The impacts of the Covid-19 crisis on teams working with agile methods in the IT sector.

Abstract

COVID-19 has thrown Belgium and the world into a health, economic and social crisis with many impacts. This pandemic forced companies and their employees to adapt and adjust, what Agile Software Development values. The purpose of this Master Thesis is therefore to discover and understand the impacts of the pandemic on Agile teams working in IT through three research questions: “What are the psychological and operational impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on teams working in Agile IT companies?”, “Were Agile teams better prepared than traditional teams for this type of change in the IT sector?” and “What are the main differences between remote Agile and traditional face-to-face Agile?” To realize this qualitative study, nineteen semi-structured interviews with practitioners in the field were conducted and analyzed via the Grounded Theory method. Although Agile Software Development methods are extremely widespread in technological companies, it remains a new theory scarcely developed in the literature, all the more since the pandemic is recent and still current. The interviews have thus allowed to develop some points identified in the literature and to highlight others. Firstly, it appears that the pandemic had a strong impact on teams, both psychologically and operationally. Teams had difficulties with work-life balance, to keep contact, they expressed the importance of camera in communication, the usefulness and development of Agile tools, the fear of hybrid meetings, the gain in flexibility and comfort, the willingness to continue to practice telework after the crisis, and numerous others. Secondly, being Agile seems to have been an asset to get through this crisis. It allowed the teams to react quickly and efficiently while maintaining a culture of collaboration, mainly thanks to Scrum events and the Scrum Master. Finally, three major differences between remote Agile and face-to-face Agile have emerged. In remote it is even more important to foster individuals and interactions, to use the tools, and finally, to “formalize the informal” to recreate these moments of exchange. In conclusion, there were numerous findings and it is clear that COVID-19 will leave its mark not only in history, but also in our way of working. This dissertation has revealed many of them, and opens the doors to further research.