Comparing Methodologies — Agile, Scrum, and DevOps
Comparing the different methodologies can be difficult as they are often used interchangeably. In this article, I have summarized some of the core elements each methodology possesses and a better understanding of each.
DevOps Methodology
DevOps can most simply be defined as a methodology that originated out of the need for development, testing, and operational teams to work cohesively together. Whereas some of the earlier methodologies worked in a monolithic manner, DevOps demonstrated a cyclical model in that fostered continuous integration and continuous deployment.
The diagram above outlines a physical representation of the different stages in the DevOps lifecycle and a brief scope of what happens during each stage. Throughout the years, many tools have been developed to aid teams in the DevOps process. Some of the ones most commonly used
- Plan: Jira, Trello, Project Tracker, Notion, Git
- Code: Eclipse, Intellij, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket
- Build: Gradle, Maven, Packer, Puppet, Chef, Ansible
- Test: JUnit, Selenium, Vagrant, Applitools
- Release: Jenkins, Bamboo, Travis, GitHub Actions
- Deploy: Puppet, Chef, Jenkins, Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS Cloud Formation.
- Operate: Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS Cloud Formation
- Monitor: Splunk, AWS Cloud Watch, AppDynamics, New Relic, DynaTrace, Nagios
Some essential roles in a DevOps team consist mainly of Software Developers and Testers, Quality Assurance Engineers, and Security Engineers on the development side (continuous integration), whereas you have DevOps Evangelists, Release Managers, and Automation Architects on the operations side (continuous deployment).
The core values behind the DevOps methodology are collaboration, automation, continuous improvement, customer-centric action, and creating with the end in mind. By accomplishing this, the impact on the team results in improved speed, sustainability, and maintaining a competitive edge.
Agile Methodology
Agile is a methodology that is accomplished through iterative development through the process of gathering requirements, designing, developing, testing, and deploying. Agile was created as an alternative to the waterfall software development life cycle in which teams could work to work collaborative and cohesively in order to develop a product. The Agile Manifesto states the main values behind Agile are:
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Working software over comprehensive documentation.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
Responding to change over following a plan.”
While some of the practices were incorporated into Scrum, Agile does require designated roles but teams are to operate both as self-organizing and cross-functional. These teams can consist of managers, team members, and clients. Clients play an important role in the team because their feedback allows corrections to be made to limit costs and time.
Some of the main benefits of the Agile Methodology are increased visibility, adaptability, product quality, customer satisfaction, and efficiency. Common tools used in Agile are Agile Manager, Active Collab, Jira Agile, Agile Bench, Pivot Tracker, Telerik TeamPulse, VersionOne, Planbox, LeanKit, Axosoft, etc.
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a methodology very similar to that of Agile with the exception of a few key factors including but not limited to sprints, daily standups, and sprint-planned meetings in the form of time blocks. The purpose of adopting a Scrum environment is to deliver a quality product using the three pillars of Scrum: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Scrum’s artifacts are detailed in the Scrum Guide to represent work and value.
“Each artifact contains a commitment to ensure it provides information that enhances transparency and focus against which progress can be measured:
- For the Product Backlog it is the Product Goal.
- For the Sprint Backlog it is the Sprint Goal.
- For the Increment it is the Definition of Done.”
The scope of Scrum follows the same pattern as Agile all within 5 main events starting with Sprint Planning, Daily Standup, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, and Product Backlog Refinement. Some popular tools used to accomplish this include Jira, Trello, Teams, Slack, Smartsheet, Zoho, VivifyScrum, Targetprocess, ClickUp, Scrumwise, QuickScrum, Yodiz, nTask, etc.
The overall breakdown of the main roles involved in a Scrum team consists of:
- Product Owners who are responsible for managing the product backlog, release management, and stakeholder management.
- Scrum Masters help define and deliver value to both the product owner and development team respectively while ensuring the 5 core values of Scrum(courage, focus, commitment, respect, openness) to the team.
- The Development Team doesn't only consist of engineers but also designers, writers, programmers, etc who are responsible for developing the product and doing the work behind it.
Some of the clear benefits of using Scrum are that due to its model, values, and pillars, it helps teams develop products at a fast speed and assure the quality of their projects.
