DevOps: Profiles in ITSM Performance and Contributing Factors

Abstract

This paper describes IT performance using the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model, and presents the key factors of effective information technology (IT) team performance in the context of DevOps and IT service management. It then presents the development of a construct to measure IT team performance in the context of DevOps, based on three factors, two throughput measures (lead time to deploy and deployment frequency) and a stability measure (mean time to recover); these correspond to EOQ variables batch size (measured as deployment frequency) and transaction cost (lead time to deploy and mean time to recover). Based on a sample of 7,522 IT professionals worldwide, we conduct a hierarchical cluster analysis and find that the throughput and stability measures move together, consistent with EOQ. The analysis reveals three IT performance profiles: high, medium, and low. Further analysis shows that innovations can be used to impact these IT performance profiles. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: DevOps, Economic Order Quantity, cluster analysis, IT performance, throughput, stability, transaction costs, IT service management

JEL Classification: C42, D23, L86