Measures Contributing to the Success of DevOps Processes: Development of a Reference Model to Actively Stimulate Customer Involvement

To implement DevOps processes of Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery or Continuous Deployment (CI/CD-processes), the software industry tries to tackle a plethora of challenges. Specific characteristics of CI/CD-processes emphasize the importance of customer involvement. Although it would appear obvious to involve the customer more closely into CI/CD-processes, literature seems to underexpose the exact role of the customer. The involvement of customers needs more attention to fit the goal of CI/CD-processes. Therefore, measures concerning the aspect of customer involvement contributing to the success of CI/CD-processes found in literature need more empirical evidence. This study aims to contribute to the success of CI/CD-processes by developing a relevant reference model of measures to actively stimulate customer involvement. We followed three phases. In the first phase, we conducted a systematic literature review to find potential customer-oriented measures. We applied in the second phase a metaplan method to classify the potential measures per CSF. This resulted in a baseline model of six wide-ranging CSFs and seventeen potential customer-oriented measures. Since we needed a reference model of measures which actively stimulate customer involvement we conducted a multiple case study in the third phase. We used the baseline model to collect data to be able to develop the reference model. We asked for real-life examples of measures and corresponding explanations on why the taken measures stimulate customer involvement. Next, we classified the explanations found. Based on the classified explanations, we developed a reference model of measures to actively stimulate customer involvement. This study extends the literature by a structured reference model of measures to actively stimulate customer involvement. In addition, we showed that our methodology enabled the development of a model exclusively focused on measures of customer involvement from a wide-ranging yet customer-oriented baseline model.