When software development teams want to increase efficiencies that lead to results and deliver greater customer value, they often turn to Agile practices.
Agile development focuses on the continuous delivery of value, enabling development teams to be flexible as projects change and prioritize the use of customer feedback to drive decisions. The Agile methodology helps teams simplify workflows, improve collaboration and visibility, boost customer satisfaction, and automate the time spent on configuration and maintenance.
Agile is leveraged across industries, including:
- Government agencies: Agile planning is a critical component of the Authorization to Operate (ATO) (FedRAMP) journey in federal entities, which is a process used to evaluate new products and manage risk.
- Financial services: Agile supports this heavily regulated industry by breaking down large compliance projects into manageable issues, helping teams identify vulnerabilities earlier in the development cycle.
- Technology: An Agile approach helps tech companies quickly adapt in a fast-paced industry, enabling development teams to build secure software faster.
However, traditional Agile platforms, such as Jira, are limited to project and issue management and are not fully integrated into the software development lifecycle (SDLC). The unconnected tools can lead to a variety of challenges, such as a complex toolchain, technical debt, excessive onboarding time, and a lack of visibility across teams.
GitLab’s 2024 Global DevSecOps Report, a survey of over 5,000 DevSecOps professionals, revealed that:
- 64% of respondents want to consolidate their toolchain
- 42% of respondents (who also use AI tools) use 6-10 tools in their software development process
- 26% of respondents said it takes up to 2 months to onboard
While a unified DevSecOps and Agile platform will not solve these challenges alone, it will bring development, security, and operations teams together under a set of common goals, reducing complexity and helping teams achieve faster delivery of value to customers.
Challenges with traditional Agile platforms
Since traditional Agile platforms are not fully integrated into the SDLC, the disparate tools lead to a variety of problems, including:
- Lack of transparency: Separate tools for planning and deployment cause silos in reporting and limit visibility, especially in remote teams. The lack of visibility leads to compliance setbacks.
- Miscommunication: When access to all tools is limited, teams do not have the necessary insights they need to make informed decisions.
- Tool complexity: With additional plugins and integrations required, the level of complexity increases, creating repetitive tasks and slowing down the onboarding time for new software developers and overall time to market.
- Too many licenses: Multiple tools for planning and deployment lead to context switching to keep projects on track. Having teams work in a centralized platform is beneficial to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
- Administrative burdens: While customization can be helpful to implement plugins and integrations, the greater the number of customizations, the greater the technical debt — meaning more manual management is required.
- Version control and security patching: The more configurations, the more patches are needed to prevent security issues. New versions or upgrades require regression testing, impacting integrations with other tools, and even bringing projects to a standstill.
A DevSecOps platform allows Agile teams to deliver software faster in line with business goals by bringing the entire team together in a single application, fostering more effective collaboration and streamlining workflows.
Read the full ebook to explore how GitLab creates a streamlined Agile approach, and learn strategies to help you transition to Agile practices with ease.