## 4 Findings
Partial agreement of using short iterations was reached for the following seven benefits:  
* provide more-frequent feedback from customers than long iterations;
* afford the team more opportunities to reflect on and improve their work practices;
* deliver a rapid response to changes in priority without disrupting work in process;
* foster scope management since it is easier to move the small backlog items around than the large ones;
* eliminate internal process overheads by running short iterations since user stories are small units of work and the team can follow the iteration status in a simpler way;
* support product adaptability since it is easy to introduce new features, change existing features, and make any other functional change;
* support the team's ability to work on several features in parallel. Finally, a different view was presented on the claim that short iterations enabled early problem detection since agile teams recognized process smells and acted on them immediately. **Q11. What are the benefits of adopting sprint/iteration planning (TP14)? **  
Unquestionably, sprint (iteration) planning was declared the enabler that positively influenced the product quality. Both respondents, representing the project leader and the project partner, partially agreed that using the sprint (iteration) planning technique brought the following benefits:  
* helps teams to control projects;
* effective management of the product backlog;
* provides an opportunity for team members to participate in planning and hence better understand the work assignments;
* provides opportunities to build team cohesion and identification;
* helps in understanding the user stories;
* serves to validate something we do not understand, or something misinterpreted,
* enables setting precise estimates for the task;
* fosters knowledge-sharing and skill-improvement. However, the respondents doubted whether the planning meetings helped to define the goals for each team member. **Q12. What are the benefits of using a task board (PD17)? ** Full agreement was reached with regards to all three benefits submitted to the evaluation in relation to this question. Thus, it was declared that using a task board definitely:* ensures efficient diffusion of information relevant to the whole team;
* enables the team to stay focused on the work progress;
* allows the team to represent any relevant information. On the other hand, it is a pity that the respondents did not provide any benefits other than the predefined ones. **Q13. What are the benefits of using an automated build tool (PD3)? ** Without any doubt, both respondents pointed out that using an automated build tool improved product quality by supporting bug and error detection. Moreover, they also agreed that using such a tool contributed to:  
* saving time and money;
* by keeping a history of builds and releases, it helps in investigating bugs and errors;
* an increase in developers' productivity since build automation ensures fast feedback;
* acceleration of the product delivery by eliminating redundant tasks. **Q14. What are the benefits of using a unit test tool (PD20)? ** The two highest appraised benefits of using a unit test tool are concerned with fostering a higher quality of individual components, that in consequence, lead to increasing the overall system resiliency; moreover, it is also claimed to increase the testers' productivity. Additionally to these, the remaining advantages are related to:  
* early detection of specification deficiencies;
* cost reduction;
* easier source code refactoring. Both respondents agreed that the sum of the benefits achieved was greater than the sum of the costs encountered. Among the main challenges of running an Agile development project with remote teams, there was one in common: keeping the final goal in mind. In other words, team members sometimes forgot that \"progress takes place when they work by this rule\".