In the programming world, the term ‘bad smell’ refers to negative characteristics of code that could adversely impact design and code quality. Refactoring is a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Its heart is a series of small behavior preserving transformations. Refactoring improves the quality of design and code. In a broader context, software development and testing life cycles do signal bad smells or negative characteristics from time to time, and from project to project.Recognizing such bad smells and responding to them at the right time is essential to keeping projects on track. In our experience, Distributed Agile Software Development projects involve many nuances that could result in tricky situations that impact the satisfaction levels of stakeholders. Refactoring of life-cycle processes is necessary to tune the delivery engine towards delivering quality products. This is not a one-time activity. It needs to happen continuously at regular intervals, and the way it is done can differ from project to project.
