A theory of organizational structures for development and infrastructure
professionals
Abstract
DevOps and continuous delivery have impacted the organizational
structures of development and infrastructure groups in
software-producing organizations. Our research aims at revealing the
different options adopted by the software industry to organize such
groups, understanding why different organizations adopt distinct
structures, and discovering how organizations handle the drawbacks of
each structure. By interviewing 68 carefully-selected IT professionals
and analyzing these conversations through a Grounded Theory process, we
identified conditions, causes, reasons to avoid, consequences, and
contingencies related to each discovered structure (segregated
departments, collaborative departments, API-mediated departments, and
single department). In this way, we offer a theory to explain
organizational structures for development and infrastructure
professionals. This theory can support practitioners and researchers in
comprehending and discussing the DevOps phenomenon and its related
issues, and also provides valuable input to practitioners’
decision-making.