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The Top 4 Business Challenges in Agile and DevOps

3 min read
May 18, 2017 8:00:00 PM

Agile and DevOps Challenges and Solutions  

Enterprise organizations are undergoing a transformation, with almost every industry facing disruption from technology and fast-moving start-ups. This transformation has changed the way we work. Processes we used in the past are not the solutions for the future, and established organizations are looking for new ways to innovate and deliver value.  Enterprise organizations understand they need to move quickly, so they’ve turned to Agile and DevOps as the solution. Agile and DevOps promise speed, but they also present new challenges.

A new research report conducted by Forrester Research and commissioned by Blueprint asked organizations to identify their top challenges.  We found some key trends that show the way forward for DevOps.

Top 4 Challenges in Agile and DevOps

  1. The link between Development and Business outcomes is more important than ever.

Nearly half of all organizations responding to our survey said they struggle to link DevOps practices with business outcomes.  It’s a common issue. There’s an assumption in the IT world which says that rapid releases lead to better business outcomes. However, it’s an assumption.

Agile has strengths as an application development process, but the methodology is not inherently linked to business metrics or requirements. Of course, these circumstances transfer over to DevOps as that methodology relies on work produced in Agile.

Successful DevOps enterprises will be those organizations who connect the results from rapid releases with business metrics to determine whether DevOps is delivering business value.  Media giant Netflix has successfully used DevOps to “bridge the gap” by strengthening relationships among teams, facilitate collaboration rather than playing “catch-up,” and bringing IT engineers and business units together. Today Netflix offers a continuously updated content for its customers.

  1. DevOps is more than a methodology. It’s a culture.

Our survey also found that nearly 40 percent of organizations struggle with lack of cultural readiness for DevOps.  If Agile and DevOps are to succeed, then massive business transformation initiatives are needed, and superior communication and collaboration across teams will be necessary to ensure alignment.

Your organizational culture is fundamental to supporting this transformation. Getting everyone onboard is essential.  Shifting the culture and securing stakeholder buy-in requires you to demonstrate value — revenue, competitiveness, profitability, new customers, or any other metric that will show value in your organization.

This cultural transformation has been a big part of Target’s success in spreading DevOps throughout its entire organization. DevOps powers projects like CartWheel, Target’s mobile savings app, but has transformed that retailer’s organizational culture. Target now offers DevOpsDays for its organizational teams, featuring demos, open labs, lightning talks, breakout sessions and guest keynotes.

  1. Development moves faster, but compliance standards are still demanding.

The survey found that 35 percent of organizations have difficulty meeting compliance standards.  As Agile and DevOps initiatives have matured, regulatory reporting requirements have become a top priority. Nevertheless, many organizations are still finding compliance a major challenge in Agile and DevOps.

To mitigate the regulatory risk, organizations must have a system of record showing traceability to compliance regulations. This will help the development teams ensure nothing is missed, while protecting the organization in the case of an audit. Stakeholders from the business or compliance units must also communicate and collaborate with the Agile and DevOps teams to make sure the new releases meet regulatory standards.

The regulatory challenge in Agile and DevOps plays a big role in the case of Fidelity Worldwide Investment. As a global firm offering investment solutions in countries around the globe, Fidelity must navigate a myriad of regulatory frameworks related to each country’s different taxation, reporting and investment rules.

Furthermore, Fidelity’s traditional development approach had its own challenges in Agile and DevOps, including:

  • Multiple business units developing software applications
  • Apps deployed manually across hundreds of servers
  • Each app requiring customization

Fidelity used the opportunity to embrace DevOps and implement an automated software release framework. Since then, the Fidelity team has automated the release of dozens of applications, reduced release times and saved over $2.3 million per year in cost avoidance from a single app.

  1. Preparation will always be key to success.

Organizations are not gaining efficiencies in one of the most important and time-consuming stages of the process – the planning phase.   Indeed, our survey confirmed that organizations are struggling with the up-front steps of application development, with only 30 percent completely agreeing they can automate or orchestrate all pre-coding activities and are able to effectively reuse requirements and user stories across teams.

DevOps is not just about the rapid releases. Overall success requires striving for automation through the entire DevOps chain, including the pre-coding stages. Failing to do so causes bottlenecks and delays in the process, and ultimately affects the initiative’s overall value.

DevOps was the natural fit for Adobe as the company shifted from package software to a cloud services model and was suddenly faced with making a continuous series of small updates rather than big, semi-annual releases. The move has enabled faster delivery and better product management. According to the Wall Street Journal, Adobe has successfully met the demand for 60 percent more app development.

Breaking down barriers

Large organizations are plagued with manual processes, organizational silos, and they struggle to link DevOps with business outcomes. To compete with fast-moving incumbent players, enterprises must have the ability to understand the business value being delivered through their Agile and DevOps initiatives.