The research focuses on software engineering, specifically on supporting very small businesses with the implementation of agile practices for software development. This aims to enhance the quality of their products and services, as well as their competitiveness within the sector.

Manuel Alejandro Pastrana Pardo, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, under the guidance of professors Hugo Armando Ordoñez Erazo and Carlos Alberto Cobos from the Systems department at the University of Cauca, presented advancements of his doctoral thesis at the Sixth Andean Congress of Computing, Informatics, and Education (CACIED 2023). The presentation was titled “Identification of characteristics in very small companies to implement DevOps: determination of strengths and opportunities for improvement”.

The thesis primarily focuses on software engineering, specifically on supporting very small companies (with up to 25 employees) in implementing agile practices for software development. This aims to enhance the quality of products and services and improve their competitiveness within the sector.

Within these types of companies, various situations, if not managed properly, can lead to productivity and competitiveness issues. For instance, a wide diversity in organizational culture, limited capacity to explore new technologies and best practices due to operational speed, overloaded functions within a single role, insufficient process documentation, empirical software development processes highly dependent on staff experience and commitment, high employee turnover, and limited cash flow for improving company processes due to the type of projects they can access.

Additionally, effective quality controls are scarce, lacking timely information for improving results during the development period. Consequently, companies need to find solutions to remain competitive within the software development industry, which has already become internationally competitive.

Most companies opt to resolve their issues through the implementation of agile frameworks like SCRUM and DevOps. However, during the implementation phase, they find these frameworks consist of a set of suggestions rather than instructions on implementation. This presents an opportunity to make a significant contribution not only to the research field but also in directly transferring research findings to the industry, specifically to very small software development companies—a central theme of the thesis titled “Implementation of harmonized practices for software development based on SCRUM and DevOps in very small companies”.

As part of the progress in this project, a questionnaire has been developed, enabling companies to identify their strengths and opportunities in relation to the set of suggestions that DevOps offers. This questionnaire is part of a DevOps implementation guide tailored for these very small companies, which is being defined in the doctoral thesis.

Participation in CACIED 2023 facilitated widespread dissemination of the doctoral research project's outcomes and opened the possibility of submitting the presented work to a nationally indexed journal.

The event took place from November 8th to 10th in the city of Pasto, organized by the Universities of Nariño, Universidad Mariana, Universidad CESMAG, Universidad Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD), and the Colegio Mayor del Cauca. It enabled researchers, educators, professionals, and students from Andean countries to come together to share and socialize their experiences and research in Computer Science, Informatics, and Education in Systems Engineering.