DEVOPSdigest

The shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed organizations to shuffle their IT priorities by putting more emphasis on digital transformation, DevOps and public cloud initiatives, according to The Future of Remote Work and Software Development, a report conducted by Accelerated Strategies Group (ASG) and commissioned by CloudBees.

An interesting finding identified in the report is that virtual work is helping software teams become more productive.

The research by ASG revealed a shift in IT priorities due to the pandemic and its economic impact:

■ Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents said digital transformation objectives have somewhat or significantly increased in priority.

■ Slightly more than half said their firms placed higher priorities on increasing their DevOps initiatives (52%) and contracting with public cloud service providers (52%) as a result of the pandemic restrictions.

■ Other DevOps initiatives are advancing as well, with about half saying their firms are now practicing daily standup meetings (56%), using cross-functional teams (46%) and automating tasks (43%).

"The responses underscore how IT organizations aren't sitting back during COVID-19 — businesses are asking IT to be more strategic and teams are taking steps to increase cross-company collaboration and become more efficient at software delivery," said Shawn Ahmed, SVP and GM, Software Delivery Automation, CloudBees. "Software, DevOps and CI/CD automation will play key roles in the post-pandemic recovery and organizations are putting a high priority on these areas right now."

Remote work during the pandemic is also pushing teams to be more efficient:

■ More than half of the respondents surveyed (59%) said their software teams have become somewhat or significantly more productive.

■ Only 12.4% saw a decrease in productivity.

■ 42% said they are finding it easier to complete work tasks in a timely fashion.

■ The pandemic has actually reduced some of the burdens on software teams. For example, 61% of respondents found it easier to work across time zones, specifically indicating the newfound ease of working with staffers on different continents (39%).

■ A majority of remote workers (64.4%) anticipate they will work remotely three or more days per week, or permanently, once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

ASG notea in the report: "As the broader organization rapidly adapted to remote work, our research suggests a positive impact on organizations and their employees’ ability to deliver software effectively. The use of Agile and DevOps methods, such as stand-up daily meetings, cross-functional teams and self-assigned tasks, are seeing growing adoption in the organization. Teams shifted to more collaborative work and increased use of information-sharing tools. And while a majority report increases in productivity for developers and the organization generally, the impact on the speed of software delivery is mixed during this immediate, disruptive period of changing priorities and working conditions."

Methodology: The report is based on responses from 347 technology professionals around the globe about the impact of the pandemic on software delivery. The research included evenly distributed survey responses from small, medium and large companies. Three-quarters of the responses came from North America and EMEA, with the highest concentrations coming in equal numbers from individual contributors and managers.