Agile & Dev-Ops : Friends, Foes or Siblings

As a Lean Agile coach, many times we face scenarios where we are asked the following question. “ Can we deploy Dev-ops tools without being Agile” . The answer is never a straightforward one and always depends on the context.

And, the answer is Yes and No. It depends upon what is the intent with which the question is being asked. Yes, technically you can set up the entire tool chain for configuration, version control, build, integration, testing & deployment. But will it be effective if not backed up by development process set up, which is not Agile ?

In many organizations across the spectrum, Agile & Dev-ops functions are complete silos. Many times there are two different initiatives going on, but they never talk to each other or collaborate. Dev-ops is often mis-understood as automation & tool chain only. Actually Dev-ops is more of a collaboration mindset in the IT ecosystem. It promotes collaboration & integration of different silos such as development & operations. But very seldom this aspect is taken seriously. Not intentionally, but because it needs a big cultural shift. There is a beautiful concept in Lean philosophy call as Jidoka or Autonomation. It may be described as automation with a human touch. The idea is to supervise, intervene an automated process when a defect is detected. This prevents the defects from being escaped through to the customer.

So this cultural shift, human touch, respect for people , collaborative ways of working are all critical aspects of Lean Agile philosophy. The above mentioned Jidoka principle can be slightly tweaked in a way that the manual intervention or supervision can be brought about by Agile processes and events.

Today, there are many platforms where this Green Build policy is deployed. As soon as any code check in  fails , everybody stops checking in the code,  tries to find & remove the defect.

So just imagine a Dev-ops engineer only focusing on engineering aspects without having a Lean Agile mindset. Or vice a versa, an Agile coach having no idea of Dev-ops engineering practices. As consultants we should do what we preach the world. Agile & Dev-ops initiatives should collaborate, cross skill & co-exist rather than surviving in silos.

In many consulting organizations Dev-ops & Agile consulting groups are separate silos. From a customer’s perspective, it does not matter what do you name or brand it. He is only bothered about the effectiveness of the implementation. And we have seen both Dev-ops & Agile are not effective without each other.

As the title says, I would conclude by saying that Agile & Dev-ops are siblings which need to co-exist. And they are siblings for sure as they are born out of the same predecessor “Lean”

Happy Consulting!!