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From Agile to DevOps: Smart Skills and Collaborations

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Abstract

Although agile software development approaches have become increasingly prevalent, many organizations, have found they were not able to achieve a more frequent release cadence, largely due to different departmental functions operating in silos. In an effort to remove these silos, companies have moved towards DevOps. As digitalization continues, companies increasingly implement DevOps. We suggest three different stages in the agile to DevOps transition: agile, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. Based on an in-depth case study in an organization with several years’ experience in DevOps, we identify a fundamental disruption in the soft skills that software teams are expected to possess, and in the patterns of collaboration among teams. Arguably, smartness may be characterized as being flexible, teaming up with people who have a different profile, belonging to a different function, and achieving a quicker delivery schedule. In light of this, we argue that DevOps leads to greater smartness for the Information Systems function.

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Notes

  1. https://www.chef.io/chef/

  2. https://www.docker.com/

  3. https://puppetlabs.com/

  4. https://www.vagrantup.com/

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ESSCA School of Management, 1 Rue Joseph Lakanal, 49000, Angers, France

    Aymeric Hemon

  2. LEMNA, IAE de Nantes, Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, Bâtiment Erdre, University of Nantes, 44322, Nantes, France

    Aymeric Hemon, Barbara Lyonnet & Frantz Rowe

  3. SKEMA Business School, KTO, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Frantz Rowe

  4. LERO, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Limerick, V94 T9PX, Ireland

    Brian Fitzgerald

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  1. Aymeric Hemon
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  2. Barbara Lyonnet
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  3. Frantz Rowe
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  4. Brian Fitzgerald
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Correspondence to Aymeric Hemon.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 8 Index
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Appendix 2

Table 9 Coding example
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Hemon, A., Lyonnet, B., Rowe, F. et al. From Agile to DevOps: Smart Skills and Collaborations. Inf Syst Front 22, 927–945 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09905-1

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