Exploring the Benefits of Combining DevOps and Agile

Abstract

The combined adoption of Agile and DevOps enables organizations to cope with the increasing complexity of managing customer requirements and requests. It fosters the emergence of a more collaborative and Agile framework to replace the waterfall models applied to software development flow and the separation of development teams from operations. This study aims to explore the benefits of the combined adoption of both models. A qualitative methodology is adopted by including twelve case studies from international software engineering companies. Thematic analysis is employed in identifying the benefits of the combined adoption of both paradigms. The findings reveal the existence of twelve benefits, highlighting the automation of processes, improved communication between teams, and reduction in time to market through process integration and shorter software delivery cycles. Although they address different goals and challenges, the Agile and DevOps paradigms when properly combined and aligned can offer relevant benefits to organizations. The novelty of this study lies in the systematization of the benefits of the combined adoption of Agile and DevOps considering multiple perspectives of the software engineering business environment.