To Co-locate or Not to Co-locate? On the Impact of Hybrid Work to Software Design Process

During the recent years, it has become clear that in the foreseeable future, software development takes place in various setups, including co-located, remote, and hybrid teams. While these different setups have been extensively studied, there is a gap in research with respect to how the actual software design process is affected by the development setup. In this paper, we propose studying the effect of co-located, remote, and hybrid setups on the software design process and associated interactions, their focus and implications to the resulting software. The paper builds on indicative evidence gained with students, and presents a research agenda to study how the team setup affects the design process.