480 research outputs found
Management Challenges for DevOps Adoption within UK SMEs
The DevOps phenomenon is gathering pace as more UK organisations seek to leverage the benefits it can potentially bring to software engineering functions. However substantial organisational change is inherent to adopting DevOps, especially where there are prior and established methods. As part of a wider piece of doctoral research investigating the management challenges of DevOps adoption, we present early findings of a six month qualitative diary study following the adoption of DevOps within a UK based SME with over 200 employees. We find that within our case study organisation, the DevOps approach is being adopted for the development of a new system used both internally and by customers. DevOps, conceptually, appears to be generally well regarded, but in reality is proving difficult to fully adopt. This difficulty is down to a combination of necessity in maintaining a legacy system, lack of senior management buy-in, managerial structure and resistance. Additionally, we are finding evidence of job crafting, especially with the software developers. Taken together, we put forward the argument that DevOps is an interdisciplinary topic which would greatly benefit from further management and potentially psychology oriented research attention
Why and How do Large-scale Organizations Operationalize DevOps
An essential part of organizational efforts is to provide products to customers. To sustain competitive positions on existing markets, and to expand into new markets, firms utilize and continuously optimize approaches to efficiently provide effective products. Meanwhile, applying agile practices is a commoditized way for organizations to better adapt to changes during the development of their products. For bringing products to customers, more than their development is required. Typically, multiple organizational functions, all with individual goals and practices, are included in the development and delivery of products. This is often associated with friction points between those functions, and hinders the optimization of effectiveness and efficiency in providing products to customers. In retrospective, not all firms were able to recalibrate themselves and find back to former success after they had once missed to (again) innovate by timely addressing changes on their existing markets, discovering unmet or changed customer needs, and providing new products that bring together emerging technology with evolving customer demands. This potential threat now appears to be omnipresent with the ongoing proliferation of digitalization through the practical world of all of us. The emerging phenomenon of DevOps, a portmanteau word of “development” and “operations”, describes approaches to streamline development and delivery of products across organizational functions, to efficiently provide effective products, and to enable organizational digitalization efforts. This dissertation sheds light on reasoning, configurational factors, and dynamics behind DevOps implementations in large-scale. The composition of four independent yet interrelated scientific papers, the cornerstones of this dissertation, answers why and how large-scale organizations operationalize DevOps. In sum, this dissertation adds systematic and foundational knowledge, presents new applications and nuanced concretizations of scientific empiric approaches, connects allied but distinct research communities, and provides guidance for practitioners acting in this timely, relevant and interesting domain
A Survey of DevOps in the South African Software Context
This study investigated DevOps practices and experiences in the South African software development context, along with associated perceptions of benefits and challenges. Survey data collected from a sample of 80 software development professionals showed that more frequent builds, earlier detection of bugs and reduced project lead times were the top three benefits, while getting DevOps capable members into a team, finding experienced professionals to support DevOps practice and changing deep-seated company culture to support DevOps were the top three challenges. DevOps practices are still emerging. Although 85% of respondents report continuous integration as a frequent practice, only 54% report using continuous deployment frequently. The biggest reported impacts of DevOps on software development culture were in making development team members aware of operational faults, responsible for quality assurance, and responsible for deployments. Realisation of benefits from DevOps depends largely on a culture change. Results are useful for guiding organisations considering DevOps adoption
Coexisting Plan-driven and Agile Methods: How Tensions Emerge and Are Resolved
Fast changing products, processes, and services caused by digital technologies require organizations to adopt agile methods after having used plan-driven approaches for decades. Adopting agile methods only to software development, can lead to a challenging coexistence of methods. To date, little empirical understanding exists with regard to the difficulties that emerge when organizations introduce agile teams in plan-driven environments. Consequently, we investigate the coexistence of agile and plan-driven methods and study its impacts. We conducted an exploratory multiple case study of four organizations and draw from adaptive structuration theory to study how agile methods are adopted on team level to an environment of deeply entrenched plan-driven methods. We find that this coexistence causes several tensions between agile and plan-driven teams (i.e., budgeting, knowledge, planning, process, responsibility, and cultural tension). Further, we reveal how organizations and teams overcome these tensions with balanced and blended resolutions
The DevOps Funnel: Introducing DevOps as an Antecedent for Digitalization in Large-Scale Organizations
Business productivity and speed to market are among the top priorities of IS managers to stay successful. To achieve these goals, a change in business processes or models is often required, which is often linked to the phenomenon of digitalization. Enterprises have observed that a holistic approach to agile IS development is essential to enable this change, leading to the concept of “DevOps”. While past studies have delivered first insights about DevOps, an understanding of which factors are important to introduce DevOps in organizations, and how DevOps relates to digitalization, is still missing. To close this gap, we conducted a two-staged study of literature review and multiple-case study. Our findings suggest that DevOps links success and practices for development and operations across actors of different organizational levels. We find that DevOps supports digitalization efforts, contribute to the understanding of the DevOps phenomenon and identify worthwhile paths for further research
An agile information flow consolidator for delivery of quality software projects: technological perspective from a South African start-up
In today’s knowledge-based economy, modern organisations understand the importance of technology in their quest to be considered global leaders. South African markets like others worldwide are regularly flooded with the latest technology trends which can complicate the acquisition, use, management and maintenance of software. To achieve a competitive edge, companies tend to leverage agile methods with the best possible combination of innovative supporting tools as a key differentiator. Software technology firms are in this light faced with determining how to leverage technology and efficient development processes for them to consistently deliver quality software projects and solutions to their customer base.
Previous studies have discussed the importance of software development processes from a project management perspective. African academia has immensely contributed in terms of software development and project management research which has focused on modern frameworks, methodologies as well as project management techniques. While the current research continues with this tradition by presenting the pertinence of modern agile methodologies, it additionally further describes modern agile development processes tailored in a sub-Saharan context. The study also aims novelty by showing how innovative sometimes disruptive technology tools can contribute to producing African software solutions to African problems. To this end, the thesis contains an experimental case study where a web portal is prototyped to assist firms with the management of agile project management and engineering related activities.
Literature review, semi-structure interviews as well as direct observations from the industry use case are used as data sources. Underpinned by an Activity Theory analytical framework, the qualitative data is analysed by leveraging content and thematic oriented techniques.
This study aims to contribute to software engineering as well as the information systems body of knowledge in general. The research hence ambitions to propose a practical framework to promote the delivery of quality software projects and products.
For this thesis, such a framework was designed around an information system which helps organizations better manage agile project management and engineering related activities.Information SciencePh. D. (Information Systems
DevOps: Walking the Shadowy Bridge from Development Success to Information Systems Success
In recent years enterprises have observed that a holistic approach to agile information systems development and a closer integration of information systems development with information systems operations is essential to maximize the probability of success, leading to the emerging DevOps phenomenon. While past research delivers insights about success criteria in information systems development as well as information systems operations, conceptual inclusion of DevOps is missing. We propose a multi-staged qualitative research design including literature review and multiple-case study to explore and identify origins of critical success criteria used to measure success by the two major IT-related enterprises functions IT development and IT operations. Based on that, we aim to contribute a “DevOps model”, from a success criteria perspective, and reconcile information systems development with the Information Systems Success Model. In addition, our research significantly fosters understanding of the DevOps phenomenon and identifies paths for future research
The Empire Strikes Back: The end of Agile as we know it?
Agile methods have co-evolved with the onset of rapid change in software and systems development and the methodologies and process models designed to guide them. Conceived from the lessons of practice, Agile methods brought a balanced perspective between the intentions of the stakeholder, the management function, and developers. As an evolutionary progression, trends towards rapid continuous delivery have witnessed the advent of DevOps where advances in tooling, technologies, and the environment of both development and consumption exert a new dynamic into the Agile oeuvre. We investigate the progression from Agile to DevOps from a Critical Social Theoretic perspective to examine a paradox in agility – does an always-on conceptualization of production forestall and impinge upon the processes of reflection and renewal that are also endemic to Agile methods? This paper is offered as a catalyst for critical examination of and as a call to action to advocate for sustaining and nurturing reflective practice in Agile and post-Agile methods, such as DevOps. Under threat of disenfranchisement and relegation to automation, we question how evolution towards DevOps may alter key elements in the tenets and principles of the Agile methods phenomenon
- …