Scrum.org, which is dedicated to improving the profession of software delivery, and the DevOps Institute, which is dedicated to fostering a community around emerging practices in Continuous Delivery and DevOps, today announced an alliance that seeks to build a bridge from agile to DevOps. It will include scrum teams, agile practices and DevOps. I think this partnership could have huge implications for both the Agile/Scrum and DevOps communities.
Let me say from the outset that I am a co-founder of the DevOps Institute, so feel free to take what I am saying (or writing) with a grain of salt. I also have been involved in the formation of this partnership since its initiation. From then until now, I remain convinced that this is a critical step in making software development and delivery better for us all.
My fellow co-founder at the DevOps Institute, Jayne Groll, perhaps says it better: “There is an inherent organic relationship between Scrum and DevOps. By demonstrating how to improve the collaboration, integration and communication between IT’s roles, frameworks, practices and automation, we pave the way for end-to-end organizational agility and a faster flow from idea to value.”
While formulating this partnership, I have had the chance to meet and work with some incredible people over at Scrum.org. One of them is Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org. When I first met Dave (you can hear a podcast of that here), he was just formulating his ideas around Agile/Scrum and DevOps being intrinsically linked. Since then, Dave has seen a clear path for this linking and has embraced and enunciated it well. “Scrum without DevOps is impossible to scale. Work needs to flow seamlessly from the Scrum team to production and back again,” Dave says. “It is funny that great Scrum teams have to do DevOps to be great and great DevOps teams use an agile approach like Scrum to enable better collaboration.”
For me, the real value of this partnership is, as Dave so eloquently states: “I am always shocked that the DevOps community are often seen as different from the agile and Scrum communities, when the reality is that agile and DevOps encourage breaking down those barriers to deliver customer value.”
At the end of the day that is really what this is all about. The partnership is not just about Scrum.org and the DOI as institutions & organizations—the partnership really has to be about the community of IT professionals who adhere to and practice Agile/Scrum and DevOps.
As I like to tell people, there is only one truth. There is not a separate set of facts that apply to Agile/Scrum and another set that apply to DevOps. There is not a separate truth that applies to enterprises and another truth that applies only to startups. There is only one truth. If it is truth, it is true. I look forward to this partnership illuminating and standardizing on this one truth.
By the way, this alliance is just the beginning. I believe that this “one truth” philosophy applies beyond Scrum and DevOps. I think it also applies to ITSM, security and other IT disciplines. Bringing together a common set of best practices and way of doing things across these is inevitable.
We have crossed a boundary in IT. As I write this, I am at the InfoSec World conference in Orlando. My friend Rich Mogull is delivering a keynote where he is talking about how infrastructure as a service, software as a service and the new reality of ubiquitous, safer endpoints and connectivity are changing the mission of the security professional. These same factors are changing the mission of the Agile/Scrum developer and the DevOps team member. It is a great time to be in IT.
But it also calls for forward-thinking organizations to recognize, adopt, adapt and evolve. I think this is a great opportunity for organizations like Scrum.org and the DevOps Institute to help lay out a path for common learning and uniting communities. That is what really gets me so excited about this partnership.
So what are ways for you to find out more and be involved in this? Well, it starts April 26 in Dallas at the DevOps Connect conference. Dave and Jayne will be delivering a joint keynote and a full afternoon workshop. These sessions will be listed under the “ScrumOps” moniker. If you are in Dallas or can get there to attend DevOps Connect, please do so.
Dave’s blog lists some other ways this partnership will work together:
- Consistently describe the ideas of each body of knowledge through Scrum.org and DevOps Institute classes and certifications – providing consistent words and concepts to help ensure that both groups can share a common dialogue.
- Shared events that bring together the two audiences to create an environment that allows ideas to be exchanged and new ones to grow. It has always seemed odd that DevOps and Scrum/Agile events are separate. It is crucial that the two groups work together and that we as one.
- Invest in a growing body of thought leadership. Scrum has a very precise, documented body of knowledge with the Scrum Guide, but there is much ‘mystic’ in the DevOps and agile community about certain terms and ideas. DevOps Institute is already working with DevOps Express on building standard patterns and terminology. By working with the DevOps Institute, we can start bringing in the concepts of professional Scrum so that the entire software delivery team can work together as one.
So stay tuned for more info on this partnership in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, today is the first day of Scrum/DevOps working together in ScrumOps.