Conceptualizing the transition from agile to DevOps: A maturity model for a smarter is function

Agile development approaches have become the norm for almost all software development now. While agile approaches can deliver more frequent releases of working software, it quickly became apparent in many organisations that they were not able to leverage these frequent releases due to the disconnect between the development and operations functions, with the latter typically responsible for releasing software to customers. This resulted in the move towards closer integration of these functions through the DevOps movement. As the trend towards digitalisation continues, companies are increasingly implementing DevOps. We propose a maturity model for this agile to DevOps transition with three levels: agile, continuous integration, continuous delivery. Based on an in-depth case study in an organisation which has several years’ experience of DevOps, we identify a fundamental disruption in the soft skills and competences that software teams are expected to possess, and in the patterns of collaboration among teams. The latter is especially salient for release managers, project managers, production engineers and even architects. Arguably, smartness may be characterized as being flexible, teaming up with people who have a different profile, belonging to a different function, and delivering more quickly what had been designed. In light of this, we argue that DevOps leads to greater smartness for the Information Systems (IS) function.