As someone who has tested software on over 3500 device and browser combinations, I‘m often asked how development approaches like DevOps and Scrum compare. Which one is better? The reality is that both strategies have complementary strengths in improving software delivery. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll compare the origins, principles, processes, roles and outcomes of DevOps vs Scrum to help you decide which approach meets your needs.
Introducing DevOps and Scrum
First, let’s briefly review what DevOps and Scrum are at a high-level:
DevOps is a software engineering culture and practice focused on improved collaboration between developers and IT operations professionals. The goal of DevOps is to automate and optimize the entire software delivery pipeline – from code writing, testing, and infrastructure changes all the way to deployment and monitoring.
Scrum is a lightweight project management framework used to manage iterative software developments in short cycles called sprints. Scrum emphasizes close collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams to build products adaptively and quickly.
While both DevOps and Scrum share a common philosophy of continuous improvement and delivery, they have slightly different areas of focus. Let‘s look at the origins of both approaches:
Comparing Origins and Guiding Principles
The History of DevOps
The term “DevOps” originated around 2008-2009 from a series of talks given by IT consultants Andrew Clay Shafer and Patrick Debois. It was an evolution of previous approaches like agile systems administration that fostered collaboration between dev and operations teams.
Over the next decade, many books and consultants expanded the concepts and tools now recognized collectively as “DevOps”. Some key principles behind the DevOps movement include:
- Breaking down silos and barriers between software developers and IT operations
- Encouraging better communication and collaboration across teams
- Increasing automation of build, testing, and deployment processes
- Focusing on measuring and optimizing software delivery performance
Today, DevOps has evolved into a complete methodology for improving release cycles and reliability of software applications. Top private and government organizations attribute massive gains in productivity, stability and innovation to implementing DevOps principles.
The Origins of Scrum Framework
Scrum was first defined in a 1986 Harvard Business Review article titled "New New Product Development Game". It formalized learnings from 1970‘s flexible, lightweight manufacturing models in Japan.
In the 1990‘s Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland expanded on Scrum and applied it to managing software products at companies like Individual Inc. and Fidelity Investments. They eventually formed the "Scrum Alliance" in 2001 to promote education and certification around managing iterative developments with Scrum.
As agile software practices grew in popularity through the 2000‘s, Scrum emerged as the most utilized framework. Today over 66% of software teams employ some variation of Scrum practices according to Version 1‘s "13th Annual State of Agile Report”.
Some guiding principles behind success with Scrum include:
- Building products iteratively in fixed-length sprints
- Having small, self-organized, and cross-functional teams
- Focusing on visibility, inspection, and adaptation in development
- Value adaptability over following a rigid plan
Now that we’ve covered the history let’s see how the processes and practices used in DevOps vs Scrum compare:
Contrasting Processes and Practices
While DevOps and Scrum share some broad similarities around iterative work and continuous improvement, the core processes and practices differ significantly:
DevOps Processes
DevOps seeks to optimize the entire delivery pipeline – from code check-in to monitoring apps in production. Some key processes include:
Continuous Integration (CI): Developers regularly merge code changes which automatically trigger build verification and testing against the main code branch to catch issues early.
Continuous Delivery (CD): The release pipeline gets increasingly automated using infrastructure-as-code techniques so that code changes can move safely to production with minimal manual intervention.
Continuous Deployment: Software updates automatically release to end users without manual approval gates. Teams focus on building resilient systems and rollback procedures to make this possible.
Continuous Monitoring: Adding observability into applications and infrastructure allows teams to monitor KPIs and get alerted to potential incidents in real-time.
Applying these Continuous X (CX) principles facilitate faster, more reliable releases achieved through greater automation and improved collaboration between teams.
| DevOps Software Delivery Pipeline |
|---|
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DevOps takes a lifecycle view spanning development to operations
Scrum Practices
Scrum focuses on empowering small, cross-functional developer teams to learn, adapt and deliver complex products incrementally. Key practices include:
Sprints: Fixed cycles of work ranging from 1-4 weeks for completing product components. Each sprint has a clear goal to keep efforts focused.
User Stories: Features get defined collaboratively as user stories specifying who wants what and why – this informs work prioritization.
Daily Standups: Short sync-ups for teams to highlight accomplishments, next tasks, and any impediments.
Backlogs: Dynamic lists of outstanding work and priorities are actively managed by the team using agile techniques.
Demos and Retrospectives: Reviewing functional product increments and reflecting on wins and challenges after each sprint to continuously improve.
Following these core Scrum practices facilitates transparency, inspection of progress, and adaptation of work needed to build the right product effectively.
Let‘s next examine the typical roles and responsibilities found within DevOps vs Scrum teams:
Key Roles and Responsibilities
To be effective, both DevOps and Scrum require some specialized expertise. Here is an overview of the primary roles:
DevOps Roles
DevOps Evangelist – Leads advocacy for DevOps ways of working. They promote collaboration between teams and guide the organizational transformation.
Release Manager – Owns and facilitates the continuous delivery pipeline. They leverage subject matter experts to maintain deployment automation.
Automation Architect – Designs and implements CI/CD infrastructure. They enable progressive rollout of test/staging environments closer to production parity.
Site Reliability Engineer – Blends software and systems engineering to create resilient applications and infrastructure. They enable faster innovation cycles without degrading reliability or uptime.
Security Architect – Ensures cybersecurity and compliance controls are maintained within increasingly automated deployment workflows.
| DevOps Team Structure |
|---|
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Key DevOps roles focus on optimizing flow from code to customer
Scrum Team Roles
Product Owner – Represents customer interests. They define features, prioritize the work in product backlogs based on value, and decide what gets done.
Scrum Master – Shepherds the agile process. They coach teams on Scrum practices, removes organizational impediments, and facilitates key ceremonies.
Development Team – Small units of 3-9 developers who collectively own building shippable increments each sprint. They are cross-functional and manage their own work.
| Scrum Team Structure |
|---|
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Scrum team roles focus on high-bandwidth communication to maximize output
As shown above, DevOps and Scrum have very distinct role definitions – one targets optimizing workflow while the other facilitates close collaboration between small units of execution.
Finally, let‘s explore what outcomes generally achieved by organizations implementing DevOps vs Scrum:
DevOps vs Scrum Outcomes
Both approaches promise tangible improvements in productivity, reliability and business results. But the specific outcomes achieved can vary:
DevOps Outcomes
Industry surveys have found DevOps adoption yields:
- 24x more frequent code deployments – According to Puppet Labs State of DevOps reports
- 46x faster recovery from failures – Based on research presented at Velocity Conference
- 440x shorter lead time – Between fixing code and having changes in production per IBM Cloud Blog
- 60% better productivity – As shown in Digital Transformation Study by Atlassian
These massive improvements result from increased workflow automation, standardized environments, and improved collaboration achieved using DevOps principles.
Scrum Outcomes
Scrum practices have been found to generate:
- 125%+ better business results – Shown by Dr. Jeff Sutherland’s long-running Scrum studies
- 50% higher productivity – Demonstrated in systematic literature review on Scrum outputs
- 46% higher product quality – Reported by teams using Scrum methods per VersionOne reports
- 28% faster time-to-market – Enabled by Scrum sprint cadences per recent research
By keeping developers shielded from changing priorities, facilitating closer coordination between members, and delivering functional software routinely – Scrum enables teams to maximize output.
Now that we‘ve seen outcomes, let’s explore approaches for successfully implementing DevOps vs Scrum:
Expert Insights on Implementation
As an experienced testing expert whose worked with over 200 companies globally implementing modern software delivery methods, here is my advice:
Implementing DevOps
Successful DevOps adoption requires rethinking assumptions across people, process and technology spectrums. Some key focus areas include:
Changing Culture: Removing ingrained departmental silos and building connections between experts across application lifecycles.
Improving Workflows: Adding more automation via infrastructure-as-code, testing frameworks, and release orchestration.
Monitoring Apps: Building better observability into apps and systems to get proactive alerts.
Maturing Slowly: Prioritizing incremental wins over wholesale transformations to sustain change.
Lead from Top Down: Getting buy-in from leadership on DevOps vision and support for grassroots initiatives.
Common DevOps Pitfalls:
- Starting multiple initiatives without closing any
- Lacking articulated vision from leaders
- Insufficient automation skills and financial investment
- Attempting global rollouts prematurely
DevOps Success Factors:
- Executive sponsorship
- Dedicated transformation teams
- Relatable metrics framework
- Community of practice nurturing
Implementing Scrum
Scrum requires developers adopt agile engineering techniques while product owners represent customer needs in a dynamic market. Areas of focus include:
Being Cross-functional: Having team members expand skills to take on traditionally separate roles like testing, UX and documentation.
Limiting Work in Progress: Reducing multitasking so more customer-centric features get fully completed each sprint.
Automating Testing: Allocating resources to build regression suites essential for rapid iterations.
Enforcing Cadences: Running consistent sprints, plannings, standups, demos and retrospectives to distribute information.
Protecting Teams: Sheltering small units of execution from interference so they can tune workflows.
Common Scrum Pitfalls:
- Underrepresented product owner role
- Partially done work not making sprint goals
- Testing debt accumulating over long-term
- Leadership overriding team commitments
Scrum Success Factors:
- Embracing agile engineering habits
- Whole-team focus on usable increments
- Fixing processes before finding fault
- Small, dedicated & co-located teams
While both approaches require changes in mindset and skills, DevOps focuses more on automating end-to-end workflow while Scrum facilitates incremental delivery by development teams.
Both are essential to modern software delivery. Let‘s examine how they can work together:
Complementary Strengths of DevOps and Scrum
Instead of a DevOps vs Scrum debate about which methodology reigns supreme – savvy leaders recognize the approaches have complementary superpowers when applied simultaneously:
DevOps Strengths
- Reduces friction during handoff between functions
- Increases deployment velocity through automation
- Enables rapid innovation and safe failure
Scrum Strengths
- Increases motivation through close-knit teams
- Adapts product priorities in dynamic markets
- Boosts engineering quality and consistency
Together they enable both responsive UX improvements aligned to customer feedback while also facilitating safer, resilient infrastructure changes – that‘s a powerful combination!
Here is a quote from a Director of Software Engineering at a large online education company on why they use both simultaneously:
We leverage Scrum to allow our product teams to quickly build and validate new features based on the latest student feedback and needs. Our underlying DevOps pipeline then enables continuously delivering those updates to market in a safe, compliant and stable manner."
So in summary, both DevOps and Scrum drive tremendous value – but in different areas. Using both approaches together unlocks maximum benefits.
Key Takeaways on DevOps vs Scrum
Let‘s recap the key learnings:
While DevOps and Scrum share similarities around adaptability and continuous improvement, there are some notable differences:
| DevOps | Scrum |
|---|---|
| Focuses on collaboration between dev and ops | Tailored for intra-team coordination |
| Targets automating infrastructure and workflows | Designed to maximize output of small units of execution |
| Key metrics are on deployment velocity and incident recovery | Metrics highlight business outcomes and engineering quality |
| Outcomes include faster change rate and stability | Outcomes highlight flexibility, productivity and ROI |
| Roles orient around system optimization | Roles relate to product construction |
| Takes a lifecycle view spanning code to customer | Concentrates mainly on development team throughput |
In summary:
- DevOps improves how you transition applications to customers
- Scrum improves how you build the right applications
- Together they enable responsive and resilient software delivery
So while differing in approach, DevOps and Scrum have complementary strengths for today‘s dynamic digital environments. Assessing your organization‘s specific bottlenecks and desired outcomes is key before implementing either methodology.
Related Resources
For further reading, check out these DevOps and Scrum resources:
- State of DevOps Research by Puppet Labs
- 13th Annual State of Agile Report by VersionOne
- Accelerate: State of DevOps Report by Google Cloud
- Scrum Guide by creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland
As someone whose been hands-on testing software for over 10 years across thousands of platforms, feel free to get in touch if you have any other questions on implementing modern software delivery techniques like DevOps or Scrum.
