What is DevOps?

One approach that has become increasingly popular is to adopt a DevOps mindset—a philosophy that emphasizes improved collaboration between developers and operations teams. By fostering a DevOps cultural shift, teams can bridge the gap between development and IT operations, streamline workflows, and accelerate code changes into a central repository.

The DevOps process supports continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices, enabling teams to push updates more frequently while maintaining stability in production environments. This approach spans the entire application lifecycle, ensuring each stage—from planning to deployment—benefits from continuous improvement and alignment across teams.

The benefits of DevOps are clear: faster delivery cycles, better resource utilization, enhanced communication, and improved software reliability. Teams that embrace DevOps report significant gains in efficiency, transparency, and product quality.

But what is DevOps, really?

This article will unpack the key principles, practices, and outcomes of DevOps. It explores what DevOps is, its unique value proposition, and how organizations can begin integrating DevOps principles into their development processes.

What is DevOps?

Defining DevOps isn’t always straightforward—it shares this ambiguity with its cousin, agile software development. The reality is that DevOps looks slightly different from one team to the next, as each team tailors its approach to meet its unique goals and challenges. However, certain key principles remain consistent across successful DevOps implementations.

At its core, DevOps is about breaking down silos between product management, development, and operations teams. Instead of working in isolation, these teams collaborate closely to define, build, and deploy new features. Mature DevOps teams take this further by embracing automation in infrastructure and deployment management, reducing manual overhead and minimizing errors.

It’s essential to recognize that teams will progress through various stages of DevOps maturity, often excelling in some areas faster than others. There’s no single authority to certify which teams are “doing DevOps correctly.” However, the most effective teams consistently work toward removing barriers between groups, fostering a DevOps culture of transparency, collaboration, and shared responsibility.

High-performing teams aim to automate code testing and seamlessly integrate security checks into their development processes, rather than treating these as final steps before deployment. While no team executes every aspect of DevOps perfectly, the hallmark of success is a commitment to continuous improvement, effective collaboration, and a shared focus on delivering reliable, high-quality software.

Why Do Teams Choose DevOps?

In a traditional application lifecycle, operations teams are often brought in only during the final stages of a project. Their role is typically restricted to deploying code that developers have already written, with little to no input on its structure, requirements, or behavior. Anyone with experience in development processes has likely encountered the pitfalls of this siloed approach. At its worst, projects are completely derailed because the delivered code isn’t compatible with production environments or fails to meet key business requirements.

Such outcomes are more than just setbacks—they represent costly failures. To prevent these scenarios, modern development teams have embraced a DevOps process, integrating developers and operations teams from the earliest stages of the software lifecycle. This approach fosters improved collaboration and shared responsibility, with both groups jointly deciding on infrastructure requirements, security protocols, and software libraries.

At the same time, many organizations have adopted agile software development methodologies, which prioritize flexibility, responsiveness, and continuous improvement over rigid, upfront project plans. These principles align naturally with the DevOps cultural mindset, where adaptability and iteration drive success.

When these two approaches—early collaboration between developers and operations and agile software development—are combined, they create an environment where development and IT operations function as a unified team. Code changes into a central repository are tested and deployed through continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, ensuring software is consistently stable, secure, and aligned with business objectives.

The benefits of DevOps are clear: teams that adopt a DevOps approach report high-quality software delivery, faster release cycles, and fewer costly failures. This collaborative model bridges the gap between traditionally separate roles, empowering teams to deliver software efficiently and confidently in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.

DevOps isn’t just about tools or workflows—it’s about fostering a culture of trust, shared responsibility, and ongoing collaboration across every stage of the application lifecycle. By embracing this mindset, organizations can better navigate the complexities of modern development processes and meet the demands of an ever-evolving technological world.

How Do Agile and DevOps Fit Together?

The DevOps movement emerged as a natural evolution of the agile software development philosophy. As teams moved away from large, infrequent software releases toward smaller, more frequent updates, operations teams faced increasing challenges. A team releasing software every three months can manage each release with relative ease, but when that same team shifts to deploying code every two weeks—or even daily—cracks in their release processes quickly become evident. Manual, repetitive tasks that once felt manageable now become bottlenecks, consuming time and increasing the risk of human error.

In response, forward-thinking operations teams began automating as much of their release workflows as possible. They embraced one of DevOps’ core principles—continuous improvement—constantly seeking opportunities to streamline and simplify their deployment processes.

Rather than manually provisioning servers for every deployment, these teams began using infrastructure-as-code (IaC) to define their environments programmatically. They adopted continuous integration (CI) systems to automatically test new code, ensuring it met quality and stability standards before deployment.

Most importantly, they fostered collaboration beyond the operations team, breaking down silos to enable smoother, safer, and more efficient code deployments. By aligning development, operations, and even product teams around shared goals, they created an environment where frequent releases became not just sustainable, but a competitive advantage.

At its heart, DevOps represents this shift toward automation, collaboration, and continuous improvement, enabling teams to deliver software more reliably and at a faster pace.

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery

Continuous integration and continuous delivery are foundational practices in a DevOps workflow, designed to dramatically reduce the time between writing code and deploying it to production. In traditional waterfall project management, months might pass between writing and deploying code. Even in agile software development, the window can still stretch to weeks. CI/CD aims to shrink that gap to just days or even hours, enabling rapid and reliable software delivery.

CI/CD operates on two key principles: continuous integration and continuous delivery.

• Continuous Integration: Developers write extensive automated tests to ensure that changes to the codebase don’t introduce errors or regressions. These tests run automatically every time new code is pushed to source control. When well-designed, these tests give development teams confidence that their updates are stable and ready for deployment.
• Continuous Delivery: With successful CI in place, IT operations teams can deploy new code as soon as it passes testing. Mature CI/CD pipelines can support dozens—or even hundreds—of deployments per day, ensuring that customers receive updates almost instantly.

Highly mature software teams take CI/CD even further with techniques like blue-green deployments. In this setup, two production environments—”blue” and “green”—run simultaneously. When a new software version is ready, it’s deployed to the “green” environment while the “blue” environment continues serving customers. After thorough testing confirms the new version is stable, the “green” environment becomes the primary environment, seamlessly taking over without a second of downtime.

Advanced teams also use feature flags to push unfinished features to production without enabling them for users. This allows developers to have new features already deployed and ready to be turned on instantly after final validation—no additional deployment required. CI/CD transforms the software delivery process, enabling teams to release updates faster, reduce deployment risks, and deliver value to customers with exceptional efficiency.

Infrastructure as Code

Implementing CI/CD pipelines comes with essential requirements, the most critical being the ability to easily deploy any commit within an application. For this to work, deployment processes must be streamlined, avoiding time-consuming manual tasks or complex dependencies. If it takes an hour of manual effort to configure a server or install libraries, practices like blue-green deployments become nearly impossible to execute effectively.

To address this challenge, operations teams adopt Infrastructure as Code (IaC). With IaC, the infrastructure needed to build, deploy, and run an application is defined directly in code—just like the application itself. Once the code passes testing, IaC tools translate these infrastructure definitions into running servers, connected databases, and open network configurations—essentially creating an environment ready for deployment with minimal manual effort.

When paired with infrastructure automation, IaC becomes the backbone of a CI/CD pipeline. Together, they eliminate the need for repetitive manual tasks and reduce reliance on hands-on intervention from operations engineers. Instead of manually provisioning servers or troubleshooting configurations, operations teams write code to proactively address issues and ensure environments are consistent, repeatable, and reliable.

This shift reflects a broader trend in DevOps culture: operations teams adopting the patterns and practices of software development teams. They treat infrastructure as a product—something that’s coded, versioned, tested, and improved iteratively. IaC and automation are the foundation of a scalable CI/CD pipeline, enabling teams to deploy frequently, reliably, and with confidence—freeing up operations staff to focus on innovation rather than maintenance.

Collaboration transverse

DevOps fosters improved collaboration between developers and operations teams, creating a seamless bridge between development processes and production environments. By adopting a DevOps cultural mindset, teams break down silos and work together from the very beginning—planning not only code but also the infrastructure and environment where new features will run. This proactive alignment prevents costly delays and ensures that development and IT operations teams are aligned from day one.

In a robust DevOps process, technical teams prioritize CI/CD, allowing them to push code changes into a central repository swiftly and reliably. This integration accelerates the application lifecycle, reducing the bottlenecks that often plague traditional workflows. As a result, teams can deliver software updates and features faster while maintaining high quality standards.

However, the benefits of DevOps extend far beyond collaboration between development teams and operations teams. With a DevOps team in place, technical teams can align more effectively with business stakeholders, facilitating real-time feedback and strategic alignment. Instead of waiting months to see their ideas materialize, stakeholders can validate and test new features within days or weeks. This agility, influenced by principles of agile software development, fosters trust, transparency, and shared ownership of outcomes.

A strong DevOps cultural foundation emphasizes continuous alignment with strategic goals throughout the application lifecycle. Development begins swiftly, and code is deployed without unnecessary delays. Once live, teams can rapidly collect user feedback, refine requirements, and kick off the next development cycle. This continuous improvement process creates a feedback loop that enhances every iteration of the software, improving both its functionality and usability.

Ultimately, adopting a DevOps approach transforms software delivery into an ongoing cycle of refinement and innovation. Every interaction—whether between developers and operations teams or business stakeholders—propels the organization closer to delivering high quality software, faster and more reliably.

System Performance Measurement

After a few weeks or months of adopting DevOps practices, some organizations begin to feel stuck. They question whether their approach is truly working or if adjustments are needed. What started with ambitious visions of continuous delivery and effortless deployments has instead felt like an uphill battle. Progress seems slow, and the expected transformation hasn’t fully materialized.

At this crossroads, many organizations abandon their DevOps experiment entirely, retreating to the familiar routines of their old project management systems. However, the most successful organizations take a different path—they focus on measuring their DevOps effectiveness through targeted metrics and doubling down on automation.

These metrics typically fall into two key categories: process metrics and technical metrics.

• Process Metrics: These help teams identify efficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement. Common metrics include:
  • The average time between a developer committing code and the operations team deploying it.
  • The accumulated downtime caused by deployments.
  • The rate of defects introduced in new code changes.
• Technical Metrics: These focus on the performance and stability of the system itself. For example:
  • Measuring average response times for critical services across deployments helps teams identify whether new features have unintentionally degraded performance.

By analyzing these key metrics, management teams gain a comprehensive view of their system’s health and team performance. These insights reveal patterns, highlight areas for refinement, and guide teams toward smarter decisions and sustainable improvements.

Ultimately, the difference between a stalled DevOps initiative and a thriving one lies in the ability to measure, adapt, and optimize. With the right data in hand, teams can move beyond guesswork and build a culture of continuous improvement.

Product-Oriented Development

In many enterprises, projects dominate the software development process. Each new version of software follows a rigid project methodology, often drawing on lessons from previous cycles. A Project Management Office (PMO) determines the list of features they believe must be included; a process often influenced by internal politics rather than immediate customer needs. Once finalized, these requirements are handed off to developers, who work in isolation with minimal stakeholder feedback.

When the code is deemed “complete,” it enters a series of regulatory checkpoints where security and compliance teams assess it against external standards. Only after clearing these gates does the software reach the testing team. At this stage, significant portions of code are frequently rewritten to fix bugs, only for the same cycle to repeat during User Acceptance Testing (UAT). If bugs still slip through to customers, fixes are often delayed until the next scheduled release—assuming they even make it into the PMO’s prioritized list.

Product-oriented development flips this traditional approach on its head. Instead of front-loading an entire release with pre-determined features, product-oriented teams focus on delivering the simplest set of features that address customers’ immediate needs. These features are then iteratively improved over time based on real-world feedback.

This shift brings several benefits:

• Reduced development time: Releases aren’t bloated with an exhaustive feature list determined months in advance.
• Streamlined compliance and security checks: Smaller, more focused releases mean fewer lines of code to evaluate.
• Simpler testing cycles: Smaller releases allow for more efficient and targeted testing.

The result? Significantly increased release frequency and faster feedback loops.

This evolution toward product-oriented development aligns naturally with the principles of agile development and is a cornerstone of the DevOps mindset. Both approaches emphasize frequent releases, iterative improvements, and continuous feedback, creating a development culture that prioritizes responsiveness over rigidity and customer value over internal politics.

In short, transitioning from a project-oriented model to a product-oriented one isn’t just a technical shift—it’s a cultural transformation that empowers teams to deliver better software, faster, and with greater confidence.

Amélioration continue

At the heart of DevOps lies one fundamental principle: continuous improvement. This mindset drives every other DevOps practice, serving as the foundation upon which CI/CD, IaC, and cross-team collaboration are built.

• CI/CD enables teams to continuously improve code quality through frequent, reliable deployments.
• IaC streamlines and refines the deployment process, making iterative improvements easier and more consistent.
• Cross-team collaboration ensures teams stay focused on delivering the most valuable features and fixes, reducing wasted effort and improving alignment with business goals.

Continuous improvement relies on measurement—understanding system performance, including IT operations. Effective teams identify key performance indicators (KPIs), monitor them consistently, and use infrastructure automation to address bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Without clear metrics, teams are left guessing where to focus their efforts, and the cycle of improvement stalls.

But continuous improvement isn’t just a team-level responsibility—it’s a personal one. Every team member must embrace the mindset of consistently refining their craft, looking for ways to improve processes, and remaining vigilant about quality.

This doesn’t mean pointing fingers or placing blame. Instead, it’s about fostering an environment of accountability and shared responsibility. Team members must feel empowered to speak up when they notice something isn’t right—whether it’s a code issue, a process gap, or a missed opportunity for efficiency. Sometimes, this means pausing a deployment until the issue is resolved, even when it’s inconvenient.

In a thriving DevOps culture, continuous improvement becomes second nature. It’s not an isolated practice—it’s a collective mindset that drives every conversation, every deployment, and every interaction. The result is a team that doesn’t just meet expectations but continually raises the bar for what they can achieve.

How Can a Team Start with DevOps?

Embarking on the DevOps journey doesn’t have to be overwhelming or require an enormous overhaul. DevOps thrives on collaboration and is fueled by the principle of continuous improvement. Often, the simplest first step is just opening lines of communication between developers and operations teams.

Something as straightforward as inviting operations staff to a planning meeting to provide input on a new feature can spark meaningful change. This small gesture builds trust, fosters goodwill, and starts establishing a habit of cross-team collaboration. Over time, teams can refine their processes—breaking features into smaller, more manageable pieces and learning valuable lessons from each deployment cycle.

Once collaboration begins, momentum builds naturally. Team members start spotting opportunities for process improvements, which then ripple outward to other parts of the workflow and codebase. Before long, the team has internalized the principle of continuous improvement, and progress becomes self-sustaining.

It’s important to remember that DevOps wasn’t born overnight—it evolved over years of real-world experimentation and iteration by teams solving practical problems. Any team can follow that same path, learning and refining their practices as they go. Effective leadership plays a crucial role in this process by supporting the transition, learning from industry best practices, and helping teams avoid common pitfalls.

DevOps Is a Continuous Journey

At the start of this article, we asked: What is DevOps? The reality is that DevOps looks different for every team, shaped by their unique goals, challenges, and culture. However, one thing remains constant: DevOps isn’t a fixed destination—it’s an ongoing journey.

Even teams that seem to have mastered their DevOps practices continue to reevaluate, adapt, and refine their approaches regularly. The heart of DevOps is a commitment to continuous improvement, with every cycle bringing new insights and opportunities to evolve. Some teams focus on process optimization, others on technology and tools, but all share one goal: to help teams think critically about how to continuously improve their DevOps culture over time.

The good news? You’re not alone on this journey. Many teams have already walked this path, faced similar challenges, and discovered valuable insights along the way. Their experiences serve as a guide, lighting the way forward for teams just starting out. In the end, DevOps isn’t just a methodology—it’s a mindset. And like any mindset, it grows stronger with time, practice, and a willingness to keep pushing for improvement.