Pros and Cons of Adopting DevOps at the MVP Stage

DevOps methodology is aimed primarily at close interaction of diverse specialists in information technology services and software development. The purpose of such integration is to help IT companies in the rapid creation of software products, services, and effective updating. 

DevOps for MVP Project

When you have to create an MVP for a certain project, you know that you have to do it fast. This is what the DevOps method is best at — accelerating IT processes. To implement DevOps methods you need to:

• Formulate the tasks that the new methodology should solve.

• Discuss the solution with the team: listen to the opinions of employees and determine which automation tools make sense to implement.

• Automate some of the IT processes: start with the tasks that are best suited for automation.

• Analyze metrics: is your DevOps effort aligned with the benefits of the methodology? If it is, keep introducing and reviewing new tools. If it’s not, it's worth changing the implementation approach or trying a different development methodology. 

Many experts in the IT field claim that DevOps provides many benefits for business, others suggest that it is not needed for an MVP stage startup at all. Let’s figure out the pros and cons of this method.

DevOps Methodology and Process 

DevOps process has the following stages: 

1. The user creates a need for a new service;

2. The project manager evaluates the options for implementation, the budget and plans the project, determining its place in the overall niche collaboration network;

3. Development team analyzes requirements, plans sprints, writes code and submits it to a central repository;

4. On the continuous integration server, changes are merged with the main code, unit tests are performed;

5. In the QA test environment, engineers test the MVP, then the application, making the most of test automation;

6. Automatic resource allocation and deployment for production is carried out;

7. Continuous operation with user feedback.

DevOps method also incorporates the concept of microservices. The main advantage of microservices is that the process of updating, maintaining, and fixing flaws is fast and simple. For MVPs, this means smoother editing of key features (of an app, for instance) to satisfy the constantly changing customer needs.

DevOps Benefits 

Small IT companies that use DevOps managed services can implement employee interchangeability into their workflow. For large firms, the methodology will provide an opportunity to speed up product development, testing, and releases. With the successful implementation of DevOps, a startup product development company can gain the following benefits:

• Simplified product development;

• Acceleration of connections with users;

• Automation of IT processes that will avoid problems associated with the human factor;

• The convenience of communication between company employees.

• Also, the problem of programmers blaming servers for all their sins will lose its relevance.

Using DevOps managed services, businesses gain a reduced period to successful MVP and, as a result, the market launch of the end product, which is due to the reduced time cycle, accelerated deployment. Also, the company gets an increased level of quality and a high level of organizational efficiency.

The value of DevOps on the MVP stage is that this approach allows us to get a complete picture of the development process: with the participation of all stakeholders and clearly defined processes and integration mechanisms. You can link all the stages of work on a product into a single pipeline. This will reduce the delivery time of releases from development to production to a matter of hours. 

DevOps Downsides

With all the advantages of this approach, it is still often criticized. Here are the common reasons why: 

Incomplete Cycle

One of the reasons for this is its incompleteness of the cycle. Important stages of the software lifecycle, such as development and analysis of requirements, as well as architecture design, remain outside the DevOps processes. 

No Focus on Manual Testing 

It is also possible to overlook manual testing, which can be critical in some cases. For example, if the developers do not analyze the requirements qualitatively enough and test the product from the "ideal" code, and not from end-users, the result may be inconvenient to use.

Management Issues 

The high workload on management is another drawback of DevOps. If developers and operators do not have common goals, managers are to blame for not organizing effective interaction between teams of diverse specialists. To solve this problem, a new system for evaluating managers based on feedback from subordinates is needed.

Documentation Challenges 

Since DevOps is aimed at fast MVP creation, there is often no room and time for the analysis of documentation. In this case, the security team at each company depends on the information obtained from developers and the operations people. This enhances cooperation but creates safety issues.

DevOps itself is culture and before implementing this method, software development companies should work on internal education. The participation of the team that lacks professionalism can bring much harm to the development of MVP.

Final Word

DevOps’ success depends on people, processes, and technology. But before adopting this method, you should determine the scale of the project and the needs. DevOps is a complex approach, and it best serves complex challenging projects that might otherwise take too much time to accomplish.