Agile in the Hybrid Era: Unpacking Meetings in Software Development

Abstract

Hybrid work has become firmly established as a standard practice in software development in the post-pandemic era. In agile environments, meetings are pivotal for collaboration, making thoughtful consideration of their formats essential. This study explores how a broad range of recurring meetings are organized and carried out in hybrid work settings within a large-scale agile environment. It also examines key meeting-related aspects such as camera usage, role-based differences in meeting load and overload, and multitasking behaviors. We conducted a case study at Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company, combining semi-structured interviews with 27 participants and survey responses from 58 individuals across two units. Our results show that meeting formats should align with intent. Remote meetings were efficient for formal information sharing, while collaborative and socially oriented meetings benefited from in-person interaction. Office attendance policy models influenced format choices, with fixed office days allowing for fully in-person or remote meetings. The more flexible model necessitated hybrid meetings, which required well-equipped meeting spaces and reliable IT infrastructure for seamless collaboration. Camera use supported engagement in discussion-heavy virtual meetings, and perceptions of meeting overload varied by role and were not solely time-based. Frequent multitasking was generally limited and reflected role-specific demands rather than disengagement.