Agile vs DevOps: Which Software Development Methodology You Should Consider

The plethora of opportunities provided by software applications is beyond imagination. One cannot take a step without looking at the apps or at least using them once. Be it entertainment, shopping, banking, connecting, messaging anything, a user has tons of options available to explore and make their life simpler and easier. 

Now that we know how software apps are transforming lives, do we know what methodologies a software development company uses to make the magic happen?

Big companies are in constant need to improve and enhance their capabilities while making it big in competition. The methodologies/ approaches they use help their businesses be responsive and edgy at the same time. DevOps & Agile frameworks are such methodologies that are very popular with software development companies.

These two methodologies have been shaping the software development process and helping development companies in providing a speedy response to the digital commotion happening across the world while adding benefits of lower cost, reduced risk, and increased quality.

Let’s breakdown the two methodologies and have a quick understanding of each of them. 

1)  Agile Methodology

Agile methodology is more of an adaptive, code-centred and collaborative approach to software development when compared to the waterfall model. 

Unlike the traditional waterfall model that focuses on the sequential approach of software development, agile is more based on continuous iteration, incremental and evolving approach. It brings in more frameworks that enhance the software development company's capabilities in developing software applications like Scrum, Kanban, and more.

2)  DevOps Methodology

DevOps is another software development methodology adopted by a software development company that makes IT more responsive to business needs. 

It is an amalgamation of development and operations, thus concerning more than code checking. It connects cross-functional, multi-talented teams in a collaborative ecosystem that enhances the development process, testing, quality operations, security, and connectivity with business stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.

Agile vs. DevOps methodology

1) Agile focuses more on an iterative approach. It emphasizes on delivering projects through multiple testing of the codes. It doesn't allow the process to move unless the codes are tested and errors are corrected before moving on to the next step of the development. 

Whereas, DevOps is more about bringing development and operations team together to fulfil the needs of software application development. It brings in teams of various segments and meets stakeholders' requests mutually.

2) The team skills of a software development company following the agile methodology have a defined set of developers who have a wide variety of similar or equal skill sets. Since it's all about how the process of development would be, at every stage the developers would do the same task of testing and then proceeding to the next step. 

When it comes to following the DevOps methodology by a software application development company, it involves the process of collaboration of employees from various teams. This brings in a pool of talented employees and all are free to share their ideas, knowledge, and skills together to come to a conclusion and then work towards the development of the app.

3) As explained in the blog above, agile methodology is all about following the iterative approach. The software development company encourages teams to manage the development process in terms of sprints. The ideal time to manage and finish a software application development project is less than a month for each sprint. 

In DevOps methodology application development, it marks deadlines and benchmarks to reach a defined set of goals. The major goal is to deliver code to production every few hours.

4) The software development company that seeks agile methodology or app development believes in following the procedure of communication through daily meetings and documentation. This process helps the fellow team members to go through the documentation or get into a meeting to know the progress and updates of the project. This meeting also includes stakeholders to know their feedback on the update as well. 

DevOps methodology does focus on meetings but not on a daily basis. They are more encouraged towards following the protocol of documentation as there are multiple teams who need to know about the progress of the app development. Thus, documentation is the only way that could easily be circulated for teams to understand.

Other Contrasting Points

Now that we have already looked into the differences between these two methodologies, let’s have a look precisely at the contracting areas between these two:

Specialization 

Agile is more of an opportunity for the entire team where members can do any job scheduled to be performed. This prevents bottleneck and slowdowns. 

DevOps assumes separate teams for performing different tasks. And thus members need to perform operations by communicating frequently with each other.

Documentation 

Members of the Agile team do not focus on codifying the minutes of each and every meeting.  

DevOps teams, on the other hand, follow all the documentation procedures while working on or releasing software programs.

Automation

Automation is not as much a part of the Agile process as it is of DevOps methodology.

Automation plays the central role in DevOps methodology as the prime aim of the methodology is to maximize the overall efficiency of different teams.  

Development Approach

Instead of taking the development as a massive responsibility, Agile promotes development through small and manageable tasks.

DevOps, on the other hand, is all about balancing the stability between teams while remaining flexible with the development.

Is One Process Better Than Other?

Most software development companies prefer DevOps when it comes to software application development these days while there are many which favour agile development methodology.

Both methodologies have their own positive and negative points. When it comes to developing a project with continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), agile proves to be the best. However, DevOps is the best when the project development required multi-facet talent/team, collaborative effort and more. The development team, operations team, quality team, and testing team are not considered as different, but ‘one team’. This enhances the capabilities of the custom software development company and the end results are quite impressive as compared to agile methodology.