Agile development -- a software development philosophy that stresses collaboration and continuous customer feedback -- is growing more popular in government IT shops. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Douglas County, Colo.'s IT department are among the public-sector organizations that started adopting the methodology last year.

An agile project operates in short iterations, typically two to four weeks. At the end of each cycle, the development team delivers a functional, tested software module.

Ideally all the players in an agile project -- programmers, project managers, customer representatives and other stakeholders -- work in the same location, meeting face-to-face to discuss their progress, review priorities and demonstrate software. "The more distributed you get, the greater the risk," said Scott Ambler, worldwide practice leader of agile development with the IBM Software Group.

But, of course, we live in a highly distributed world. In a survey conducted in 2008 by VersionOne, a vendor of agile software development management tools, 57 percent of respondents said at least some of their agile teams had members based in different locations.

"People are distributing projects all the time, and agile projects too," said Jim Highsmith, a consultant in Flagstaff, Ariz., who directs the agile project management advisory service for the Cutter Consortium. Co-location is the most effective strategy because it encourages relationships that lead to communication and collaboration, he said. But successful agile teams have used teleconferencing, instant messaging and other technologies to stay in touch every day, supplementing that contact with periodic in-person meetings, he said.

People with the skills that a project requires simply might not be available in a single location. The key is to design the collaborative structure carefully, Highsmith said. "You've really got to think about that more with the distributed teams."