7 Challenges Of A Software Development Team Leader During The Pandemic

Most companies were highly affected when the pandemic started. Software houses were most likely one of the least suffering sectors. It stems from the fact that they normally don’t involve direct contact with customers or even between employees. Another crucial aspect is that software houses, similarly to other technology companies, are usually more advanced in terms of digital transformation and remote working tools.

Software development team leader

  1. Communication challenge

Face-to-face communication is no longer a viable option. Nowadays, people can’t discuss any details of their work or have a work-related water-cooler chat. As a result, they have become aware of the major advantage of direct communication. You probably know how easy it was to simply ask someone sitting next to you and get an immediate response in the pre-pandemic era. Such swift exchange of information is much harder during remote working.

  1. Availability challenge

This problem is deeply related to communication. During remote work, people must mix their professional and private lives. For instance, when they are working from home with a baby on their hands, they might not always be present in the same timeframe as others. They could start or finish at different times, not to mention leaving their workstation during the day. Tracking them is difficult even if they provide the details of their schedule.

  1. Efficiency challenge

Probably experienced very high efficiency fluctuations during the pandemic onset. Sometimes, due to peoples increased sense of duty. In other situations, it plummeted because of team members getting used to new working conditions. Later, it probably stabilized and came back to the pre-pandemic conditions. This is because people started considering their home office jobs as normal working conditions. Many surveys show that employees observe the benefits of remote working such as being more efficient in comparison to office work.

  1. Planning challenge

Short-term planning often greatly affected by remote working. Long-term planning is another story. Establishing long-term goals, KPIs, or even conducting workshops cannot be carried out so easily during remote work. It’s almost as if these activities were meant for office meetings. No matter what efforts you take or what remote working tools you use for communication and organization.

  1. Leadership challenge

The case of remote work is that nowadays advanced technical skills are simply not enough. Equally valuable abilities include soft skills such as cooperativeness, clear communication, conflict resolution skills as well as problem-solving in terms of managing relationships. That is why the first goal of all software development team leaders during the pandemic is to learn new skills.

  1. Work comfort challenge

The offices can have the best chill rooms, but these won’t help during remote work. People working from home need to feel that their work isn’t affecting their health or private lives. So, the new work comfort challenge is a mixture of leadership roles and a new approach to trust at work and employee autonomy.

  1. Integrity challenge

When we stopped going to offices, we often lost the feeling of belonging to our company. People who we used to meet turned into faces on screens. Our celebrations of achievements became just ticks on our checklist. When we aren’t very attached to a company, much easier to change jobs. Especially since you don’t have to physically go to a job interview these days.

Conclusion

We have considered all the major challenges facing software development team leaders during the pandemic. Most of these challenges relate to managing people and keeping your team together. Nevertheless, making your team feel good and appreciated despite constant remote work is critical to conducting company processes.