During the interview she’s sitting on the balcony of her apartment in Bolzano and you can hear the birds singing in the background. “We did enjoy sitting outside in the sunshine during the strict lockdown, as having our private space for all three of us is not always easy”, is how she summarizes the last few weeks staying at home with her husband and her son. Professor Xiaofeng Wang has taught Lean Startup and Agile Software Development in the Faculty of Computer Science since 2011 and is lucky enough to not have to teach a class during this summer semester, but is instead assisting a new colleague. “For our students at unibz the change to online classes went on very smoothly, as our ICT organized everything with great speed via Teams; furthermore, our students are used to working independently also online!”

The 49-year old tenured associate professor has a son of 11 years in his first year of secondary school, and she is positively impressed by the speed at which the middle school Ilaria Alpi managed to switch in only 2-3 weeks to online instruction. “For a university like ours, you expect it to work out very well, but for them it wasn’t that obvious at all.” The children themselves don’t have problems attending online sessions in the morning and afternoon, as they are all digital natives. Xiaofeng Wang doesn’t even want to give her son any credit for being more experienced than other children, with a mom as a computer scientist, teaching and researching in the field of agile and lean software development: “The kids his age spent a lot of time online even before the lockdown, playing video games like Minecraft or Fortnite together, so they are very comfortable with the online communication.” She herself is, like any other parent, watching these gaming sessions with a mix of enthusiasm and concern, as they obviously help adolescents get accustomed to online interaction, but they may also create addictiveness for some of the children. 

And her parents in Beijing, how did they experience the pandemic? “As everybody learned from the news, the air quality in Beijing improved during the lockdown. The lockdown in February was more strict than in Europe: everybody was required to stay home and those who went out for shopping wore masks, gloves and even protective eyewear.” Unlike in Europe most Chinese firms decided to impose strict measures – employees that violated public health guidelines were fired as some employers thought they could hurt the public image of their firms. “In Europe we just talk about fines.” 

Talking about her “free time” at home, Xiaofeng Wang notes that she did not find time to watch some of the movies she always wished to watch. The sunny weather helped her and her family keep their spirits up, by giving them a chance to read outside on the balcony. “My colleagues for example in Finland weren’t that lucky with pleasant weather during the lockdown.” Her family also got an unexpected treat: “I’m definitely cooking much more than before to the delight of my little family”. 

BIO: Xiaofeng Wang received her PhD from University of Bath, UK. Before joining the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, she worked in Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre as a postdoc. She has more than 10 years experience in agile and lean software development research, both in academia and industry, including several multiple-international projects. She actively publishes in both software engineering and information systems journals, including IEEE Software, the Journal of Systems and Software, Information Systems Research, etc. She is also serves in various capacities for academic conferences at the national and European levels.

(vic)