Notes on co-location and work from home in Product Development
Studies related to Product Development
The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers
Large case study done by Microsoft during COVID-19. It can be found here
Context of the study
This study examines the effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers, particularly in response to the shift brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how remote work influences communication patterns, knowledge sharing, and team dynamics, while also addressing challenges such as reduced spontaneous interactions and difficulties in maintaining team cohesion. By analyzing data from various professional sectors, the research aims to provide insights into how organizations can adapt their collaboration strategies in a remote or hybrid work environment to maintain productivity and innovation.
Main conclusions
The study concludes that remote work significantly alters collaboration patterns among information workers, leading to both benefits and challenges. While remote work offers increased flexibility and autonomy, it also reduces spontaneous interactions and informal communication, which are crucial for knowledge sharing and innovation. Teams rely more on scheduled meetings and digital communication tools, but these do not fully replace the richness of in-person collaboration. As a result, information workers experience a shift toward more siloed work, with fewer cross-team interactions and a decline in opportunities for mentorship and informal learning.
To address these challenges, the study suggests that organizations need to adopt intentional strategies to foster collaboration in remote or hybrid settings. This includes leveraging digital tools more effectively, encouraging structured but flexible communication, and creating opportunities for informal engagement among employees. Additionally, leadership plays a crucial role in maintaining team cohesion and ensuring that remote work environments do not hinder professional growth and creativity. Ultimately, while remote work is here to stay, organizations must proactively manage its impact on collaboration to sustain productivity and innovation.
Effects on team work
Remote work significantly impacts team dynamics by reducing spontaneous interactions and informal communication, leading to a shift toward more siloed and independent work. Without in-person engagement, teams often struggle with maintaining cohesion, trust, and a shared sense of purpose. Collaboration becomes more structured and dependent on digital tools, which can limit creativity and organic problem-solving. Additionally, remote work can create challenges in mentorship, onboarding, and knowledge sharing, as casual learning opportunities diminish. To counter these effects, organizations need to implement intentional strategies to foster connectivity, such as virtual team-building activities, regular check-ins, and clear communication channels
Programming Teams in Remote Working Environments: an Analysis of Performance and Productivity
Context of the study
This study was conducted in the context of the rapid shift to remote work in the IT and telecommunications industry, driven primarily by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced companies to adapt operations, tools, and team structures to virtual environments. While remote work had already been growing, the pandemic accelerated its adoption, transforming it into the dominant mode for many programming teams. This change brought both opportunities—such as cost savings, flexibility, and higher employee satisfaction—and challenges, including reduced face-to-face collaboration, difficulties for less experienced staff, and the need to maintain productivity, trust, and communication in culturally diverse, geographically dispersed teams. The research focused on Polish IT teams, aiming to identify factors influencing the efficiency of software development work under these new conditions.
Main conclusions
The study concludes that remote work, as experienced by the surveyed Polish IT and telecommunications programming teams, generally does not have a significant negative impact on productivity, and in many cases, it is perceived as slightly or significantly better than in-office work. Individual productivity tends to benefit from remote conditions due to fewer interruptions, better focus, time savings from commuting, and greater flexibility in organizing the workday. However, the perception of team productivity is more moderate, with fewer respondents reporting notable improvements. Differences in perception emerge across roles: junior developers and managers view the lack of in-person interaction—such as problem-solving at a shared board or gauging emotions in meetings—as a greater limitation, likely due to the need for mentoring, relationship-building, and direct oversight.
The findings suggest that non-technical factors, such as enthusiasm for working from home and personal lifestyle flexibility, are stronger drivers of self-perceived productivity than purely technical ones. The study also highlights that positive remote work assessments may partly stem from suboptimal office conditions, such as noisy open-plan layouts. Key challenges identified include supporting less experienced employees, maintaining team cohesion, and ensuring effective communication without face-to-face contact. The authors recommend exploring hybrid arrangements to address these gaps, improving office work environments, and paying more attention to issues like information security, knowledge sharing, and long-term organizational loyalty in remote settings.
Effects on team work
Remote working altered team dynamics by reducing opportunities for spontaneous, face-to-face interactions, which junior developers and managers in particular viewed as important for problem-solving, mentoring, and gauging colleagues’ emotions and understanding. While many team members valued the increased focus, flexibility, and independence remote work offered, the lack of physical presence sometimes hindered relationship-building, real-time collaboration, and the informal knowledge exchange that occurs in shared spaces. For teams with less experienced members—especially those hired during the pandemic who had never worked on-site—this absence of direct contact could slow skill development and weaken cohesion, highlighting the need for deliberate strategies to maintain trust, communication, and coordination in virtual environments.
Changes in perceived productivity of software engineers during COVID-19 pandemic: The voice of evidence
Context of the study
This study was conducted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created an unprecedented, large-scale “natural experiment” as technology companies worldwide abruptly closed offices and shifted employees to full-time work from home (WFH). Many managers initially feared that software engineers would struggle to remain effective outside the office, lose motivation, and become harder to monitor, while others saw potential benefits in flexibility and focus. As the pandemic progressed and organizations began considering permanent remote or hybrid work policies, questions arose about what productivity levels could realistically be expected from engineers working remotely. Existing research before COVID-19 mostly examined part-time, voluntary telework, leaving little evidence on the long-term impacts of enforced, full-time remote work under crisis conditions. This study responds to that gap by synthesizing evidence from thirteen empirical surveys—covering both corporate and published sources—to compare software engineers’ perceived productivity before and during the pandemic, and to identify the factors that enable or hinder productivity in a WFH setting.
Main conclusions
The study concludes that while the average perceived productivity of software engineers working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic showed little overall change compared to pre-pandemic office work, this average masks substantial variation in individual experiences. Across the thirteen surveys analyzed, large groups of respondents reported higher productivity, often citing better organization of work, increased flexibility, more focused work time, and reduced commuting. Equally large groups reported lower productivity, pointing to difficulties with remote collaboration, emotional strain, distractions at home, inadequate home office setups, and challenges in maintaining awareness of team activities. Importantly, the surveys consistently revealed a dichotomy: WFH benefited some engineers while hindering others, suggesting that remote work is not equally suited to all individuals or roles.
A notable trend was that perceptions of productivity improved over time during the pandemic. Longitudinal surveys and follow-up interviews indicated that early negative impacts were often tied to the initial shock of the transition, school closures, and immature remote work setups. Over the following months, as employees upgraded home offices, became more familiar with digital collaboration tools, and adapted team processes, negative perceptions diminished, and positive reports increased. The authors highlight that these adjustments, combined with organizational culture and prior agile practices—especially in the Scandinavian companies studied—helped support productivity in remote settings. They argue that these lessons can inform post-pandemic policies, emphasizing the need for flexibility, proper equipment, and tailored approaches rather than a one-size-fits-all remote work model.
Effects on team work
The study found that remote working had mixed effects on team dynamics in software development, with many participants reporting reduced ease of collaboration and weaker social connections. Common issues included greater difficulty communicating with peers, running brainstorming or problem-solving sessions without physical whiteboards, and maintaining awareness of ongoing work across the team. The loss of spontaneous office interactions—such as overhearing conversations or informal chats—was seen as reducing knowledge sharing and the “positive peer pressure” that can motivate performance. Social ties across teams and the broader organization often loosened, and onboarding new members became more challenging due to the lack of face-to-face guidance. While some teams adapted over time by experimenting with new meeting structures and digital collaboration tools, the early months of enforced remote work were often marked by coordination challenges, increased meeting loads, and a perceived drop in the richness of team communication
Work-from-home impacts on software project: A global study on software development practices and stakeholder perceptions
Context of the study
This study was conducted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many software companies worldwide to rapidly adopt work-from-home (WFH) arrangements regardless of prior readiness or suitability. While remote work was already familiar in the software industry through practices like global software development and teleworking, the pandemic created an unprecedented, large-scale, and prolonged shift to fully or partially remote setups. This sudden change brought both opportunities and challenges, influencing collaboration, coordination, and productivity in software teams. The researchers sought to understand these impacts not only at the individual level—already explored in earlier well-being and work-life balance studies—but also at the team and project level, focusing on how WFH affected software project management and engineering activities, and whether the effects differed between startups and established companies across varied global contexts
Main conclusions
The study concludes that WFH is a situational phenomenon in software projects, bringing both positive and negative effects depending on the activity, team context, and location. The shift to remote work primarily caused a spatial change—from office-based to home-based setups—paired with increased online internal collaboration and greater reliance on digital tools. Project management saw mixed impacts: while team and task awareness generally remained stable, planning resources, timelines, and risks became harder, and maintaining organizational culture was more challenging. Delays occurred in nearly half of the projects. Among software engineering activities, requirement engineering suffered the most—especially customer involvement and requirement gathering—while software architecture was least affected and often benefited from improved focus and process adherence. Implementation, testing, UX, and process management all showed a mix of gains and drawbacks, with most activities taking slightly longer in the remote setting.
Contrary to expectations, the study found no significant difference between startups and established companies in how WFH affected project management or software engineering activities, suggesting that both types of organizations either adapted equally well or faced similar challenges. However, differences emerged across geographical regions, likely due to variations in pandemic severity, infrastructure, and work culture. The authors emphasize that successful WFH adoption requires integrating work arrangements, collaboration tools, and coordination mechanisms into a coherent strategy tailored to the company’s specific context. They also note that established processes—particularly those accommodating distributed work and leveraging digital tools—can reduce negative impacts. Ultimately, they caution that there is no universal formula for making WFH effective in software projects; strategies must be adapted to organizational, cultural, and regional conditions
Effects on team work
Remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped team dynamics in software projects by shifting collaboration from informal, spontaneous, in-person interactions to more formal, planned, and tool-mediated communication. Teams replaced ad hoc office discussions with scheduled online meetings and adopted a wider range of digital tools—especially video conferencing, instant messaging, and shared document platforms—to coordinate work. This led to a rise in mechanistic coordination practices, such as increased meeting frequency, daily status reports, and stricter task tracking, which improved traceability but sometimes slowed decision-making and reduced flexibility. While these changes maintained team and task awareness, they also made it harder to preserve organizational culture, build rapport, and foster creativity, particularly where rich, face-to-face communication had been central to collaboration before
Impact of Remote Work on Software Teams: A Qualitative
Brazilian qualitative study on the impacts of remote work. The study can be found here
Context of the study
This study was conducted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many software companies worldwide to abruptly transition from face-to-face to remote work. In Brazil, as in other countries, this shift affected highly skilled jobs, especially in software development, where knowledge sharing and team coordination are critical. While remote work was already common in distributed software development, the sudden, large-scale adoption during the pandemic presented new challenges for companies unaccustomed to it. The research aimed to understand how this change impacted software teams—both positively and negatively—by interviewing professionals from eight Brazilian companies of various sizes and domains who had been working in software development before and after the transition.
Main conclusions
The study concludes that migrating from face-to-face to remote work brought both significant advantages and notable drawbacks for software development teams. On the positive side, remote work encouraged teams to adopt better-defined processes, make more consistent use of process ceremonies, and expand the use of tools, techniques, and documentation—improving overall knowledge management. Team sizes grew as companies could hire qualified professionals from a wider geographic pool, and productivity often increased due to fewer interruptions and no commuting. These changes particularly benefited companies that already had structured processes before the pandemic, enabling a smoother adaptation.
However, the shift also introduced challenges. Social interaction and informal communication decreased sharply, weakening soft skills development and empathy among team members. Resolving doubts became slower and more formal, especially when documentation was insufficient or processes were poorly defined. Psychological strain increased for some employees, with reports of burnout, and turnover rose as remote opportunities made job changes easier. Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that a hybrid work model—combining in-person and remote work—offered the best balance, preserving flexibility and productivity while restoring valuable face-to-face interaction.
Effects on team work
Remote working reshaped team dynamics by reducing informal social interaction and spontaneous collaboration, which weakened empathy, trust-building, and soft skill development, particularly among newer team members. Communication became more structured and tool-dependent, slowing the resolution of doubts and shifting much of the interaction to scheduled meetings or asynchronous channels. While this fostered more disciplined processes, clearer documentation, and greater reliance on collaboration tools, it also created a more transactional atmosphere and increased the risk of disengagement. At the same time, remote work enabled larger, more geographically diverse teams, improving access to talent but also contributing to higher turnover and the challenge of integrating new members effectively.
Impact of remote work on productivity of software developers and its challenges
Context of the study
This study was conducted in the context of the sharp rise in remote work following the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced organizations worldwide—including Nepal’s IT sector—to adopt work-from-home arrangements to sustain operations. While remote work had existed before, the pandemic made it a necessity rather than a choice, prompting major shifts in workplace practices. In the software development field, remote work brought potential benefits such as reduced commuting time, cost savings, and improved work–life balance, but also posed challenges in communication, coordination, and maintaining productivity. Against this backdrop, the research examines how working remotely impacts the productivity of Nepalese software developers and identifies key obstacles faced by both employees and companies in this new working environment.
Main conclusions
The study concludes that remote work in Nepal’s software development sector has a mixed impact on productivity. While some developers report higher efficiency due to flexibility and the elimination of commuting time, overall correlation analysis reveals a negative relationship between remote work and productivity, communication, and engagement. Many participants indicated that distractions at home, reduced focus compared to office settings, and inconsistent communication with team members and leaders hindered their performance. Although flexibility in scheduling was generally viewed positively, the benefits were often offset by difficulties in collaboration and timely coordination during projects.
In terms of challenges, employees primarily struggle with understanding project requirements, managing tasks across different time zones, interpreting others’ coding styles, and obtaining timely feedback from senior colleagues. From the companies’ perspective, maintaining coding standards, clearly explaining requirements, tracking work progress, providing sufficient support, and delivering prompt feedback are significant hurdles. These findings suggest that while remote work offers potential advantages, its long-term success in the software industry depends on addressing communication and coordination gaps, standardizing processes, and ensuring that technical and managerial support systems are robust for distributed teams.
Effects on team work
The study finds that remote working has generally weakened team dynamics among Nepalese software developers, with many respondents reporting feeling less informed, less connected to their organizations, and less included in their teams compared to working on-site. Communication about project requirements and regular interaction with team leaders is often inconsistent, and opportunities for spontaneous problem-solving or informal collaboration are reduced. This has led to more siloed work, difficulties in coordinating coding tasks, and delays in testing and feedback cycles. While digital tools such as Zoom and collaboration platforms help maintain some level of interaction, they have not fully replaced the ease and immediacy of in-person communication, resulting in strained collaboration and reduced overall team cohesion.