The choice you don’t need to make.

Creating software in the modern world, where people are used to instant fixes and express delivery, can be extremely challenging. Mature organizations, that are used to working with relatively older workflows, generally struggle the most when it comes to meeting the demands of the modern consumer.

This is why, whether it’s an old titan of industry or a young start-up, organizations are constantly looking for ways to improve productivity. Of the myriad of methodologies and practices available to choose from, Agile and DevSecOps are 2 of the most talked about options. However, do you need to adopt any of these? If so, then which one should you choose? Can you choose both instead? Let’s find out.

Who needs Agile or DevSecOps?

Agile and DevSecOps frameworks are versatile and applicable to a wide range of organizations and teams across industries. These methodologies help organizations become more responsive, efficient, and secure in their software development and service delivery processes, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and competitive advantage. But does your organization really need Agile, DevSecOps, or any other methodology to ‘improve productivity’? Let’s see which type of organization could benefit from methods such as Agile or DevSecOps.

Organizations generally have the following software development process:

Step 1: Requirement Gathering

Step 2: Planning & Design

Step 3: Implementation

Step 4: Testing

Step 5: Deployment

Step 6: Feedback and Iteration

As is probably clear, the feedback and iteration after deployment is not an optimized process as it does not focus on continuous improvement.

The approach of working in silos and sharing work only once it's completed creates a situation where implementing changes to a project becomes a long and arduous process, leading to even more delays. This is where DevSecOps and Agile come in. But before we get into how these methodologies can completely revamp your productivity, let’s get an understanding of what they exactly are.

What are DevSecOps and Agile?

In a time where you have more and more ‘quick and dirty’ solutions, promising to get you your desired productivity results in no time, DevSecOps and Agility are 2 ideas that work from the ground up and aim to bring drastic and lasting change for the better.

DevOps and DevSecOps

DevOps is a combination of the words Development and Operations. It is a way of functioning in which the traditional Development and Operations teams work together in an integrated manner where each team is aware of the other’s requirements right from the get-go and hence works to create software with the other team, not against it. DevSecOps is the addition of Security to DevOps, where the aspect of security is taken into consideration at each step of work in a DevOps culture, instead of being brought in at the end as an afterthought.

DevSecOps covers both process-related and cultural changes. The new processes involve both teams working together at each step of the development and deployment process to ensure speedy issue resolution and a quick turnaround for the end customer. Cultural changes necessitated by DevSecOps require that all teams

1. Build trust among one another
2. Understand the issues of the other teams
3. Align technical projects to business objectives

Agile

Agility is the approach of iterative project management and software development where collaboration, rapid releases, and customer feedback is key. It is a collection of methodologies including scrum, eXtreme Programming, and other such methodologies. In some ways, Agile can be considered to be the broader approach since it can be applied to most departments in an organization. The Agile approach has its own document, the Agile Manifesto, which includes its 4 core principles

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

These 2 may seem similar to you and you’d be correct. While they have subtle differences and are meant for slightly different target groups in an organization, both aim to improve internal collaboration, create software or other products through iterative development, and help an organization meet its customers' requirements much more quickly than before. That is why, at Digile, we offer you Agile and DevSecOps, so your organization gets to experience the benefits of both approaches simultaneously.

Benefits of Agile and DevSecOps Methodologies

The advantages of Agile Development methodology and DevSecOps security in your organizational culture and workflows can be numerous.

1. Iterative and incremental Development – Instead of going back to the drawing board of development when issues are found with software, working together, in shorter iterations, ensures that the operations team can constantly give feedback to the development team, allowing them to reach the completion point much more quickly.

2. Improved quality of delivered software – Under DevSecOps Security, the Development and Operations teams work together while keeping security in mind at each step along the way. This ensures that the quality of the final product/software delivered to the client is much higher since all potential issues have been kept in mind during the software development process

3. Better resource utilization – As per www.missioncloud.com, DevOps teams spend 33% more time improving infrastructure against failure, about 21% less time putting out “fires” every week, and 37% less time handling support cases when compared to Traditional IT teams. This means that your new teams get much more time for tackling new projects.

4. Improved Collaboration: DevOps promotes collaboration between development and operations teams, breaking down traditional silos. This collaboration leads to better coordination, quicker issue resolution, and a shared responsibility for the entire software lifecycle.

5. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): CI/CD pipelines enable automated testing and deployment, reducing the time and effort required to move code from development to production. This results in faster releases and quicker response to customer needs.

Why not choose both?

While Agile and DevSecOps can exist completely independently and do not need each other to function, in an ideal situation, an organization should be able to implement both to get the best out of its transformation. By combining Agile and DevOps, organizations can create a holistic approach to software development that emphasizes collaboration, automation, continuous improvement, and rapid delivery. This integrated approach allows teams to deliver high-quality software that meets customer needs more effectively and adapts to changing market conditions, ultimately improving the entire software development process.

At Digile, we understand the advantages of agile methodology and DevOps security that an organization can benefit from. That’s why we offer Agile and DevSecOps as a service for clients looking to undergo a Digital Transformation. In this service, we help our clients

• Develop an Agile Strategy
• Re-engineer their Processes
• Define and implement working models
• Assess current security posture
• Automate Security Testing
• Integrate security into CI/CD pipeline
• Build Full stack trained DevSecOps teams

Looking to take your organizational productivity to the next level and experience #speedmadesafe? Explore our Agile and DevSecOps Services, or if you’re looking for a complete Digital Overhaul, check out our host of Digital Enablement Services.

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