Climbing the "Stairway to Heaven" -- A Mulitiple-Case Study Exploring Barriers in the Transition from Agile Development towards Continuous Deployment of Software

TLDR

Agile development emphasizes rapid, customer‑centric delivery, yet the move to continuous deployment—frequent releases that allow real‑time learning from user feedback—introduces new barriers that must be understood. This paper investigates the obstacles to adopting continuous deployment through a multiple‑case study. By interviewing four software companies, the authors identify key barriers and recommend actions to overcome them.

Abstract

Agile software development is well-known for its focus on close customer collaboration and customer feedback. In emphasizing flexibility, efficiency and speed, agile practices have lead to a paradigm shift in how software is developed. However, while agile practices have succeeded in involving the customer in the development cycle, there is an urgent need to learn from customer usage of software also after delivering and deployment of the software product. The concept of continuous deployment, i.e. the ability to deliver software functionality frequently to customers and subsequently, the ability to continuously learn from real-time customer usage of software, has become attractive to companies realizing the potential in having even shorter feedback loops. However, the transition towards continuous deployment involves a number of barriers. This paper presents a multiple-case study in which we explore barriers associated with the transition towards continuous deployment. Based on interviews at four different software development companies we present key barriers in this transition as well as actions that need to be taken to address these.