When Continuous Delivery Is Not an Option: Practical Paths to Continuous Engineering in Complex Organizations

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Klotins, Eriks, Ahlgren, Magnus, Vivaldi, Nicolas Martin, Karlsson, Even-Andre
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866912687456256000
author Klotins, Eriks
Ahlgren, Magnus
Vivaldi, Nicolas Martin
Karlsson, Even-Andre
author_facet Klotins, Eriks
Ahlgren, Magnus
Vivaldi, Nicolas Martin
Karlsson, Even-Andre
contents Purpose: Continuous Software Engineering (CSE) promises improved efficiency, quality, and responsiveness in software-intensive organizations. However, fully adopting CSE is often constrained by complex products, legacy systems, organizational inertia, and regulatory requirements. In this paper, we examine four industrial cases from the automation, automotive, retail, and chemical sectors to explore how such constraints shape CSE adoption in practice. Methods: We apply and extend a previously proposed CSE Industry Readiness Model to assess the current and potential levels of adoption in each case. Through expert interviews and narrative synthesis, we identify common driving forces and adoption barriers, including organizational preparedness, cross-organizational dependencies, and limited customer demand for continuous delivery. Results: Based on our findings, we propose an updated readiness model that introduces additional levels of internal and external feedback, distinguishes market- and organization-facing constraints, and better guides practitioners in setting realistic CSE adoption goals. Conclusions: Our results highlight that while full end-to-end CSE adoption may not always be feasible, meaningful internal improvements are still possible and beneficial. This study provides empirically grounded guidance for organizations navigating partial or constrained CSE transformations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_02445
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When Continuous Delivery Is Not an Option: Practical Paths to Continuous Engineering in Complex Organizations
Klotins, Eriks
Ahlgren, Magnus
Vivaldi, Nicolas Martin
Karlsson, Even-Andre
Software Engineering
Purpose: Continuous Software Engineering (CSE) promises improved efficiency, quality, and responsiveness in software-intensive organizations. However, fully adopting CSE is often constrained by complex products, legacy systems, organizational inertia, and regulatory requirements. In this paper, we examine four industrial cases from the automation, automotive, retail, and chemical sectors to explore how such constraints shape CSE adoption in practice. Methods: We apply and extend a previously proposed CSE Industry Readiness Model to assess the current and potential levels of adoption in each case. Through expert interviews and narrative synthesis, we identify common driving forces and adoption barriers, including organizational preparedness, cross-organizational dependencies, and limited customer demand for continuous delivery. Results: Based on our findings, we propose an updated readiness model that introduces additional levels of internal and external feedback, distinguishes market- and organization-facing constraints, and better guides practitioners in setting realistic CSE adoption goals. Conclusions: Our results highlight that while full end-to-end CSE adoption may not always be feasible, meaningful internal improvements are still possible and beneficial. This study provides empirically grounded guidance for organizations navigating partial or constrained CSE transformations.
title When Continuous Delivery Is Not an Option: Practical Paths to Continuous Engineering in Complex Organizations
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02445