Distributed Agile Development Communication: An Agile Architecture Driven Framework Yehia Ibrahim Alzoubi 1* , Asif Qumer Gill 1 , Ahmed Al-Ani 2 1 School of Software, University of Technology Sydney, 15 Broadway/Ultimo NSW 2007, Australia. 2 School of Electric, Mechanic and Mechatronic Systems, University of Technology Sydney, 15 Broadway/Ultimo NSW 2007. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 9514 7938; email: yizoubi1977@gmail.com Manuscript submitted January 26, 2015; accepted May 8, 2015. doi: 10.17706/jsw.10.6.681-694 Abstract: Agile methods depend on active communication and effective knowledge sharing among team members for producing high quality working software systems in short releases and iterations. However, effective communication in Distributed Agile Development (DAD) can be challenging due to a number of different factors, such as physical locations, multi-cultures and time-zones. The agile body of knowledge mainly discusses some technology and non-technology solutions and strategies to mitigate the DAD communication challenges from a project management perspective. Nevertheless, it has recently been argued that there is a need to understand and analyze DAD communication from other related but different perspectives, such as enterprise strategy, enterprise architecture and service management. Due to the fact that agile EA provides a holistic view and blueprint of the whole environment in which a number of projects are developed and managed, we attempt in this study to explore the effect of agile Enterprise Architecture (EA) on DAD communication. Particularly, we propose the development of an agile EA driven approach from the architecture body of knowledge for handling the DAD communication challenges that have not been thoroughly investigated before. Key words: Agile communication challenges, distributed agile communication, distributed agile development, enterprise architecture. 1. Introduction Agile methods have been introduced to address a number of issues related to project development and delivery, such as over-budget or behind schedule projects, and not meeting customer's needs and expectations. These issues require adopting flexible, adaptable and short delivery cycles [1]. Agile methods have been emerged over a period of time to increasingly influence future trends in software development in both the local and distributed contexts [2]. Agile practices combined with distributed development seem to offer several benefits, such as faster time to market, the liberty of involving developers around the world, around the clock development and low cost products [3]. Despite these benefits, distributed agile or adaptive development (DAD) faces many challenges. The most noticeable challenge is the communication and knowledge sharing between dispersed teams and customers [4]-[6]. Poor communication and knowledge sharing (e.g., delivering an inadequate, inaccurate or incomplete message) are the main concerns of DAD environments [5]-[7]. As the interest in adopting DAD has been increasing, the literature on communication challenges and communication techniques/strategies of DAD has also been increasing [2]. This marks the importance of research in developing tools, techniques, strategies 681 Volume 10, Number 6, June 2015 Journal of Software