Nowadays there is a huge debate that Agile and DevOps are similar how much is that true?

Both aim to increase the efficiency between the teams. Both are related to software development.

In this article, we’ll discuss the common misconception between Agile and DevOps. But before that, we’ll learn about Agile and DevOps.

Agile

Agile is an approach to software development that prioritizes the execution of iterative and incremental development, characterized as the feature that project requirements and solutions are produced through collaboration among cross-functional, self-performing teams. The basis of Agile methodology is adaptability to the dynamic needs of users, close cooperation with stakeholders, and the development of quickly deployable software in sprints or iterations that are delivered often. Agile methodologies ensure adaptability, quick response, and constant technological advances during the project implementation. For instance, Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming (XP) are all household examples of Agile frameworks.

For Example

Agile is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together separately and then ultimately as a team. Instead of doing an upfront plan, Agile separates the project into smaller components known as iterations. 

See a similar article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

DevOps

DevOps is a term, which relates to both software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) and aims at introducing automation and eliminating manual, inefficient processes for software delivery. It is designed to augment the processes for collaborations and communications among developers, operations, and others involved in the software development process. DevOps focuses on the automation of processes, joint control of products (CI/CD) as well as the creation of a group of people with common responsibility for the development and delivery of high-quality software. In a nutshell, DevOps is aimed at blasting off so-called silos between development and operations teams and streamlines the process of software releases that work properly and are introduced in the shortest time possible.

For Example

DevOps can be considered as an airway for software development. Here, the focus is on ensuring smooth collaboration between developers and operations teams where they work together cohesively to develop, test, and deploy software products in a better and quicker manner.

See a similar article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps

Agile and DevOps Functions

Certainly! Let’s differentiate Agile and DevOps functions:

1. Agile
   • Function: Basically, Agile concentrates on developing methodology and practices of software that promote the inclusion of collaboration and feedback from customers into the iterative development process.
   • Objective: The central idea of Agile is to bring customers value through the continuous delivery of changes, and close interaction inside the cross-functional team, which implements the functionality of the application.
   • Key Practices: Agile practices, including Scrum, Kanban, and XP Extreme Programming, seize the development of the product in small cycles, take into consideration customers’ feedback regularly, and adapt to the newly emerged requirements.
   • Key Concepts: These are the primary ideas of Agile: iterative development, empowering self-organizing teams, collaboration with customers, adaptive planning, and improving continuously.
2. DevOps
   • Function: DevOps’ role has been to overcome the space between programming (Dev) and constant delivery of product features without any faults (Ops) by encouraging the overall integration of the two.
   • Objective: The primary objective of DevOps is to provide a smooth, reliable, and faster delivery pipeline that breaks down the barrier between development, operations, and other stakeholders.
   • Key Practices: DevOps practices include but are not limited to continuous integration, delivery of works, infrastructure as code, automation testing, and monitoring.
   • Key Concepts: DevOps has core concepts that are automation, collaboration, shared responsibility, infrastructure as code (IaC), continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), and monitoring.

A common misconception between Agile and DevOps

Here are some common misconception between Agile and DevOps:

Mutual Exclusivity

One of the popular myths is about Agile and DevOps. It is believed that Agile and DevOps are incompatible. That means organizations are either Agile or DevOps. Such preconceptions come from a confused idea of the two-way partnership that works as one but at the same time a separate concept. Therefore in practice, Agile is an iterative and customer-centric development process, while DevOps is an automation-centered development that steadily collaborates the development team with the operation team, and also continuously deploys. Merging Agile and DevOps practices can get a smooth and rapid software development process.

Competing Goals

The main point is that some consider DevOps to compete with Agile in terms of the purposes or goals of the process. This misconstrued view is mainly because they haven’t been familiar with their dissimilarities in terms of focus. Agile management believes that delivering value to customers can best be improved by using incremental enhancements and cyclic development processes, whereas DevOps practices aim at accelerating and reliability of code delivery by using different automation, collaboration, and continuous delivery methods. Though their methods may be completely different, in the end, Agile and DevOps have the common objective of putting out well-written software in a short amount of time.

Tool-Centric Approach

The other misconception consists in the fact that Agile and DevOps are about the people who are adopting specific tools and technologies rather than the ones with the cultural and process changes. The essence of Agile and DevOps is cultural transformations of organizations and collaboration is a fundamental principle of both approaches to production. Giving more focus to instruments than to the actualization of Agile and DevOps practices may lead to fashionable adoption without further reforming an enterprise’s culture and processes, which in turn, may block success.

Instant Solution

Some consider Agile and DevOps to be the panacea to all software development problems, with the mindset that they should start to see results immediately at no cost of continued improvements. It is a myth that forms as a result of a lack of understanding of the iterative and continuous nature of Agile and DevOps methods. Succeeding with the Agile and DevOps models, demands a persistent effort, lifelong learning, and a persistent willingness to change. Organizations should ensure an organizational change process, arrange adequate training, and build team support for the uptake of Agile and DevOps frameworks.

Limited Applicability

Another fallacy is that Agile and DevOps are just for some sectors or a particular set of enterprises. The basis of this wrong conception is the lack of understanding of the multi-faceted benefits of practicing Agile and DevOps. It is not only the technology sector where Agile and DevOps principles can be effective but also different industries and business functions like marketing and human resources. The adoption of such technology enables firms of any size and industry specialization to address collaboration, efficiency, and quality of output and service.

Misconceptions drive away implementation of the Creating awareness of these misconceptions in the organizations and gaining a deeper insight can facilitate in implementation and utilization of these methodologies to accomplish the goals of software development.

Conclusion

The process of dispelling the myths about Agile and DevOps is a strategic requirement for most organizations. They are not secluded entities but rather interdependent approaches. In this article, we learned about ” A Common misconception between Agile and DevOps?” Agile sees the iterative process and customer feedback as the key success factors, while DevOps stresses automation and continuous delivery. Realizing the combined power of the benefit paves the way for organizations to evolve quickly, build sophisticated software, and stimulate innovation in every sector, and every business size.

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