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With March Madness upon us, this blog miniseries features important modernization topics in a head-to-head matchup style. Installment #1 begins with taking a deeper look at DevOps vs. Agile.
Agile and DevOps are not new concepts but remain top of mind as many organizations attempt to adopt these methodologies to enable IT-business collaboration and digital transformation. Both are key enablers for organizations to successfully transform and aim to accelerate time to market, improve predictability and quality, and foster collaboration. Despite these positive outcomes, there remains confusion regarding whether you should choose one over the other. It’s important to understand how these concepts are defined, their key advantages, similarities, and differences to see if these methodologies can succeed on the same team.
DevOps & Agile Defined
DevOps is a discipline to drive efficiency by optimizing software development and operations activities through structured processes, automation, and collaboration.
Agile is a methodology that takes an iterative and incremental approach to software development and testing to drive greater predictability, productivity, and product quality.
Top Advantages
The core business benefits of DevOps include:
- Faster time to market
- Acceleration of software delivery
- Increased delivery predictability and improved reliability
- Enhanced communication and collaboration
Businesses who successfully adopt Agile can expect:
- Better quality and control
- Improved predictability and transparency
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Less risk
Key Underlying Similarities
Both methodologies rely on and foster successful collaboration between team members to reach their end goal. A second similar and important characteristic is that DevOps and Agile share a common vision of driving faster productivity within an organization. In turn, this gives organizations very reliable approaches to the software development process.
Fundamental Differences
The nature of the definitions makes these methodologies distinct. DevOps focuses on bringing two traditionally siloed departments together (development and operations), whereas the Agile Manifesto defines Agile as bringing together smaller teams for collaboration to react quickly to customer needs. Another key difference is that both methodologies utilize different deployment approaches. Agile is based on sprints or regular intervals to develop new versions and updates. In the case of DevOps, the focus lies more on business optimization which means updates can happen when they are ready or wait until more updates are available.
Who Wins?
Figuring out the best way to run an organization is one of the most difficult aspects of running a business. Should you choose DevOps, Agile, or both? A common misconception is that DevOps and Agile are independent of each other or one should be chosen over the other. When in fact, if applied together, both are winners based on mutual benefits. With the shared goal of enhancing productivity, DevOps and Agile can help you achieve positive outcomes and innovate faster. DevOps enables agility through the usage of automation, tools, and technology. Successfully implementing DevOps with an Agile framework means defining the entire product lifecycle from Plan to Deploy to Operate. This increases productivity, quality, reduces costs by minimizing waste, and improves overall time to market.
To learn more about successfully adopting DevOps and Agile, contact us today.
