What’s the relationship between Agile and DevOps?

Agile and DevOps are often discussed as if they compete. In practice they complement each other. Agile shapes how teams plan and build, DevOps shapes how teams release, operate and improve. Together they create a single continuous path from idea to impact. That is where time‑to‑value accelerates and risk drops.

This article clarifies where each discipline starts and ends, how they meet in a shared delivery pipeline, and what that means for leaders responsible for platforms built on .NET, Azure and Umbraco.

Quick definitions you can use with your team

• Agile in practice Agile is a set of values and principles that favours short cycles, close collaboration and working software. Scrum is the most widely used Agile framework, described in the Scrum Guide maintained by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. It formalises roles, events and artefacts used to deliver an increment every sprint. (Source: Scrum Guides)

  The Agile Manifesto principles emphasise frequent delivery, customer collaboration and responding to change, which is why Agile has become the default way to plan and prioritise software. (Source: agilemanifesto.org)

• DevOps in practice DevOps brings development and operations together through automation and shared ownership of outcomes. The best‑evidenced definition comes from DORA research, which links capabilities like continuous integration, trunk‑based development, automated testing and observability to measurable performance. (Source: DORA 2024)

• How they meet Agile focuses on how teams decide what to build and in what order. DevOps focuses on how changes flow to production safely and how systems are operated. Used together, they form a single delivery system with clear goals: ship small changes frequently, catch issues early, recover quickly and learn continuously. (Source: DORA Four Keys)

Business takeaway: use Agile to steer the work and DevOps to move it to users with confidence.

How much faster can Agile web development be

Speed depends on your baseline, but high‑performing teams show what’s possible. In DORA’s landmark analysis, elite performers deploy 46 times more frequently and have 2,555 times faster lead time for changes than low performers, while also restoring service dramatically faster and with fewer failed changes. Those results come from teams that pair Agile planning with DevOps automation and measurement. (Source: DORA 2018)

Just as important, DORA shows speed and stability are not trade‑offs when you work in small batches with good engineering practices – teams can improve both at once. (Source: DORA Four Keys)

Business takeaway: aim for little‑and‑often releases and invest in the pipeline – it improves cycle time and reliability together.

A simple model of Agile plus DevOps

• Product strategy and planning – Agile backlogs, sprint goals and outcomes
• Build and test – continuous integration, automated tests, security checks
• Release and operate – automated deployments, observability, SLOs and incident response
• Learn and improve – retrospectives, post‑incident reviews, backlog changes

Agile ceremonies keep goals and priorities clear. DevOps capabilities move changes through the system safely and quickly, then provide the telemetry to learn. (Source: DORA 2024)

The four numbers that matter

DORA’s Four Keys give leaders and teams a shared scoreboard for delivery performance:

• Deployment frequency – how often you release
• Lead time for changes – how long from code commit to running in production
• Change failure rate – the percentage of releases causing incidents
• Time to restore service – how quickly you recover

These are leading indicators for organisational performance and employee well‑being when used to improve the system rather than to rank individuals. (Source: DORA Four Keys)

Business takeaway: set targets for the Four Keys and review them every sprint – they keep everyone aligned on outcomes.

DevOps practices that reduce downtime and increase release reliability

• Continuous delivery as a default Automate builds, tests and releases so deployments happen during normal hours with low stress. DORA research links continuous delivery to shorter lead times, lower change failure rate and faster recovery. (Source: DORA Continuous Delivery)

• Observability and monitoring Instrument apps and infrastructure so your telemetry tells you what broke and why. Application Insights and Azure Monitor provide distributed tracing, metrics and logs across Azure services. (Source: Azure Monitor overview) (Source: Application Insights overview)

• SLOs and error budgets Define service level objectives that reflect what users care about, and manage change with an error budget. This balances reliability with pace and provides a clear trigger for stabilisation work when reliability dips. (Source: Google SRE SLOs) (Source: SRE error budget policy)

• Progressive delivery Use blue‑green and canary releases to shift traffic gradually and roll back instantly if needed. Azure supports these patterns through Container Apps, AKS, Front Door and Traffic Manager. (Source: Blue‑green in Azure Container Apps) (Source: AKS blue‑green reference) (Source: Kubernetes deployment strategies)

• Infrastructure as code Standardise environments with code so you can create, update and recover consistently. For Azure we typically use Bicep for native declarations and Terraform for multi‑cloud or advanced workflow needs. (Source: Bicep overview) (Source: Terraform docs)

Business takeaway: adopt a small set of practices deeply and measure their effect on the Four Keys – they compound.

CI/CD and automation tools for web deployments

There are two excellent options in the Microsoft‑centric stack and they both work well with Umbraco.

• GitHub Actions
• Repository‑native automation with YAML workflows and a large marketplace of reusable actions.
• Strong for teams already living in GitHub, with environments and protection rules for controlled deployments. (Source: GitHub Actions docs)
• Azure DevOps Pipelines
• • Mature CI/CD with approvals, gates and multi‑stage YAML, ideal for structured environments and complex release flows. (Source: Explore Azure Pipelines)

Both support hosted runners/agents for Windows, Linux and macOS and can deploy to Azure App Service, AKS and Container Apps. (Source: Azure Pipelines overview) (Source: GitHub Actions docs)

Business takeaway: choose the platform your developers use daily. We standardise on GitHub Actions when code lives in GitHub and adopt Azure Pipelines when you need its governance features.

How Agile and DevOps work together for faster delivery

• Smaller batches in sprints reduce scope and cycle time – continuous integration turns every merge into a production‑ready build. (Source: Scrum Guide) (Source: DORA 2024)

• Definition of done moves left – security tests, quality checks and accessibility checks run automatically before code is merged.

• Releases become routine – automated pipelines promote builds through test and staging with approvals. You can deploy at the end of each sprint or more often as needed. (Source: Explore Azure Pipelines)

• Operating is part of delivery – teams own dashboards, alerts, on‑call and post‑incident reviews, using SLOs and error budgets to guide when to stabilise. (Source: Google SRE SLOs)

Business takeaway: make the flow from backlog to production visible and automated – then iterate on where time is lost.

Benefits of combining Agile and DevOps for SMEs

• Faster time‑to‑market Frequent, low‑risk releases mean features and fixes reach users sooner. Elite performers show it is possible to ship many times per day with lower failure rates. (Source: DORA 2018)

• Release reliability and stability Automated tests, progressive delivery and clear SLOs reduce incidents and make recovery faster. (Source: DORA Continuous Delivery) (Source: Blue‑green in Azure Container Apps)

• Measurable productivity improvements DORA’s Four Keys provide a consistent way to track improvements in throughput and stability, keeping teams focused on outcomes rather than output. (Source: DORA Four Keys)

• Security and GDPR confidence Build pipelines can include dependency scanning and secrets checks, while Azure provides extensive compliance attestations including ISO 27001 and ISO 27701. UK GDPR still applies post‑Brexit and governs how controllers and processors handle personal data. (Source: ISO 27001 on Azure) (Source: ISO 27701 on Azure) (Source: ICO – The UK GDPR)

• Team training and cultural support Agile ceremonies, DevOps practices and SRE concepts like error budgets create shared language and habits. They reduce friction between roles and provide a calm, predictable way of working. (Source: SRE error budget policy)

Business takeaway: treat Agile plus DevOps as a single change programme with goals, baselines and a clear scorecard.

What this looks like with Umbraco on Azure

Most of the platforms we look after are Umbraco or custom .NET solutions running on Azure. The patterns above map cleanly to that world:

• CI/CD to Azure Use GitHub Actions or Azure Pipelines to build, test and deploy to Azure App Service or Container Apps. Environments and approvals keep releases controlled. (Source: GitHub Actions docs) (Source: Explore Azure Pipelines)

• Umbraco‑aware deployment When you are on Umbraco Cloud or using Umbraco Deploy, you can follow the vendor’s guidance to wire CI/CD to schema extraction and content transfers. (Source: Umbraco Deploy with GitHub Actions) (Source: Umbraco Cloud CI/CD API)

• Infrastructure as code on Azure Use Bicep for App Service plans, storage and networking, and Terraform where you want a consistent workflow across providers. (Source: Bicep overview) (Source: Terraform docs)

• Observability Enable Application Insights and Azure Monitor to get end‑to‑end traces, dashboards and alerts across your application and database. (Source: Application Insights overview) (Source: Azure Monitor docs)

Business takeaway: you can adopt this stack incrementally without disrupting editors or users.

How Growcreate does it

• We run Agile delivery with sprints, lightweight planning and an outcome focus. For many client platforms this cadence creates healthier prioritisation and steady progress. (Source: Scrum Guide)
• Our DevOps engineers automate builds, tests and releases across GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines, with progressive delivery and automatic rollback where it makes sense. (Source: Explore Azure Pipelines) (Source: GitHub Actions docs)
• We monitor everything we run. Teams get shared dashboards and alerts and we use SLOs and error budgets to agree when to slow down feature work and invest in stability. (Source: Google SRE SLOs) (Source: Azure Monitor overview)
• Productivity you can feel Implementing systems quickly is crucial for value. Our Agile web development team is 25% more productive thanks to our approach and code libraries that deliver results fast. We measure progress against DORA metrics so improvements are visible to everyone.

If you want support with any of this, explore our services for DevOps engineering and 24/7 support, or talk to us about website development.

A starter playbook you can apply this quarter

Set the outcomes

Pick two measurable goals, for example reduce change failure rate below 10% and cut lead time to under one day for most changes. (Source: DORA value stream guidance)

Baseline the Four Keys

Capture the last 90 days of deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate and time to restore. Make the numbers visible to the team. (Source: DORA Four Keys)

Standardise your pipeline

Add unit tests, static analysis and dependency checks to your CI. Automate deploys to a staging slot with approvals. If you are on Umbraco Cloud, connect your CI to the Cloud API and Deploy workflow. (Source: Umbraco Cloud CI/CD API)

Introduce progressive delivery

Start with blue‑green for major releases, then consider canary when traffic is high enough to sample. (Source: Blue‑green in Azure Container Apps) (Source: AKS blue‑green reference)

Define SLOs and an error budget

Agree user‑focused SLOs and adopt an error budget policy so reliability and pace stay in balance. (Source: Google SRE SLOs) (Source: SRE error budget policy)

Review and repeat

Use sprint reviews and retrospectives to check the numbers, learn and pick the next constraint to remove. (Source: Scrum Guide)

Business takeaway: small steps, measured impact. You will feel the 

Ready to move faster with fewer risks?

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