A Grey Literature Review on the Impacts of Covid-19 in Software Development

Abstract

The workplace has been changed by Covid-19. But what is the meaning of the “work from home” phenomenon in software development? This paper aims to investigate the “work from home” pandemic phenomenon in software development. Between October 2019 and December 2021, the Grey Literature review was carried out to investigate 25,251 records, collected through a scraper written in python language. Descriptive analysis was performed using data science and artificial intelligence techniques. We developed a methodology to optimize the collection and extraction of insights from the Grey Literature and reveal perceptions or cognitive distances from the social representation of the impacts of Covid-19 in software development. The main contributions of this paper are to show how Grey Literature may contribute to anticipate findings, reveal changes in the discourse regarding the effects of the pandemic on the work model, and show that in early 2021 the desire for flexibility pressed for a hybrid model. This type of literature review can assist in strategies to deal with events such as Covid-19.