Developer Productivity during remote working

Teatime theme - Collegeville 2020

Nur A. Fadel, Sam Yates, CSCS - Swiss National Supercomputing Center

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced thousands of people to work from home. Remote work or ‘smart-working’ has certainly made it possible to continue work that would otherwise have been compromised. Once the pandemic subsides, we can expect that remote and flexible working conditions will remain as options for many employees. The necessary and rapid adoption of remote working has seen an increase in productivity in some cases and a reduction in others, depending very much on the personal situations of workers and the nature of the work itself. For software development, and scientific software development in particular, can we find guidelines or practices that will make remote working more efficient and more satisfying? The goal of this tea time is to discuss the experiences that each of us has had and possibly sketch out some ideas for making the most of this (new) way of working. Therefore in this teatime discussion we’d like to discuss:

1. Your personal experience of remote working.
2. Which tools you have found useful.
3. In what situations these tools have been useful or counterproductive.
4. Conclusions that could help improve remote working in the future.