Integrating Sustainability Concerns into Agile Software Development Process

TL;DR

This paper investigates how sustainability is currently integrated into software development, revealing gaps and proposing practical approaches through a case study to embed sustainability into agile practices.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the current state of sustainability in software engineering and demonstrates practical methods for integrating sustainability into agile processes.

Findings

Lack of widespread sustainability integration in industry

Practical approaches demonstrated in a real-world case study

Insights on scaling sustainability practices in agile development

Abstract

Software has the potential to be a key driver in fostering sustainability. Despite this potential, it is not clear if and how the software industry integrates consideration of sustainability into its common software development processes. This research starts by investigating the current state of sustainability consideration within the software engineering industry through a survey. The results highlight a lack of progress in practically integrating sustainability considerations into software development activities. To address this gap, a case study with an industry partner is conducted to demonstrate how sustainability concerns and effects can be integrated into agile software development. The findings of this case study demonstrate practical approaches to integrating sustainability into software development practices. Reflecting on the findings from the survey and the case study, we note some insights on scaling up the adoption of sustainability consideration into the daily practice of agile software development.