Critical success factors of continuous practices in a DevOps context

Context: Software companies try to achieve adaptive near to real-time software delivery and apply continuous practices in a DevOps context. While continuous practices may create new business opportunities, continuous practices also present new challenges. Objective: This study aims to aid in adopting continuous practices and performance improvements by increasing our understanding of these practices in a DevOps context. Method: By conducting a systematic literature review we identified critical success factors on continuous practices and grouped the found factors. This led to the construction of our initial framework. We started to validate the critical success factors in this framework in a DevOps context by conducting a first pilot interview. Results: We developed an initial framework of critical success factors and conducted a pilot interview to make a first step to validate the framework. Some factors were confirmed and clarified i.e., enriched, on the basis of the retrieved information. In future work we will strive at further validation of the framework. Conclusions: We took a first step to validate our framework and retrieved valuable information, which is promising to take the next steps for further development of the framework