Sustainability in Agile Software Development: A Survey Study among Practitioners

Sustainability is one of the most discussed topics across different disciplines. In software engineering, various sustainability definitions and approaches have been proposed and discussed in recent years. However, little is known about how agile processes support the development of sustainable software systems. In this study, we investigate how sustainability can be incorporated into agile software development processes, especially within the Scrum framework, and how this framework might be extended to support the consideration of sustainability. We present the results of a survey, in which we asked the participating practitioners 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 the practitioners see high potential for considering the sustainability impacts of software systems within Scrum, although not all the elements of the framework are equally suitable for all aspects of sustainability. We also make recommendations on how to address sustainability in Scrum.