Where attention goes, energy flows: enhancing individual sustainability in software engineering

Nowadays, success in the software industry often requires not only quality but also high speed of software delivery. These demands translate into the work of software engineers in form of hard deadlines, pressure to deliver to market on time and the ever-increasing pace of development. The associated pressure negatively impacts both the engineer’s productivity and their healthy distribution of energy and time among different areas of life.

The problem lies in the unsustainable working style. In highly productive economies, double-booking and over-scheduling have become typical practices in many fields. This includes the software industry, where “fast” is synonymous with “successful”. Consequentially, an unhealthy social norm has developed in programming communities where engineers consider it “a badge of honour” to trade their night sleep for more work and thus deliver faster.

As a consequence, software engineers are more likely to develop health problems such as cancer in the long run. This also indirectly causes economic losses estimated between $280 and $411 billion for the US in 2020 alone. The work-related stress also puts them at risk of experiencing burn-outs and decreased creativity. An associated social risk is the propagation of institutional structure into an organisation’s products - in this case, the software. Consequentially, the lack of individual sustainability of software engineers propagates through the products to users, possibly hindering their ability to exhibit a more sustainable behaviour.

To mitigate these issues, this paper proposes an investigation into using mindfulness in software engineering education and practice to improve individual sustainability. Taking breaks to practice mindfulness through yoga, meditation and guided breathing improves physical and mental health, as well as creativity. Combination of these methods is thought to improve individual sustainability, as it improves self-respect and physical and mental wellbeing.

The research agenda starts by proposing a preliminary survey to gather opinions of software engineers on mindfulness interventions. Based on the survey data, narratives are developed to attract interested engineers, by for example explaining how yoga boosts their creativity in problem-solving.

In terms of actual practice, in-class and in-workplace interventions would be devised, where instructions would be given out to participants on how to engage. Feedback and progress of users would be tracked with surveys and biometry over longer periods of time.

Regarding tools to use, an illustrated card deck with 5-minute interventions and their benefits would be developed, both physically and as a mobile application. Next tool would be a practitioner toolkit composed of short instructional video series, which would help evaluate the effects of practicing mindfulness in a dedicated self-care room at work versus self-guided practice. Finally, a framework based on this data would be developed with interventions tailored to a particular organisation.

Finally, a way to properly time the interventions would be determined such that it does not interrupt productive thinking. This would be done with research into sensing and measuring indicators of thinking processes, such as eye tracking, sitting time or keyboard tapping speed.