To Deploy, or Not to Deploy, That is the Question A qualitative study of the decision-making experiences of engineers deploying software changes in production

Sammanfattning: The web services that millions of people count on require large-scale computer resources (servers, nodes, networking) and an intricate set of interdependent software services. Under pressure to continually improve these services, code and configuration changes are deployed hundreds or thousands of times every day. Unforeseen issues and vulnerabilities during the deployment process can lead to costly incidents. As society increasingly relies on web services across industries, it is imperative to better understand how engineers make decisions when deploying code and configuration changes to create safer deployment mechanisms that increase confidence for engineers. There is a lack of research on the lived experiences of engineers who deploy changes to software or configuration in production environments. In this qualitative study, 15 participants were interviewed to better understand their lived experiences deploying code and configuration changes. Phenomenological explicitation guided the data analysis. The findings of this study indicated that perceptions of uncertainty and risk, temporal reasoning, and relationships influenced engineers’ deployment decisions. Participants also offered feedback on what they would change to make their deployment decision-making safer. Organizations should reduce the risk and uncertainty engineers face when making deployment decisions, recognize how temporal reasoning influences decision-making, and cultivate environments in which relationships are recognized as influencing engineers’ confidence in decision-making.