Sustainability in Agile Software Development: A Survey Study among Practitioners

Sustainability is currently one of the most discussed topics across different disciplines. In software engineering, various sustainability definitions and approaches have been proposed and discussed in the last years. However, little is known on how agile processes support the development of sustainable software systems. In this paper, we investigate how sustainability can be incorporated in agile software development processes, especially within the Scrum framework, and how the Scrum framework can possibly be extended to support the consideration of sustainability. We present the results of a survey conducted among practitioners, in which we asked the participants how the elements of the Scrum framework can be used and adapted to address sustainability issues. In our research, we are especially interested in the different roles, events, and artefacts defined in the Scrum Guide and how they can support sustainable development. The results show that practitioners see a high potential in considering sustainability impacts of software systems within Scrum, although not all elements of the framework are equally suitable for all aspects of sustainability. We also propose some recommendations on how to address sustainability in Scrum.