Exploring Finnish software practitioners’ views on sustainability in agile software development
- 1Software engineering, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology
Abstract
The software industry leverages agile methodologies to significantly boost productivity, accelerate time to market, and achieve a range of other critical advantages, demonstrating the substantial benefits of adopting agile practices. With the rising popularity of agile software development, there is a growing interest in sustainability in this area; nevertheless, the effects of agile practices on sustainability, both in terms of the development process and the final software product, are not well understood. This research used a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with 15 software practitioners from seven Finnish software companies. The interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns related to sustainability perceptions, challenges, and improvement strategies in agile software development. Participants have demonstrated increasing interest in integrating sustainability into agile software development methodologies. The findings indicate that sustainability is a topic that is still emerging and not widely covered, with its technical and economic aspects being the most significant for agile software development. Additionally, the interviewees suggested that improved developers’ well-being (individual sustainability) entails better-performing software (technical sustainability), which requires less infrastructure (environmental sustainability), thereby reducing costs (economic sustainability). The findings hold significant importance for the software industry, as they provide valuable insights into the challenges that impede sustainability and offer potential strategies for integrating sustainability into their practices. The current study identified several limitations, including a limited understanding of sustainability among software developers, a lack of tools or measurements to address sustainability, and a lack of information regarding the libraries utilized in development. Therefore, to address these limitations, we recommend three key milestones to enhance sustainability in agile software development: incorporating sustainability into software engineering educational programs, designing and developing sustainability tools and frameworks, and measuring the energy efficiency of software libraries used in software development. The study contributes a practitioner-grounded understanding of sustainability in agile workflows and identifies intervention targets (staff training, tools and frameworks, and energy efficiency measurement) for operationalizing sustainability in agile practice.
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BibTeX
@article{shamshiri2026exploring,
title = {{Exploring Finnish software practitioners’ views on sustainability in agile software development}},
author = {Hatef Shamshiri and Ashok Tripathi and Shola Oyedeji and Jari Porras},
journal = {Discover Sustainability},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1007/s43621-026-03612-z},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-03612-z},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Exploring Finnish software practitioners’ views on sustainability in agile software development
AU - Hatef Shamshiri
AU - Ashok Tripathi
AU - Shola Oyedeji
AU - Jari Porras
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/01
JO - Discover Sustainability
DO - 10.1007/s43621-026-03612-z
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-03612-z
AB - The software industry leverages agile methodologies to significantly boost productivity, accelerate time to market, and achieve a range of other critical advantages, demonstrating the substantial benefits of adopting agile practices. With the rising popularity of agile software development, there is a growing interest in sustainability in this area; nevertheless, the effects of agile practices on sustainability, both in terms of the development process and the final software product, are not well understood. This research used a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with 15 software practitioners from seven Finnish software companies. The interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns related to sustainability perceptions, challenges, and improvement strategies in agile software development. Participants have demonstrated increasing interest in integrating sustainability into agile software development methodologies. The findings indicate that sustainability is a topic that is still emerging and not widely covered, with its technical and economic aspects being the most significant for agile software development. Additionally, the interviewees suggested that improved developers’ well-being (individual sustainability) entails better-performing software (technical sustainability), which requires less infrastructure (environmental sustainability), thereby reducing costs (economic sustainability). The findings hold significant importance for the software industry, as they provide valuable insights into the challenges that impede sustainability and offer potential strategies for integrating sustainability into their practices. The current study identified several limitations, including a limited understanding of sustainability among software developers, a lack of tools or measurements to address sustainability, and a lack of information regarding the libraries utilized in development. Therefore, to address these limitations, we recommend three key milestones to enhance sustainability in agile software development: incorporating sustainability into software engineering educational programs, designing and developing sustainability tools and frameworks, and measuring the energy efficiency of software libraries used in software development. The study contributes a practitioner-grounded understanding of sustainability in agile workflows and identifies intervention targets (staff training, tools and frameworks, and energy efficiency measurement) for operationalizing sustainability in agile practice.
SN - 2662-9984
ER -