DevOpsUse: A Community-Oriented Methodology for Societal Software Engineering

Abstract

The demanded fast innovation cycles of the ongoing digital transformation create an unstable environment in which the demands of heterogeneous professional communities need to be addressed. Moreover, the information systems infrastructure of these professional communities has a strong influence on their practices. However, the evolution of the web as infrastructure is shaped by an interplay of new technologies and innovative applications. It is characterized by contrasts, such as centralized versus peer-to-peer architectures and a large number of end users versus a small number of developers. Therefore, our aim is to stabilize these dichotomies apparent in the web by means of an agile information systems development methodology. The DevOps approach promotes stronger cooperation between development and operations teams. Our DevOpsUse methodology additionally fosters a stronger involvement of end-user communities in software development by including them in the process of infrastructuring, that is, the appropriation of infrastructure during its usage. The developed DevOpsUse methodology and support tools have been successfully validated by the transitions between three generations of technologies: near real-time peer-to-peer web architectures, edge computing, and the Internet of Things. In particular, we were able to demonstrate our methodology’s capabilities through longitudinal studies in several large-scale international digitalization projects. Beyond web information systems, the framework and its open-source tools are applicable in further areas like Industry 4.0. Its broad adaptability testifies that DevOpsUse has the potential to unlock capabilities for sustainable innovation.