Agile and DevOps – An Ideal Match for Seamless Software Development

Agile and DevOps – An Ideal Match for Seamless Software Development

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We live in polarities of all sorts. Our minds and hearts have found it convenient to see things as divided. But, as the Great Masters have time and again tried to convey to us that division is only a perception, and not the whole truth, it would be interesting to see how this age-old, profound spiritual truth is applicable even in the fast-paced, modern world of information and technology.

There has been much debate going on if Agile and DevOps are friends or foes. If you want a simple answer without thorough understanding of each of these, it would be a short and simple sentence: No, they are certainly not foes.

However, if you are curious to know what essentially they are, why there’s a lot of debate on Agile vs DevOps, and what more there is to the above-mentioned short answer, read on!

Agile Methodology : Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

In the famous book, Digitizing Boardroom: The Multifaceted Aspects of Digital Ready Boards, Pearl Zhu writes: “Agile is more a “direction,” than an “end,” a philosophy and mindset at board level.”

There are twelve major principles at the core of Agile. Different frameworks such as Scrum, Crystal, Lean, Kanban, and DevOps are integral parts of this philosophical principle of software development.

It employs various services, tools, and application systems that empower teams to create an operational strategy to deal with the complicated projects. All these strategies or systems have only one goal: to give the end users complete satisfaction by responding to the rapidly changing demands in a timely manner. And, this is achieved through continuous changes in the code.

DevOps: Brining people, process, and technology together to deliver continuous value

DevOps is not exactly like Agile even if it has its origins in the Agile and Lean practices. It is a software delivery practice or methodology that empowers enterprises to create a healthy and sustainable coding environment where developers can thrive.

DevOps can also be described as a mindset or an approach that is primarily focused on streamlining the process of software development, including Agile software development among others.

In order to achieve this primary goal of faster delivery of software, it uses automation as its chief strategy or tool.

Enterprises that choose DevOps need to train their resources to develop this mindset to ensure timely delivery of the product.

Having this basic understanding of Agile and DevOps, it is quite clear that they are two different methodologies for software development. However, the current trend is to use them together rather than separately.

It is in this context, it is important for us to understand why there is so much debate going on about their being friends and foes.

Agile Vs DevOps: What creates this question of friends or foes?

Both Agile and DevOps are essentially methods of software development. Their primary intention is to execute the software development process seamlessly without any disruption in the fast-paced coding environment.

Their differences, however, start exactly after the development phase of the product.

Let us have a look at Agile vs DevOps inherent differences:

The common ground where Agile and DevOps can coexist in harmony

Before going deeper into how the abovementioned differences between Agile and DevOps can actually work in favour of the software development process, it would be interesting to explore the history of the connection between the two briefly.

It is all the more interesting as we can trace this connection to an actual event of the recent past and is a glorious moment in the history of information and technology.

It was in the year of 2008, that the connection between the Agile and the DevOps started to come into being. At the Agile Conference in Toronto in the year of 2008, Andrew Clay Schafer titled his session as: “Agile Infrastructure.” Only one person attended this session and he was Patrick Debois who later spontaneously coined the term “DevOps”.

Though, the session at the Agile Conference was quite poor, both Debois and Schafer had many informal conversations later during the conference. And, their talk resulted in Agile Systems Administration Group.

One thing followed another, and the rest, as they say, is history!

As the Agile System Administration term was too long, Debois just coined the term DevOps which eventually became the first technology movement with the very first conference that opened on October 30, 2009 in Ghent, Belgium.

It seems like a Hollywood movie, doesn’t it? We bet.

The common purpose of both Agile and DevOps is to achieve faster and continuous development and deployment. And, this very purpose can be achieved beyond expectations when these two work in tandem rather than in conflict. For example,

DevOps is more about automation. It certainly complements the ways of Agile as automation can be a game changer for any development approach or methodology.

DevOps is more business-centric, while Agile is more customer-centric. The fine balance between the two can create a real magic to the entire development process.

Developers can respond to consumers’ rapidly changing needs quickly.

As Agile has relentlessly worked upon reducing the time frame between changing needs of the consumers and relevant delivery of the same, DevOps can effectively complement the efforts of Agile as DevOps is all about delivering faster and in real time.

In an era, where technology has become a second nature of everyone, the solid partnership between Agile and DevOps promises better and safer software products.

The enterprises are recommended to adopt this partnership to earn better consumer credentials and business value in the market.

Benefits of using Agile and DevOps for software development

In the light of the discussion, it is quite clear that two seemingly different methodologies for software development can actually be great partners, if used wisely. Let us explore some of the major benefits of this wonderful partnership between Agile and DevOps:

1. Greater flexibility Though Agile is a flexible methodology; to arrive at a product that works in the test environment is a long road. DevOps can be of great help in taking the software to the production stage seamlessly and in a timely manner.

2. Cessation of silos At times, it has been observed that the Agile production environment creates silos.

When Agile and DevOps come together, there is an all-embracing strategy to develop, deliver, and improvise the end product. This organically creates an environment where there are no more silos but a solid community working together for shared values and goals in one direction.

3. Fewer bugs and risks With the combination of Agile and DevOps, every release has fewer risks and more value. This in turn results in increased visibility in secure areas.

4. Higher consumer satisfaction As the team is able to respond quickly, it naturally results in better satisfaction.

Consumers are more than happy to have the product as per their changing needs and that too quite easily and in time.

5. Greater employee engagement As the silos stop, employees are encouraged to interact and collaborate more freely and meaningfully. When the employees are fully engaged and feel free to communicate, it naturally reflects in the overall quality of the product.

Quoting Angela Tucci, general manager for agile management at CA Technologies that published a report titled: Accelerating Velocity and Customer Value with Agile and DevOps, SD Times reported:

“Agile and DevOps practices lead to happier, more productive employees…which in turn leads to happier, more satisfied customers.

And when agile and DevOps are practiced together, the benefits are even better.”

Coleman Parkes Research was commissioned by CA Technologies to conduct the survey. The purpose of this survey was to assess the impact of the company’s digital transformation activity.

As per the findings of this report, when the companies used the combination of Agile and DevOps in their software development processes: 75% respondents experienced better employee recruitment and retention 45% increase in employee productivity 29% increase in consumer satisfaction 78% increase in customer experience.

The survey included 1,770 senior business and IT decision-makers at large enterprises in twenty-one countries across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific Japan (APJ) regions.

The recorded annual revenues of the surveyed enterprises were more than US$1 billion (or US$0.5 billion in some smaller economies).

Conclusion

SD Times reported quoting Tucci, “Because agile and DevOps are tightly linked around delivering value to the customer faster, we often see better success when the practices are paired. Agile needs DevOps to achieve the software delivery speed and effectiveness needed for digital business strategies, and DevOps typically isn’t successful without agile. You can’t truly do DevOps without agile.”

However, as per the above-mentioned report, only one-third of institutions can truly benefit from the partnership between Agile and DevOps. Tucci attributed this phenomenon to “maturity gap between businesses”.

The obstacles in reaching the adequate maturity to reap the maximum benefits of adoption of advanced Agile and DevOps methods are issues related to security, costs, methodologies, and resources.

SD Times reported Tucci as suggesting the businesses to “remember the big picture, measure business impact, and address skills gaps early.”

She also explained to the publication as how the partnership between Agile and DevOps has not remained confined to just customers and employees. It has also brought new business opportunities for the enterprises that have adopted both Agile and DevOps. Also, this adoption has helped enterprises increase their operational strengths along with managing information technology costs in a much better way.

Hence, it is quite clear that Agile and DevOps is an ideal match made in the world of information and technology. It is entirely up to the leadership and the culture of the enterprise to leverage the maximum benefit of this partnership.

SD Times quoted Tucci as saying: “To build the right products and deliver them with the quality/predictability customers expect, enterprises must scale agile and DevOps beyond IT. The wider benefits of fully integrating DevOps are clearly evidenced, and organizations cannot afford to ignore the important role these practices play within successful digital transformation plans.”

It is true that path towards the adoption of both DevOps and Agile for software development is fraught with many challenges. But, in Tucci’s words: “While the challenges might be wide ranging, planning and implementing a clear action plan that enables organizations to fully leverage the business benefits will soon attract returns that far outweigh the initial investment—both in terms of efficiency and cost.”

Thank You

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