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Abstract
Although software development teams increasingly use Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), a minimal amount is known regarding the impact of PaaS on software development. We explored the impact of PaaS on software development through a grounded-theory study, conducting 48 interviews in 16 teams. The data turned our attention to the affordances, or potentials for action, that PaaS provides to software development teams. Two key affordances emerging from our data analysis were self-organizing and triggering continuous feedback. Actualizing these affordances helped accelerate the collective learning processes that underlie software development, thus supporting software development teams in their quest for agility. Our emerging theory explains how, why, and when these affordances arise. The key contribution of our paper lies in unveiling how the use of cloud computing technology can transform technology-mediated collective learning activities by helping to remove barriers to rapid feedback. Our findings also imply that organizations can leverage PaaS to facilitate the transition to agile and continuous software development practices, in particular in conjunction with cross-functional team designs.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Oliver Krancher
Oliver Krancher ([email protected]; corresponding author) is an assistant professor of information systems at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Bern. His research interests revolve around knowledge processes in the development, use, and management of information systems. Dr. Krancher’s work has been accepted at outlets such as Journal of the Association of Information Systems, the International Conference on Information Systems, and the European Conference on Information Systems. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a consultant on enterprise software implementation and outsourcing projects.
Pascal Luther
Pascal Luther ([email protected]) is a business analyst at Zuehlke Engineering AG in Bern, Switzerland. He holds a master’s degree in business administration with emphasis on information systems from the University of Bern. His academic work on the adoption of platform-as-a-service in software development teams has been accepted for presentation at the International Conference on Information Systems. In this current position, he supports software development teams in agile software development methods and in requirements engineering.
Marc Jost
Marc Jost ([email protected]) is an Information Technology consultant at Innovation Process Technology AG in Bern, Switzerland. He holds a master’s degree in business administration with emphasis on information systems from the University of Bern. His academic work focused on the interaction of technology and software development and its organizational impact. In his current role, he focuses on digital and agile transformation endeavors involving cloud computing, modern software development practices, and artificial intelligence.