Mali Senapathi

Juliana Fraislebem, Mali Senapathi, Michael Neumann et al.

In response to the growing reliance on Agile and DevOps methodologies for enhancing software delivery speed and quality, this study investigates the persistent challenges and viable solutions associated with their integration. Although Agile promotes iterative development and customer responsiveness, and DevOps emphasizes automation and operational efficiency, their convergence in practice often presents significant organizational, structural, and technical hurdles. This research employs a qualitative methodology grounded in semi-structured interviews with six seasoned industry professionals across Brazil and Germany, each with extensive experience in both Agile and DevOps domains. The study identifies four core categories of integration challenges: Cultural & Organizational Barriers, Structural Constraints, Process \& Method Complexity, and Technical Limitations. Additionally, it offers four major solution domains: Team Structure & Autonomy, Culture & Collaboration, Process & Change Management, and Automation & Infrastructure. The findings underscore the importance of cultural alignment, proactive monitoring, automation, and other practices in mitigating integration friction. The results contribute to a deeper understanding of the Agile-DevOps interface and offer practical insights for software organizations seeking to navigate this complex transition effectively.

Karen Eilers, Michael Neumann, Eva-Maria Schön et al.

Agile software development has been shaped by the interplay between academic research and industrial practice for over two decades, yet notable gaps persist between both domains. This paper focuses on three research-practice gaps: the theory gap, the time gap, and the transfer gap. To address these, the 2nd Agile Practice & Research Workshop was held at the International Conference on Agile Software Development (XP) 2026 in São Paulo, Brazil, bringing researchers and practitioners together to identify root causes and develop joint solutions. Building on two preceding sessions in which contributions of participants had been presented, participants engaged in a structured collaborative session, working in small groups on one of the three gaps and reflecting on possible causes and remedies. The organizers synthesized the results into four propositions for improving the research-practice intersection: (1) improving scientific communication, (2) aligning research more closely with emerging industrial needs, (3) creating stronger incentives for sustained collaboration, and (4) integrating educational approaches into research practice. From these, three calls for research were formulated: (a) broader adoption of open science practices for transparency, reproducibility, and cumulative evidence; (b) higher empirical quality standards through stronger theoretical grounding and rigorous design; and (c) more explicit, value-oriented contributions that clearly articulate their practical and scientific relevance. The paper offers both a summary of the workshop and a call to strengthen research-practice collaboration.

Mali Senapathi, Jim Buchan, Hady Osman

DevOps is a set of principles and practices to improve collaboration between development and IT Operations. Against the backdrop of the growing adoption of DevOps in a variety of software development domains, this paper describes empirical research into factors influencing its implementation. It presents findings of an in-depth exploratory case study that explored DevOps implementation in a New Zealand product development organisation. The study involved interviewing six experienced software engineers who continuously monitored and reflected on the gradual implementation of DevOps principles and practices. For this case study the use of DevOps practices led to significant benefits, including increase in deployment frequency from about 30 releases a month to an average of 120 releases per month, as well as improved natural communication and collaboration between IT development and operations personnel. We found that the support of a number of technological enablers, such as implementing an automation pipeline and cross functional organisational structures, were critical to delivering the expected benefits of DevOps.