Work-from-home and its implication for project management, resilience and innovation -- a global survey on software companies

TL;DR

This study investigates how the shift to work-from-home during COVID-19 affected software project management, resilience, and innovation across global companies, revealing mixed perceptions and key factors like team, agility, and leadership.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights from a large global survey on WFH impacts in software companies, highlighting differences between startups and established firms.

Findings

Mixed perceptions of WFH impact on projects and innovation

Team, agility, and leadership are crucial for resilience

Differences observed between small and large team contexts

Abstract

[Context] The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive impact on how people work and collaborate across all global economic sectors, including the software business. While remote working is not new for software engineers, forced Work-from-home situations to come with both constraints, limitations, and opportunities for individuals, software teams and software companies. As the "new normal" for working might be based on the current state of Work From Home (WFH), it is useful to understand what has happened and learn from that. [Objective] The goal of this study is to gain insights on how their WFH environment impacts software projects and software companies. We are also interested in understanding if the impact differs between software startups and established companies. [Method] We conducted a global-scale, cross-sectional survey during spring and summer 2021. Our results are based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of 297 valid responses. [Results] We observed a mixed perception of the impact of WFH on software project management, resilience, and innovation. Certain patterns on WFH, control and coordination mechanisms and collaborative tools are observed globally. We find that team, agility and leadership are the three most important factors for achieving resilience during the pandemic. Although startups do not perceive the impact of WFH differently, there is a difference between engineers who work in a small team context and those who work in a large team context. [Conclusion] The result suggests a contingency approach in studying and improving WFH practices and environment in the future software industry.