Teams Must Be Co Located to Use Scrum? Essential 2026 Guide

It’s a common belief in the world of agile development, almost a piece of accepted wisdom: teams must be co located to use scrum effectively. The idea paints a picture of a dedicated team room, whiteboards covered in notes, and developers swiveling in their chairs for a quick chat. While that model has its merits, the reality of modern work has changed.

Today, high performing scrum teams are delivering amazing products from different cities, countries, and continents. So, is physical proximity a non negotiable rule for scrum, or is it an outdated idea from a different era? Let’s explore why the notion that teams must be co located to use scrum is a myth worth busting.

What the Scrum Guide Actually Says About Co Location

Let’s go straight to the source: the Scrum Guide. If you read it cover to cover, you’ll find it discusses roles, events, artifacts, and values. What you won’t find is any rule stating that team members must work in the same physical office.

The Scrum Guide is intentionally not prescriptive about geography. It emphasizes that teams should be self organizing and empowered by the organization to manage their own work. This empowerment naturally extends to deciding the best way to collaborate, whether that’s in a shared office or through digital tools across the globe. The guide’s silence on this topic is telling. It prioritizes effective collaboration, not a specific office layout. The assumption that teams must be co located to use scrum is an addition to the framework, not a part of it.

The Agile Manifesto and the “Face to Face” Principle

So where did this idea come from? Much of it traces back to the Agile Manifesto, written in 2001. One of its principles states, “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face to face conversation.”

In 2001, “face to face” conversation meant being in the same room. Technology hadn’t yet given us the high quality, instant video communication we have today. The core of this principle, however, isn’t about physical presence. It’s about the richness and immediacy of communication. It’s a call to favor direct conversation over slow, impersonal methods like lengthy email chains.

In today’s world, a high definition video call where you can read body language and share screens in real time is a perfectly valid form of face to face conversation. The spirit of the principle is alive and well in distributed teams, they just use different tools to achieve it.

The Great Debate: Co Location vs. Distributed Teams

The belief that teams must be co located to use scrum isn’t baseless, it’s just incomplete. Co location offers real advantages, but it also comes with significant limitations.

The Benefits and Limitations of Being in the Same Room

Working together in one physical space has some undeniable perks. Communication can feel seamless. You can overhear a conversation that solves a problem you’re stuck on, a phenomenon often called “osmotic communication”. Quick questions, whiteboard sessions, and team bonding happen more organically. This can lead to faster problem solving and a stronger sense of camaraderie.

However, co location has its downsides.

• Limited Talent Pool: Requiring everyone to be in one office restricts your hiring to a specific geographic area, potentially causing you to miss out on the best talent—especially given accelerating tech talent trends in Latin America that expand options for U.S. teams.
• Reduced Diversity and Inclusivity: A strict co location policy can exclude talented people who cannot relocate, such as caregivers or individuals with disabilities. Embracing remote work allows companies to tap into a global talent pool, increasing cultural and cognitive diversity (see Mismo’s perspective on diversity and inclusion in Latin American tech teams).
• Higher Costs and Overhead: Office space, utilities, and relocation packages are expensive. For a cost-savvy alternative, compare the advantages and disadvantages of nearshore outsourcing.
• Lower Retention: In a world where flexible work is highly valued, forcing an undesired relocation is a surefire way to lose skilled employees.

Can Distributed Scrum Teams Really Be Effective?

The answer is a resounding yes. In fact, distributed teams are the new normal. One industry survey found that only 39% of agile teams were primarily co located. Other data shows that distributed Scrum teams are now more common than their co located counterparts in the industry.

Success in Scrum is not determined by where a team works, but by how they work. Studies show that it’s possible to succeed with agile development at any level of geographic distribution. Individuals often report being more productive in a remote setting due to fewer office interruptions. While individual output thrives, it does take deliberate effort to ensure team cohesion and coordination remain strong.

With the right strategies and support, distributed teams can match and even exceed the performance of co located ones. Building these high functioning remote teams is a specialized skill, one that organizations like Mismo Team have perfected, proving that exceptional results are not tied to a physical address.

The Toolkit for Successful Distributed Scrum

A successful distributed team doesn’t just happen by accident. It requires a conscious effort to build a “digital office” that fosters communication, collaboration, and a unified culture. For a deeper dive, download Mismo’s white paper on remote teams.

Building the Foundation: Infrastructure, Bandwidth, and Tools

For a distributed team, technology is the office. It starts with the absolute essential: reliable, high speed internet. A staggering 75% of connectivity issues in remote offices stem from problems with local Internet Service Providers. Even a small amount of packet loss (5 to 15%) can make video conferencing and VoIP calls nearly unusable.

Beyond a stable connection, teams need a well chosen suite of tools (content management tools for remote teams can help standardize collaboration):

• Video Conferencing: Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams for face to face ceremonies and discussions.
• Instant Messaging: Tools like Slack for quick questions and continuous, real time conversation.
• Project Management: Software like Jira or Trello to maintain a transparent product backlog and sprint board.
• Knowledge Sharing: A wiki like Confluence to document decisions, processes, and team knowledge.

Implementing these structured communication tools can boost a team’s efficiency by as much as 30% by cutting down on miscommunication.

Creating a Team Playbook: The Working Agreement

When a team is distributed, you can’t rely on unspoken office norms. That’s where a working agreement becomes critical. It’s a document created by the team, for the team, that explicitly defines their rules of engagement. A comprehensive working agreement is crucial for distributed teams and is one of the best practices for remote work many high-performing orgs adopt.

A distributed team’s working agreement might include:

• Core Hours: A window of time when everyone agrees to be online for real time collaboration.
• Communication Protocols: Guidelines on which tools to use for which purpose (e.g., “Urgent issues via phone, technical questions in the Slack channel”).
• Meeting Etiquette: Rules for video calls, like “cameras on” to improve engagement and “mute when not speaking”.
• Response Times: Shared expectations for how quickly to respond to messages.

This document makes expectations clear, reduces friction, and helps new members get up to speed quickly on how the team operates.

Navigating Time Zones and Cultures

Two of the biggest challenges for global teams are coordinating across time zones and managing cultural differences. For example, remote team building in Latin America leverages near time zones for U.S.-based teams while strengthening cross-cultural collaboration.

Time Zone Coordination: While challenging, different time zones can be a huge advantage. One survey found that 54% of remote workers believe time zone differences help projects finish faster by enabling a “follow the sun” model where work progresses around the clock. Key strategies include:

• Establishing a few hours of mandatory overlap time for meetings.
• Rotating meeting times so the same people aren’t always taking calls late at night or early in the morning.
• Mastering asynchronous communication through detailed documentation and updates.

Language and Culture: In a multicultural team, it’s vital to foster an environment of empathy and clear communication. This means adopting a common working language, avoiding slang or idioms, and encouraging team members to ask for clarification. Without this, language barriers can cause team members to hesitate to share valuable ideas. Building a culture that respects different communication styles turns diversity into a powerful asset.

Beyond Logistics: Fostering Inclusivity and Self Organization

Moving beyond the myth that teams must be co located to use scrum has profound benefits for team culture and organizational health.

Empowering Teams Through Self Organization

A core principle of agile is that the best work emerges from self organizing teams. This principle extends to how a team decides to structure its work. Forcing a team to be co located can undermine this sense of autonomy.

When a team is empowered to choose its own working arrangement, whether that’s fully remote, hybrid, or in office, they take greater ownership of their process. They can experiment, inspect their results in retrospectives, and adapt their approach to what truly makes them most productive. An organization’s role is to provide the support and trust necessary for this self organization to flourish. Mismo Team helps companies build this foundation of trust, enabling teams to find the optimal work arrangement for their unique context.

Conclusion: Co location is a Tactic, Not a Requirement

The idea that teams must be co located to use scrum is a relic of a time before the powerful digital collaboration tools we have today. While co location can be a useful tactic for some teams in some situations, it is not a prerequisite for agile success.

Effective Scrum is about collaboration, transparency, inspection, and adaptation. All of these values can be upheld, and often enhanced, in a distributed team that is intentional about its communication and processes. By letting go of rigid rules about physical location, organizations can access a global talent pool, build more diverse and inclusive teams, and empower people to do their best work, wherever they are.

Ready to build a high performing distributed scrum team? Explore how to build a nearshore development partnership with Mismo Team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do teams have to be co located to use Scrum?

No. The official Scrum Guide does not mention co location as a requirement. It is a flexible framework focused on how a team collaborates to deliver value, not where they physically sit. The belief that teams must be co located to use scrum is a common misconception.

How do distributed Scrum teams handle daily stand ups?

Distributed teams typically hold their daily scrum via video conference. To make them effective, they establish clear rules in their working agreement, such as keeping cameras on, sticking to the 15 minute timebox, and ensuring everyone has a chance to speak without interruption.

Isn’t face to face communication better for Scrum?

Rich, direct communication is vital for Scrum, which is the spirit of the Agile Manifesto’s “face to face” principle. Today, this can be achieved effectively through high quality video calls, screen sharing, and other digital tools that simulate the immediacy of an in person conversation.

What are the biggest challenges for a distributed Scrum team?

Common challenges include coordinating across time zones, maintaining team cohesion and informal communication, and ensuring everyone has the right technical infrastructure (like stable internet). These challenges can be overcome with deliberate practices like establishing a working agreement, scheduling social time, and investing in good tools.

Why do some people insist teams must be co located to use scrum?

This belief often comes from early interpretations of agile principles and positive experiences with the high bandwidth communication that happens in a shared office. While the benefits of in person collaboration are real, modern tools and practices have made it possible to achieve similar or even better outcomes with distributed teams.