  Due to the global pandemic, in March 2020 we in academia and industry were
abruptly forced into working from home. Yet teaching never stopped, and neither
did developing software, fixing software, and expanding into new markets.
Demands for flexible ways of working, responding to new requirements, have
never been so high. How did we manage to continue working, when we had to
suddenly switch all communication to online and virtual forms of contact? In
this short paper we describe how Ocuco Ltd., a medium-sized organization
headquartered in Ireland, managed our software development teams--distributed
throughout Ireland, Europe, Asia and America during the COVID-19 pandemic. We
describe how we expanded, kept our customers happy, and our teams motivated. We
made changes, some large, such as providing emergency financial support; others
small, like implementing regular online social pizza evenings. Technology and
process changes were minor, an advantage of working in globally distributed
teams since 2016, when development activities were coordinated according to the
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The results of implementing the changes were
satisfying; productivity went up, we gained new customers, and preliminary
results from our wellness survey indicate that everyone feels extremely
well-supported by management to achieve their goals. However, the anonymised
survey responses did show some developers' anxiety levels were slightly raised,
and many are working longer hours. Administering this survey is very
beneficial, as now we know, so we can act.
