DevOps in practice : A multiple case study of five companies

Context: DevOps is considered important in the ability to frequently and reliably update a system in operational state. DevOps presumes cross-functional collaboration and automation between software development and operations. DevOps adoption and implementation in companies is non-trivial due to required changes in technical, organisational and cultural aspects. Objectives: This exploratory study presents detailed descriptions of how DevOps is implemented in practice. The context of our empirical investigation is web application and service development in small and medium sized companies. Method: A multiple-case study was conducted in five different development contexts with successful DevOps implementations since its benefits, such as quick releases and minimum deployment errors, were achieved. Data was mainly collected through interviews with 26 practitioners and observations made at the companies. Data was analysed by first coding each case individually using a set of predefined themes and thereafter perform a cross-case synthesis. Results: Our analysis yielded some of the following results: (I) software development team attaining ownership and responsibility to deploy software changes in production is crucial in DevOps. (ii) toolchain usage and support in deployment pipeline activities accelerates the delivery of software changes, bug fixes and handling of production incidents. (ii) the delivery speed to production is affected by context factors, such as manual approvals by the product owner (iii) steep learning curve for new skills is experienced by both software developers and operations staff, who also have to cope with working under pressure. Conclusion: Our findings contributes to the overall understanding of DevOps concept, practices and its perceived impacts, particularly in small and medium sized companies. We discuss two practical implications of the results.Peer reviewe

Customer Involvement in Continuous Deployment: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract. [Context and motivation] In order to build successful software products and services, customer involvement and an understanding of customers' requirements and behaviours during the development process are essential. [Question/Problem] Although continuous deployment is gaining attention in the software industry as an approach for continuously learning from customers, there is no common overview of the topic yet. [Principal ideas/results] To provide a common overview, we conduct a secondary study that explores the state of reported evidence on customer input during continuous deployment in software engineering, including the potential benefits, challenges, methods and tools of the field. [Contribution] We report on a systematic literature review covering 25 primary studies. Our analysis of these studies reveals that although customer involvement in continuous deployment is highly relevant in the software industry today, it has been relatively unexplored in academic research. The field is seen as beneficial, but there are a number of challenges related to it, such as misperceptions among customers. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of the research field, we clarify the gaps in knowledge that need to be studied further

Fenix:a platform for digital partnering and business ecosystem creation

Abstract The contemporary world is a world of connections, codependencies, and value networks. However, finding suitable partners and key competences require considerable effort. The proposed business ecosystem creation platform provides 24/7 “available everywhere” web service, including digital infrastructure and tools for professional networking-agents, company representatives, and researchers for up-to-date information retrieval and networking

Integrating service design prototyping into software development

Abstract Customer-driven service design is becoming an integral part of continuous software development. The fulfilment of needs is manifested through customer behaviour patterns that are often difficult to identify and validate for R&D. This paper investigates how customer involvement in software development can be achieved through experience prototyping. First, participatory action research with four cases is presented. As a result, the benefits, challenges and critical factors for successful service prototyping are identified. Second, a practical model is proposed for integrating service design as sprints within the software development process. Based on the study, the deployment of these methods can be adopted through an organisational culture that invests in the needed mindset, expertise, timing and placement. Contextual and motivating user involvement is important throughout the software development process. A number of important subjects that need further studies, such as service design performance measurement and customer data management, were also identified

Continuous improvement and validation with customer touchpoint model in software development

Abstract Experimental-driven software development approach has gained momentum as a way to incrementally build and validate customer value. In-depth understanding of customer needs and reasons behind constantly changing requirements are essential for building successful software products. However, identifying, validating and reacting to these changes is often difficult and requires short iteration cycles and feedback from customers. This paper reports a 12-month case study conducted in an agile software team following a practical customer touchpoint (CTP) model for continuous improvement and validation. The objective of the study was to implement CTP into software team practices in order to determine what kind of effect it has on the development of a web application. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, an in-depth case study is presented that identifies the practices a CTP model should adopt when implemented in the software development process. The CTP model is then extended based on the identified recommendations. Second, the benefits and challenges of the extended CTP in software development are presented. The main benefits relate to learning, decision-making, innovation, co-creation and communication. The model had a positive impact on the software development process, but some challenges, such as stakeholder availability and customer value measurement, were identified

Towards Customer-Centric Software Development : A Multiple-Case Study

Customer involvement in software development is essential for building successful software products. Incremental improvements and enhancements of software require an in-depth and continuous understanding of customer needs. Also, mechanisms for managing customer feedback data need to be in place. However, previous research shows that the feedback loops from customers are slow and the process for obtaining timely feedback is challenging. In this study, we investigate customer feedback mechanisms and the ways in which customer data can be used to inform continuous improvement of software products. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present a multiplecase study conducted in five Finnish software companies, where we identify how customer feedback data is collected and used in different product development activities. Second, we provide an explanatory 'customer touchpoint' (CTP) model which provides an overall understanding of customer feedback data collection and the related challenges in the case companies during software development

Testing methods for mobile game development a case study on user feedback in different development phases

Abstract Mobile games are relatively new industry, and their relevance on the game markets are rising. At the same time, it is very competitive market, as new games are coming out by hundreds every day. The challenges for the new game development come from the creative process and the human factors on how to make the game appealing. In this research, we study the use of test groups as part of new mobile game and concept development process in the early phases. They were used to complement the testing automation at the development phases when use of analytics was not yet possible. Six separate feedback collection sessions were arranged using different methods. The paper presents the main learnings of each used method, the perceived usefulness of the methods for the entire development process. We also contribute to the growing knowledge for mobile game development, focusing on methods for the testing with test user approaches. We conclude that testing with user groups can help clarify the mobile game design to create a more appealing game, but choosing the right groups and right moments in the game development phase can be difficult, as can be the interpretation of the feedback for decision making

DevOps in practice

Context: DevOps is considered important in the ability to frequently and reliably update a system in operational state. DevOps presumes cross-functional collaboration and automation between software development and operations. DevOps adoption and implementation in companies is non-trivial due to required changes in technical, organisational and cultural aspects. Objectives: This exploratory study presents detailed descriptions of how DevOps is implemented in practice. The context of our empirical investigation is web application and service development in small and medium sized companies. Method: A multiple-case study was conducted in five different development contexts with successful DevOps implementations since its benefits, such as quick releases and minimum deployment errors, were achieved. Data was mainly collected through interviews with 26 practitioners and observations made at the companies. Data was analysed by first coding each case individually using a set of predefined themes and thereafter perform a cross-case synthesis. Results: Our analysis yielded some of the following results: (i) software development team attaining ownership and responsibility to deploy software changes in production is crucial in DevOps. (ii) toolchain usage and support in deployment pipeline activities accelerates the delivery of software changes, bug fixes and handling of production incidents. (ii) the delivery speed to production is affected by context factors, such as manual approvals by the product owner (iii) steep learning curve for new skills is experienced by both software developers and operations staff, who also have to cope with working under pressure. Conclusion: Our findings contributes to the overall understanding of DevOps concept, practices and its perceived impacts, particularly in small and medium sized companies. We discuss two practical implications of the results.Peer reviewe