Agile software development in the post-COVID-19 era.
Adam Przybylek is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, University of Galway. Prior to this appointment, he served as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics at Gdansk University of Technology, Poland. He holds a Ph.D. in Software Engineering and an M.Sc. in Information Systems.
His primary research interests lie in empirical software engineering, with a focus on agile methods and software modularity. Adam bridges the gap between theory and practice with significant industry experience, having worked as a network consultant and a data scientist developing AI-powered solutions for the insurance sector.
He is the founder of the International Conference on Lean and Agile Software Development (LASD) and a co-founder of the Workshop on Personalization and Recommender Systems (PeRS). Additionally, he served as Program Chair for KKIO'23, ACM SAC'24, ISD'24, and ACM SAC'25. He is also an active and long-serving member of program committees for several international venues, including REFSQ, ISD, ACM SAC, XP, SEAA, ENASE, and DEXA.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to remote work, challenging agile teams that rely on face-to-face interaction. While immediate fixes were found, robust solutions for long-term remote and hybrid agile work remain elusive. Teams continue to face operational difficulties including communication barriers, reduced cohesion, transparency issues, and complexities in onboarding.
The SyMeCo project addresses this gap by developing context-specific practices and agile framework adaptations for remote/hybrid settings. Sitting at the intersection of Software Engineering and Information Systems, the project addresses technical aspects, organizational transformation, and employee well-being.
We employ Case Study and Action Research in collaboration with industrial partners to test and refine systematic solutions, ensuring practical applicability in the post-COVID-19 landscape.
This secondment established an industry collaboration with Ericsson to investigate and improve agile retrospective practices in distributed software development. We conducted participant observations across six teams operating in on-site, remote, and hybrid settings, attending a total of nine retrospective sessions.
Detailed observation protocols were developed and synthesized for each session. Based on our analysis, we provided teams with tailored feedback and improvement recommendations, initiating an iterative improvement cycle that will continue in the subsequent intervention-based research.