Evaluating the State and Evolution of DevOps in a Software Organization
Kiander, Otto (2023)
2023
Tietotekniikan DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Information Technology
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-05-29
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304264489
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202304264489
Tiivistelmä
Improvement is constantly sought for in the field of software engineering. New technologies and processes that improve the way software is being made are being developed all the time. This thesis focuses on finding improvements for the software development practices and processes in the software organization Cargotec Digital Solutions Hub (DiSH). DiSH provides software solutions ranging from factory equipment checklist applications to a large-scale IoT data platform for container handling equipment. In an organization with teams of differing composition, and projects with varying technologies and scope, it was predicted that there would be many topics relating to software development that could be improved. Finding improvements was chosen to be done from a DevOps point of view, as it had already been a topic of interest in the organization.
The starting point for the assessment in this thesis was charting the field of DevOps to find out what was the state-of-the-art. Based on this research, a method was derived for evaluating how advanced the DevOps-related processes in the organization were, and how had they evolved to that state. Knowing the state of DevOps in the organization, and the evolution that led there, aided in understanding whether DevOps practices had been taken into use in the organization as they were intended. As a result from the evaluation, some concrete improvement ideas were found to move the organization towards being able to continuously improve its processes. In addition to this, another model was also used to be able to prioritize the improvements to aid in beginning the improvement process in the organization.
As the goal of DevOps is to improve automation, culture, measurement, and sharing practices in software organizations to reduce friction across the whole software development life cycle, the improvement ideas concerned a wide variety of topics. One of the major findings from the evaluation was that there were inadequate practices and tools for beginning new projects. Another finding was that the tools for providing visualizations of work progressing, or strategic targets being achieved, were lacking. Multiple other improvements were also found that related to, for example technology, team working practices, measuring of own processes, and automation.
The starting point for the assessment in this thesis was charting the field of DevOps to find out what was the state-of-the-art. Based on this research, a method was derived for evaluating how advanced the DevOps-related processes in the organization were, and how had they evolved to that state. Knowing the state of DevOps in the organization, and the evolution that led there, aided in understanding whether DevOps practices had been taken into use in the organization as they were intended. As a result from the evaluation, some concrete improvement ideas were found to move the organization towards being able to continuously improve its processes. In addition to this, another model was also used to be able to prioritize the improvements to aid in beginning the improvement process in the organization.
As the goal of DevOps is to improve automation, culture, measurement, and sharing practices in software organizations to reduce friction across the whole software development life cycle, the improvement ideas concerned a wide variety of topics. One of the major findings from the evaluation was that there were inadequate practices and tools for beginning new projects. Another finding was that the tools for providing visualizations of work progressing, or strategic targets being achieved, were lacking. Multiple other improvements were also found that related to, for example technology, team working practices, measuring of own processes, and automation.