Agile and DevSecOps Consulting

Most IT organizations are already familiar with the Lean-Agile methodology and its focus on rapid, iterative, and customer-centric software development through teams that self-organize and collaborate. Agile Scrum emphasizes short sprints of development focused on the critical functionality, while Agile Kaban emphasizes the user story, continuously optimizing the flow needed to realize that story. Either way, the Agile methodology is known for allowing development to “fail fast, fail early” to identify errors and adjust through quick feedback. Key benefits of Agile include:

Sustainability and predictability go hand in hand in Agile development as they enable teams to deliver on-time, consistent results that meet customer expectations. Maintaining a consistent work pace keeps team members excited and focused on the project and helps prevent burnout that reduces productivity. Achieving sustainability requires being consistent in terms of the velocity of each sprint (how much work is performed) and customer value that was delivered. When a team is truly sustainable, this in turn provides the ability to predict their output and provide reliable, data-driven information about timeline and budget based on historical data. Being able to predict what a team can achieve within a certain timeline can be extremely valuable when it comes to realistic long-term planning for the business.

Transitioning to an Agile organization is not without risk. Project success depends on the organization’s ability to provide and promote honest communication and feedback, and requires leaders who are committed to making the required culture change. In addition, Agile requires breaking down complex projects into smaller, more easily achievable components. To help organizations make these changes, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) provides a knowledge base of proven practices for implementing Agile practices on an enterprise scale and offers Agile training and certification.

DevSecOps embraces the Agile methods of making releases quicker, but goes beyond that to remove the silos between development, operations, and security teams to promote quality, reduce complexity, and increase security. The emphasis on shared ownership of projects through their entire life cycle—from initial planning through end-user support—encourages rapid feedback, collaboration, and workflow automation. DevSecOps tools automate the development, operations, and compliance processes, creating functionality to support activities such as continuous development (CD), continuous integration (CI), continuous testing, continuous cloud security, and continuous monitoring. By lifting the burden of routine tasks from development, IT operations, and compliance, the focus shifts to providing value to end users. Key benefits of DevSecOps include:

Moving to DevSecOps requires breaking down organization silos and changing the way development and IT operations think and work. DevSecOps is not a department on the org chart, but rather a framework across the organization. Teams need the bandwidth to learn new ways of working together, and leadership should set realistic goals for these teams. As the organization adopts DevSecOps processes and tools, productivity may even decrease at first. The shift is massive, and organizations need time to make and absorb the changes. The DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA) is an open community for Agile/DevOps skills development and supports DevOps journeys through training, certification and knowledge sharing. Participating can provide individuals and organizations with the necessary skills to make a successful move to an Agile and DevSecOps culture.