Agile Vs DevOps Methodologies: Key Differences

and Similarities

What is DevOps? 1
What is Agile? 2
Agile Vs DevOps- A detailed comparison 2
Key Similarities between DevOps and Agile Methodology 2
Key differences between DevOps and Agile Methodology 4
Different phases of Agile and DevOps lifecycle phases 5

How is Agile different from DevOps? Do both of them overlap, have the same
principles, or work against each other? Get all your answers from the experts!

Agile and DevOps are two software development methodologies that work on
similar aims, and enjoy the same end-product as efficiently as possible. While
many organizations are eager to work on these practices, there is so much
confusion between these two.

So, let’s move forward and tap into the knowledge of the industry experts to
define and differentiate between these two practices, and identify the
advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

What is DevOps?
DevOps is a software development methodology that is based on
communication, integration, and collaboration among IT professionals to
enable the rapid deployment of products.

DevOps is more of a culture that promotes collaboration between development

and operations teams. This allows for faster deployment of production and
increases the organizational speed to deliver applications and services. Also, it
is also defined as the alignment of development and IT operation.

What is Agile?

The agile methodology is a software development methodology that came into

effect in 2001, with the introduction of the Agile Manifesto. Agile employs four
values and twelve principles that develop the entire culture.

Agile meth0dology encourages the adoption and leadership mindset that helps
in the promotion of teamwork, self-organization, and accountability. More
importantly, the agile approach focuses more on aligning customer needs and
trends. Agile can be implemented in a number of ways such as scrum, kanban,
scrum, etc.

Agile Vs DevOps- A detailed comparison

Key Similarities between DevOps and Agile Methodology

The growing pace of technological advancement and consumer demands

require organizations to innovate and find newer approaches to problems.
With that said, it is vital for organizations to innovate and find newer solutions
to existing problems. Agile was conceived from the shortcomings of waterfall
methodology that couldn’t meet the demands of the modern world.
Similarly, DevOps completes the missing piece of agile methodology and moves
a step ahead while deploying the same.

Here are some key similarities between DevOps and Agile methodology;

1. Emphasize Testing & Automation

The main focus of DevOps and Agile is achieving stability. They achieve the
same by operating in a fast, secure, and quality-assessed environment. Both of
these methodologies accomplish this through continuous testing. These are
also similar in their beliefs of relying on automation to bring security to the
execution process.

2. The inclination toward business productivity

Both DevOps and Agile work in a close connection to achieve one common goal
for businesses which is maximizing productivity. Both these share similar
business-inclined approaches. Implementing the agile methodology in software
development processes allows teams to concentrate on a single target.
On the other hand, DevOps culture leads to quicker releases and delivery
without hampering the business processes.

3. Enables powerful business partnerships

Although DevOps and Agile have a number of differences, they both have
significant importance in building workplace culture, wherein team members
can stay connected to share the required information, detect issues and
troubleshoot problems.

4. Inspiration from lean philosophies

DevOps and Agile share a common ground in terms of delivering their
approaches from the lean philosophy. Both DevOps and Agile can standardize
their communication process with lean philosophy. This can also help facilitate
smooth interactions amongst the team members.

Key differences between DevOps and Agile Methodology

Here’s a quick table for you to understand the key differences between the
DevOps and Agile methodology;

Parameters DevOps Methodology Agile Methodology

Purpose Easy management of projects Break traditional silos that exist

by the involvement of earlier between cross-
stakeholders in SDLC. functional teams and
encourage team collaboration.

Delivery Product is delivered in Provide continuous delivery of

increments after the products by enabling CI/CD
completion of each sprint pipeline.

Teams Focus on keeping the teams Team size is relatively bigger

small. and combines cross-functional
teams.
Feedback Focuses on consumer feedback Helps in the improvement of
and ensures quality product product delivery by gathering
delivery. feedback from internal teams.

Different phases of Agile and DevOps lifecycle phases

Agile Lifecycle Phases DevOps Lifecycle Phases

1. Requirements- Planning and 1. Continuous deployment-

gathering all initial Planning the requirements and
requirements such as product coding the software.
features, expected results, etc.

2. Design- Finalizing the 2. Continuous integration-

architectural design Identification of the bugs and
continuous changes.

3. Development & coding- 3. Continuous testing- testing

writing the code and environment is simulated by
converting the design into leveraging Docker containers.
software

4. Integration & Testing- 4. Continuous Feedback- Gathering

Integrating the various feedback from developers, operations
components of software. Then team and stakeholders which helps in
software becomes bug-free and quality improvement.
continuous iterations are done
to increase scope, integration,
and interoperability, etc.

5. Implementation & 5. Continuous Monitoring-

Deployment- The software is Continuously monitor the software
deployed on the server and performance to ensure the
delivered to customers for functionalities work properly.
demo.

6. Review- Product owners 6. Continuous Deployment- The

review the progress and code is continuously deployed to
complete stakeholder production servers.
satisfaction is ensured.
 7. Continuous operation- This
step aims to automate the
process of application release
and subsequent updates.

8. Continuous Delivery-
Continuous delivery is ensured
by automating the process of
testing and verifying the build
that is ready for production.

TakeAway

Although there are a number of obvious differences between DevOps and Agile
methodologies, the overall goal of increaseing the speed is similar in nature.
The greatest parameter about DevOps and Agile practices is that they can co-
exist, and complement each other to deliver better results.

Since the world is moving fast, and the products need to thrive despite the new
trends and situations that arise. For the same, the organization should welcome
practices and methodologies such as DevOps and Agile to adopt newer
practices in the future.