 In our work at global companies, we have observed hundreds of successful location-independent agile 68 projects. One such company is ABN AMRO. With five million retail customers, its retail banking business is one of the top three in the Netherlands. From 2013 to 64 Forrester, Get The Most Out Of Distributed Agile Teams, April 27, 2017, accessed April 17, 2018, https://www. forrester.com/report/Get+The+Most+Out+Of+Distributed+Agile+Teams/-/E-RES137389 65 Ibid 66 VersionOne’s, 10th Annual State of Agile Report, 2016, accessed April 17, 2018, https://versionone.com/pdf/ VersionOne-10th-Annual-State-of-Agile-Report.pdf 67 Ambysoft, Agile at Scale Survey, 2016, accessed April 17, 2018, www.Ambysoft.com/surveys/agileAtScale2016.html 68 ABN AMRO, Barclays Global Financial Services Conference, September 11, 2017, accessed April 17, 2018, https:// www.abnamro.com/en/images/Documents/050_Investor_Relations/Financial_Disclosures/Presentations/2017/ Barclays_Global_Financial_Services_Conference_New_York_2017-09-11.pdf