Continuous Integration Impediments in Large-Scale Industry Projects

Based on interviews with 20 developers from two case study companies that develop large-scale software-intensive embedded systems, this paper presents the main factors that affect how often developers deliver software to the mainline. Further on, the paper describes the continuous integration behaviors in projects where up to 1,000 developers commit to the same mainline. The main factors that could enable more frequent integration of software are: "Activity planning and execution", "System thinking", "Speed" and "Confidence through test activities". Behind these main themes we also present a wide range of sub-categories ("Modular and loosely coupled architecture", "Test selection" etc) which summarizes what the developers themselves see as the continuous integration impediments in large-scale industry projects.