Chapter 2. Experienced Benefits of Continuous Integration in Industry Software Product Development

In this paper, we present a multi-case study of industrial experiences of continuous integration among software professionals working in large scale development projects. In literature, multiple benefits of continuous integration are suggested, but case studies validating these benefits are lacking. This study investigates the extent to which continuous integration effects – increased developer productivity, increased project predictability, improved communication and enabling agile testing – suggested in literature are experienced in industry development projects. The study involves four independent products at different levels of continuous integration maturity within Ericsson AB. In each of these products developers, testers, project managers and line managers have been interviewed. Their experiences of continuous integration are quantitatively assessed and discussed in comparison to the continuous integration benefits proposed in related work.