What Do Critical Success Factors of Collaboration Really Mean in the Context of DevOps?

Collaboration is an important aspect of DevOps. However, researchers continue to report problems with collaboration between development and operations. Critical Success Factors (CSFs) may contribute to solve these problems. Prior research found CSFs of collaboration. Yet we did not find any comprehensive list of CSFs of collaboration grounded in DevOps practice by real-life examples making them meaningful in that context. Therefore, we aim to show that CSFs of collaboration found in other contexts are also recognized in a DevOps context and what previously validated generally applicable CSFs of collaboration really mean in a DevOps context. The research method comprises of a systematic literature review to find a comprehensive list of generally applicable CSFs of collaboration, a multiple case study to find on the one hand which of these CSFs were recognized in a DevOps context and on the other hand to find real-life examples, which substantiated the CSFs recognized. Finally, the aim is to develop a classification of the CSFs. Our main contribution to theory is a well-founded and structured list of CSFs meaningful for the DevOps profession. The list of CSFs can aid practitioners to have a necessarily impact on the success of collaboration.