Agile vs. DevOps, What’s the Difference?

Before diving deep into what DevOps and Agile are, their key differences and similarities, and what to choose between them, let’s first understand why these practices even exist and what their purpose is.

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In earlier times, the software development process used to follow a waterfall approach. This software development process follows a strict order in chronological sequences. The waterfall model includes the following steps:

• Analyze and understand the requirements
• Determine a design pattern for the application
• Implementation
• Evaluation and Validation
• Maintenance

It is a standardization model and has a one-way sequence format. As a result, developers have to work through the entire process to accommodate customer feedback or adopt an innovative strategy. This ultimately delays the release of the desired software. Furthermore, there is a lack of communication between testers, system admins, and developers because of the compartmentalization of teams. Ultimately, team members feel unsatisfied with the product they delivered, and users are left with a flawed application.

Here’s where Agile steps in!

Agility solved the rigid and tedious process that engaged the entire team in one application with an endless list of problems to solve. Agile software development introduced a streamlined way to break the entire product into small pieces, then integrate them for testing. In addition to filling the gap between developers and stakeholders, the agile team can meet customer expectations in real-time.

What is Agile exactly?

The agile alliance says and we quote, “Agile software development is an umbrella term for a set of frameworks and practices based on the values and principles expressed in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and the 12 Principles behind it.”

The agile methodology involves continuous testing and development as part of the SDLC process. It enhances collaboration and communication among team members and customers by providing effective day-to-day management of complex projects. It can be implemented in many ways, including scrum, kanban, XP, etc.

As agile improves the communication between developers and stakeholders, it also pressurizes developers to perfect the code, and system admins don’t have enough time to contribute to the entire process. It causes delays in the implementation despite improving the software development process.

And DevOps was born to save the day…

Take a note that Agile is not a flawed solution, it was just incomplete. DevOps solves the efficiency gap between developers and the operations team. DevOps culture is not to take over other methodologies, it is just a shift in paradigm to better the cross-departmental collaboration for faster product development.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a software development practice that aligns development and IT operation. The strategy is broken down into planning and tracking, development, build and test, delivery and monitoring, and operations. It focuses on facilitating communication, integration, and collaboration between IT professionals to enable faster deployment of products in an automated way.

Now that you have a clear idea of what DevOps and Agile are, let’s go through how they are interrelated and what are the differences between them.

Parameters	DevOps	Agile
Focus and Goal	DevOps focuses on fast delivery and manages end-to-end engineering and business solutions. The primary goal is to address the between development and operations teams.	Agile is to manage complex projects and make space for mid-project changes as per the client’s requirements. The goal is to minimize the gap between the customer and the development team.
Importance	Developing, testing and deployment all are equally important.	Developing software is a fundamental part of Agile.
Team size and skill set	A larger team including the stakeholders. As it is an integration of different teams, the skills of members are different depending on functionality. It results in better outcomes and success.	A relatively smaller team so they move ahead faster. Team members have a broad range of similar technical skills.
Target Areas	An end-to-end solution with rapid delivery	Software development
Implementation	The primary goal of DevOps is to maintain smooth team collaboration so it does not have an accepted framework.	Agile can be applied in several tactical frameworks, including sprints, safes, and scrums
Documentation	It is essential to document processes, information, updates, and communication to ensure optimal team collaboration.	Keeping light documentation as it gives more attention to well-working software.
Communication	In a DevOps company, specifications and design documents are produced. It is vital that the operational team fully understands the software release and its network configuration to successfully run the deployment process.	The Scrum framework is widely used in the Agile methodology. A daily scrum meeting includes communication about briefs and the status of various tasks.
Automation	Automation is one of the primary principles. (Which includes testing, integrating, deployment, and delivery)	There is no priority for automation.
Source of Feedback	Feedback is provided by customers/clients.	Feedback is provided by the internal team.
Tools Used	AWS, OpenStack, Docker, Kubernetes, GitLab, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Team city, and Jenkins are some popular DevOps tools.	JIRA, Trello, Slack, Bugzilla, Hive, kanboard, Kanbanize, Wrike, Hive, and Active Collab are some popular Agile tools.
Deployment	As opposed to Agile, DevOps uses pre-built software that is ready for release and handles its deployment.	Agile, in contrast, builds software and launches it, but does not take part in deploying it.
Speed Vs. Risk	DevOps practice makes sure that changes for architecture do not risk the whole project.	The agile methodology supports speed in implementing changes and a robust structure for the application.

Takeaway

There is one thing for sure and that is Agile and DevOps both have the same goal- To increase the efficiency and rapid deployment in the software development ecosystem. The great thing about the Agile and DevOps practices is that they both can coexist in the IT infrastructure to improve business readiness. If you want the empowered team to implement these practices on your project to enhance the application or software development, ultroNeous’s DevOps experts will be with you every step of the way. Get in touch to improve your business readiness.