Program

After the pandemic, hybrid work, i.e., working partially from the office and partially remotely, such as from home, has become increasingly common in software development organizations. Originally, agile development was designed for single teams working face-to-face. However, large organizations soon noticed its benefits and adjusted the approach for large-scale settings, using various large-scale agile frameworks. Nowadays, the adoption of hybrid work makes the agile set-up even more complicated, especially at scale, since some teams or team members might work fully or partially from home, while others prefer to work in the office. Hybrid work seems to be here to stay, as it brings many benefits for individuals, such as better work-life balance. However, it also creates additional complications, especially for communication and collaboration. Currently, companies are unsure about what kind of rules or practices they should adopt and have several questions they need answered, such as:

• How can we make hybrid work benefit the whole company?
• How should we adjust agile practices to fit hybrid work settings?
• What kind of new practices or rules would fit our company?

In this talk, I will present recent findings from our empirical studies on hybrid work in agile and large-scale agile settings. These findings are based on an interview study in Finnish software companies, an international survey, and a literature review. I will discuss the challenges companies and individuals have faced, the solutions they have tried, and the practices that seem to work in various settings.