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

Abstract

Context] The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive impact on how people work and collaborate across all global economic sectors, including software business. While remote working is not new for software engineers, forced Work-from-home situations 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 project 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 on 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 future software industry.