Exploring Peopleware in Continuous Delivery
Pauli Kärpänoja, Antti Virtanen, Timo Lehtonen, Tommi Mikkonen · 2016
Traditionally, releasing new software has been a fragile and painful procedure. This view has been challenged by a new approach to software deployment, where the goal is to always be able to deploy the system. The transition from manual releases to instant deployments requires a high degree of automation. Furthermore, the transition requires a new mindset, where both developers and operators act together to deliver value to end users. As this process involves humans and cooperation, developers and their attitude towards the new way of working is important. To this end, in this paper we study the developer perspective of applying continuous delivery in the light of interviewing practitioners working for projects where continuous delivery practices are applied. More precisely, we place the focus on how continuous delivery practices affect software developers and what are the prerequisites for achieving continuous delivery. Based on our research, higher quality and other benefits of continuous delivery can be achieved by giving developers more responsibility. Still, the added responsibilities do not necessarily increase stress, but can actually decrease it, and at the same time improve motivation and job satisfaction.