Let's face it -- we've been talking about agile[1] for two decades, and about DevOps[2] since 2009. Everybody wants to embrace these business-paced approaches to software development and delivery, but confusion and disappointment has been the rule for many enterprises. In a year which will be marked by rebuilding in a post-pandemic environment, accompanied by ever-accelerating digital competition, guess who will be under enormous pressure to deliver software with little or even reduced budgets? Yes, IT managers and professionals can expect an intense time ahead.
In this next of a series on the year before us, I canvassed industry leaders about the prospects for DevOps and agile, and find there are just as many interpretations of these philosophies as there are enterprises implementing them. The challenge is getting everyone in the same page -- and to see the urgency, and demonstrate the benefits to the business. In the year 2021, smooth, well-focused technology delivery has never been more critical.
"DevOps means different things to different people, so different people do different things and call it DevOps," observes Kief Morris, principal cloud technologist at ThoughtWorks[3]. "The movement and the buzzword has been successful in making people think about the need to collaborate across everyone involved in making and running software. This is why you see it expanded with things like DevSecOps[4] - it's not just about developers and operations people, it's everyone."
The issue that arises is "people often focus on tools and the superficial forms rather than on the principles and on outcomes," Morris cautions. "So you see DevOps teams that run Jenkins servers and maybe write Ansible, but you don't always see developers involved in operational aspects of the code they