Impact of sudden increase in remote work on agile software engineering processes and productivity

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to analyse the influence of the increased period of remote work triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic on the agile software development processes, team members' work-routine as well as productivity. Literature research is conducted to identify the challenges caused by remote work when working according to the agile methodology. In addition, the impact of these challenges on the agile principles as well as their influence on the research questions’ main points: agile processes, work routine and productivity is discussed. For a more comprehensive perspective, semi-structured interviews are conducted with agile practitioners from small to medium-sized companies in Austria. Furthermore, answers to: how have the agile processes changed, how has the work routine of team members changed as well as how is productivity affected are provided. Key results include the analysis of how the agility of processes has changed as well as the analysis of productivity both in the short and in the long term. Moreover, the impact of the increased remote work on communication and collaboration within the own team and with other teams is discussed. Last but not least, the feasibility of the expectation of increased productivity in case the agile processes are adjusted with respect to the team members' work routine is discussed.