Understanding the Difference between Office Presence and Co-presence in Team Member Interactions

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2311.05627v1
• Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2023 15:58:56 GMT
• Title: Understanding the Difference between Office Presence and Co-presence in Team Member Interactions
• Authors: Nils Brede Moe, Simen Ulsaker, Darja Smite, Jarle Moss Hildrum, Fehime Ceren Ay
• Abstract summary: This study explores the co-presence patterns of 17 agile teams in a large agile telecommunications company. Some teams exhibited a coordinated approach, ensuring team members are simultaneously present at the office. Other teams demonstrated fragmented co-presence, with only small subgroups of members meeting in person and the remainder rarely interacting with their team members face-to-face.
• Score: 4.312340306206884
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Abstract: Although the public health emergency related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has officially ended, many software developers still work partly from home. Agile teams that coordinate their office time foster a sense of unity, collaboration, and cohesion among team members. In contrast, teams with limited co-presence may experience challenges in establishing psychological safety and developing a cohesive and inclusive team culture, potentially hindering effective communication, knowledge sharing, and trust building. Therefore, the effect of agile team members not being co-located daily must be investigated. We explore the co-presence patterns of 17 agile teams in a large agile telecommunications company whose employees work partly from home. Based on office access card data, we found significant variation in co-presence practices. Some teams exhibited a coordinated approach, ensuring team members are simultaneously present at the office. However, other teams demonstrated fragmented co-presence, with only small subgroups of members meeting in person and the remainder rarely interacting with their team members face-to-face. Thus, high average office presence in the team does not necessarily imply that team members meet often in person at the office. In contrast, non-coordinated teams may have both high average office presence and low frequency of in-person interactions among the members. Our results suggest that the promotion of mere office presence without coordinated co-presence is based on a false assumption that good average attendance levels guarantee frequent personal interactions. These findings carry important implications for research on long-term team dynamics and practice.

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