DevOps is a movement for developers and operations professionals that encourages more collaboration and release automation. Why? To keep up with the faster application delivery pace of Agile. In fact, with Agile, as development teams deliver faster and in shorter cycles, IT operations finds itself unprepared to keep up with the new pace. For operations teams, managing a continuous stream of software delivery with traditional manual-based processes is Mission Impossible. Vendors have responded to DevOps requirements with more automation in their release management, delivery, and deployment tools. However, there is a key process that sits between development and operations that seems to have been given little attention: testing.   

In fact, some key testing activities, like integration testing and end-to-end performance testing, are caught right in the middle of the handover process between development and operations. In the Agile and Lean playbook, I’ve dedicated my latest research precisely to Agile testing, because I’ve seen testing as the black beast in many transformations to Agile because it was initially ignored.

Agile and Lean transformations depend to a great extent on cultivating a good sourcing ecosystem. The decisions you make around the partners and providers supporting your transformation and projects will be at the core of a successful strategy. But sourcing strategy needs to go beyond just resource or services providers (read outsourcing) and address a larger ecosystem made of Agile SW development and delivery choices, collaboration and communication capabilities for distributed teams, and teams' physical work spaces, standard equipment, and office layout.

In September, I published a report on how to source your Agile strategy, that describes what the ecosystem looks like and how to navigate it effectively, the document is part of our larger research container on Agile - The Agile and Lean Playbook.  The report gives an overview on how large vendors, SIs, and medium to small consulting organizations can (not) help you with your Agile journey but also what you need to do to be successful. Here are some of the takeaways from the research:

• What you think about Agile and Lean might not be what your SI thinks. You need to take control of your own destiny with Agile and Lean. Change your application development and delivery sourcing strategy to embed the best talents around the world to help you make it happen. But be careful with the traditional SIs, because Agile is as disruptive to them as it is you, and if they have not been seriously transforming themselves, it will be hard for them to deliver Agile services to you. Some good alternative new fully Agile players exist, including highly specialized external consulting firms. You might want to start testing the ground with these options.

In a recent blog post that I wrote right before the Agile 2012 conference in Dallas, I expressed my hope that the conference sessions would be full of specifics, not generalities. No, thank you, I don't need another presentation explaining what test-driven development is. I'd like to hear someone talk about how they did test-driven development in a large project, or how they made it a standard practice across projects, or whether anyone has had success with it when working with outsourcing partners.

The presentations at this year's conference were a mixed bag, consisting of the following:

• Very high-level discussions, often from consultants, about Agile and Lean concepts. These presentations consisted of a lot of name dropping ("Mumblemumble Daniel Pink mumblemumble Geoffrey Moore mumblemumble Taiichi Ohno") and colorful polygons ("You want to be in the two-by-two Grid Of Delight, not the Overlapping Ovals Of Doom"). Unfortunately, the keynote bore a bit too much resemblance to this category.
• Emphatic statements of Agile precepts. Sometimes, the arguments were convincing, such as a good workshop-ish session I attended on Agile planning. Others were less persuasive, such as the contention that Scrum should be the governing methodology in every project. (That's exactly the sort of over-the-top pronouncement that gave birth to the phrase "Agile zealot.")

Diego Lo Giudice contributed to this blog post. 

Agile Practices Create The Need For Other Practices
Agile is a big topic that goes far beyond a set of practices and principles. Change the development cog in the larger software machine, and you change how other parts of the machine operate, too. It’s a deliberately disruptive change that’s supposed to make the software development and delivery machine become more adaptable, produce a higher quality product, or satisfy some other goal that makes people willing to ride the tiger of disruptive change.

Lean helps sustain Agile while driving it in the direction of value, flow, team empowerment, and waste reduction. Other practices, such as continuous delivery and design-driven development, also complement, reinforce, and supercharge Agile transformation. 

As analysts, we might treat these developments as an excuse to write research that amounts, more or less, to a list of what’s hot and what’s not. Are more organizations taking a broader approach to DevOps challenges instead of just focusing on continuous delivery? Are Agile-friendly requirements practices, such as visualization, storyboarding, and serious games just a passing fad or permanent additions to the requirements toolkit? How many organizations have adopted test-driven development, and what are the barriers to adoption?

While these questions are important, and the answers more than a little interesting, they’re insufficient. Forrester is in the business of providing practical advice, not academic musings, so that software professionals can apply innovation strategies such as Agile and Lean immediately to the decisions they have to make today.

Organize These Practices Into A Playbook