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

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

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

Map Use Competence. Theoretical Basis and the Design of a Competence Model

This article aims at designing a theoretically based structural model of map use competence. In addition to the geographical concept of maps the model of reading competence of PISA and other concepts are discussed. In chapter 3 the main results of empirical studies to map use competence are discussed, and chapter 4 displays the competence model as the present result of discussion by the authors. On this basis an empirical study is planned, which is outlined in chapter 5.Peer Reviewe

Swiss Marketing Leadership Studie 2016 : digitale Transformation im Marketing

Die meisten Schweizer Unternehmen haben verstanden, dass die Digitale Transformation das Marketing grundlegend verändert. Doch vielerorts fehlt es an strategischer Verankerung, Systematik und Ressourcen. Das Institut für Marketing Management der ZHAW School of Management hat am 8. September im Rahmen des Swiss CRM Forum seine diesjährige Swiss Marketing Leadership Studie vorgestellt. Die Befragung von 646 Schweizer Unternehmen zeigt, dass hierzulande ein grundlegendes Verständnis für die Veränderungen im Marketing vorhanden ist, welche die Digitale Transformation mit sich bringt. Allerdings befinden sich viele Unternehmen noch am Anfang des Transformationsprozesses. Auch nicht alle Unternehmen sehen die Entwicklung vornehmlich als Chance. Bisweilen fürchtet man eine Bedrohung des Status quo. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass hierzulande noch viele Herausforderungen zu meistern sind, will man weiterhin im internationalen Wettbewerb mithalten können.­­ Kundenbeziehungsmanagement als Treiber: Bei B2C-Unternehmen geniesst die Digitale Transformation einen signifikant höheren Stellenwert als im B2B-Bereich. Insbesondere das Kundenbeziehungsmanagement gilt vielerorts als Katalysator der Entwicklung. Weniger ausgeprägt ist das Verständnis für den Wandel hingegen im Produktmanagement, wo entsprechende Methoden und Tools noch eine untergeordnete Rolle spielen. Zudem zeigt sich, dass kaum ein Unternehmen bisher ein ganzheitliches, toolbasiertes Product-Lifecycle-Management betreibt. Fachleute verzweifelt gesucht: Gemäss Studie planen Schweizer Unternehmen mehr denn je, in das Kundenbeziehungsmanagement zu investieren. Allerdings zeigen sich dabei grosse Unterschiede: Je reifer das Unternehmen bezüglich Digitalisierung, desto grösser die Bereitschaft für Investitionen. Ausserdem gibt es grosse branchenspezifische Unterschiede. Trotz teilweise reger Aktivität fehlt es jedoch an strategischer Verankerung, Systematik und vor allem Ressourcen. Entsprechende Budgets sind zwar vielerorts vorhanden, doch die Rekrutierung geeigneter Mitarbeitenden stellt eine grosse Herausforderung dar. Die Studie wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit zahlreichen Partnern aus der Privatwirtschaft realisiert

The DevOps Continuum: Walking the Shadowy Bridge from Information Systems Development to Operations

In recent years, enterprises have observed that a holistic approach to agile information systems development and a close integration of information systems operations is essential to maximize the probability of success, leading to the emerging DevOps phenomenon. While first studies have delivered first preliminary insights about DevOps, a foundational understanding of DevOps implementations and theoretical grounding of DevOps is still missing. To close this gap, we conducted a multiple-case study to explore a variety of characteristics of DevOps, and how these different characteristics influence its implementation in different contexts. We find that variations of DevOps implementations are gradual transitions on what we call a DevOps continuum. Based on this insight, we propose a conceptual model which fosters our understanding of the DevOps phenomenon, relates DevOps to existing theories, and identifies new paths for future research

Entparadoxierung im Hochgeschwindigkeitsmodus: Anmerkungen zur Soziologik der Chatgruppe im Lichte einer komparativen Analyse

Hüttermann J. Entparadoxierung im Hochgeschwindigkeitsmodus: Anmerkungen zur Soziologik der Chatgruppe im Lichte einer komparativen Analyse. In: Kiefer M, Hüttermann J, Dziri B, et al., eds. „Lasset uns in sha’a Allah ein Plan machen“: Fallgestützte Analyse der Radikalisierung einer WhatsApp-Gruppe. Islam in der Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer VS; 2017: 95-134

„Lasset uns in sha’a Allah ein Plan machen“: Fallgestützte Analyse der Radikalisierung einer WhatsApp-Gruppe.

Hüttermann J, Kiefer M, Dziri B, et al. „Lasset uns in sha’a Allah ein Plan machen“: Fallgestützte Analyse der Radikalisierung einer WhatsApp-Gruppe. Islam in der Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer VS; 2017