Sustainable Software Development : Criteria From Theory And Their Use In Practice

he need for software continues to grow exponentially within every aspect of our society and the demand for intricate software solutions have led to many attempts at improving the development of software. In this overwhelming wave of the positive impact of software on the world, it is easy to dismiss the negative effects software has on the environment. The effects of climate change are becoming more evident day by day and it is crucial to learn the impact of software, and particularly the development of software, on the environment and through which means it can be mitigated. This research paper aims at identifying methods and practices that can be used to improve existing software development methodologies with regards to sustainability. The software development processes in question are Scrum and Kanban. The research is done over two phases, the first of which is a literature review that is aimed at identifying existing solutions and guidelines for ensuring sustainability within software development. The second is a set of interviews with developers and managers that work with Scrum and Kanban on daily bases in order to collect information regarding how sustainable their ways of software development are and how they can be improved. The analysis of the literature review resulted in a taxonomy or a classification of a set of attributes that are recommended to be taken into account during the various phases of software development. These attributes, and in combination with the results of the interviews, yielded a recommended set of best practices that can be used to improve the planning and development phases of software both in Scrum and Kanban with regards to sustainability.