Where is the best location to conduct scrum meetings? A quantitative and qualitative analysis of developers’ perspectives

Meetings are an integral part of the everyday workplace experiences. This is especially pertinent for developers working in the dynamic environment that characterises the high-tech software industry. This study focuses on a specific type of meeting, the Scrum meeting which is associated with agile software development. The objectives of this paper are (a) to assess the best location for Scrum meetings in the hybrid mode of work; (b) to assess the effect of participants' age, gender and role on their preferences for Scrum meeting locations; (c) to provide recommendations regarding the best location to perform the scrum meetings. The research is based on a combination of quantitative (responses provided by 530 developers working in a multinational company to a global online survey) and qualitative methods for data collection from the organisation in Israel (including 35 interviews, and observations in a two-week Sprint with 3 teams, and shadowing with 2 employees). Using knowledge of types of meetings as a guideline for decisions regarding the mode of Scrum meetings, the literature on media choice theory, and research on hybrid and virtual meetings, this study provides an analysis of this topic and recommendations.