What is Separation of Duties?

Separation of duties in software development refers to restricting the amount of power held by any single person or team taking part in the development and delivery of software. This usually means that a programmer who can make changes in the Development environment is not permitted to also deploy those changes to Production. Requiring that multiple people be assigned to complete a task reduces the risk of fraud and failures and increases internal controls.

While separation of duties is necessary for organizations that develop and deploy custom applications, it can be difficult to maintain and keep track of who’s authorized to do what, using which tool, in which environment, and when. And while it’s crucial to have tight control over what different users can and can’t do with software in development, things can get very complicated very quickly—and often significantly slow down deployments.