Authors:
Thomas Neubrand
1
;
2
and
Thorsten Haendler
1
;
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna, Austria
;
2
Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Austria
Keyword(s):
DevOps, Maturity Assessment, Goal Question Metric (GQM), Continuous Delivery, Survey.
Abstract:
DevOps aims to increase an organization’s ability to build, test and release software in a rapid, frequent, and more reliable fashion by combining the perspectives of software development and IT operations. It emphasizes the communication and collaboration among all stakeholders involved in the software development lifecycle by applying a set of technological and cultural practices and principals. Organizations are increasingly adopting DevOps practices in order to capitalize on its benefits. However, DevOps is a paradigm with different interpretations and definitions, making it difficult for organizations to decide what practices and capabilities of DevOps to adopt and to enhance based on their individual business needs. In this paper, we propose a GQM-based approach for assessing the DevOps maturity in organizations. For this purpose, we structure DevOps capabilities in terms of goals and sub-goals that enable DevOps identified in existing research literature. Then, questions and m
etrics are derived and operated for a questionnaire to assess the DevOps maturity with regard to the different capability levels. The resulting maturity report is finally illustrated via different kinds of radar charts representing the individual levels of the identified goals and sub-goals. A first evaluation with experts indicates that the developed technique seems useful to assess DevOps maturity. With the support of the proposed technique, organizations are able to assess its current practices and measure the improvements over the course of time.
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