2020 DevOps Trends Survey

by Atlassian & CITE Research

Foreword
Over the last 15 years, tens of thousands of organizations have
adopted a DevOps way of working with the help of our tools.
We’ve seen how DevOps has grown from a term only familiar to
technical teams to becoming part of the C-suite vocabulary.
Practices like CI/CD and automation have become the norm in
every engineering organization.
In February of this year, we conducted a DevOps trends survey to
understand where DevOps is going. We surveyed 500
professionals about their success with DevOps, the barriers they
faced, and the impact of tools and culture on their work.
The three major trends we found all speak to one fact. The path to
DevOps is a matter of when, not if - but there are still significant
obstacles along the way.

The research contained in this report has been completed with the advice and assistance of CITE Research.
This survey was conducted in a pre-pandemic world and may not be reflective of the realities of DevOps today.

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 Table of Contents

Background & Executive Detailed

Appendix
methodology summary findings
Page 4 Page 6 Page 11 Page 36
Background & methodology

4
OBJECTIVE METHODOLOGY
Explore how companies are managing DevOps: ‣ CITE Research, on behalf of Atlassian, conducted
‣ What practices companies have in place for DevOps an online survey among 500 Developers & IT
Decision Makers in February 2020.
‣ How do companies measure DevOps success
‣ Barriers to DevOps transformation
‣ Impact of DevOps practices
‣ Differences in perceptions of DevOps by level, team, etc.

RESPONDENT ‣ Employed full-time

‣ Be in Software Development or IT
‣ At companies with 101+ employees
‣ Work at an organization that
CRITERIA ‣ Manager-level or above
practices DevOps

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Executive summary

6
Executive Summary / Survey Highlights

DevOps is now a There are still Executives and

corporate term. obstacles. practitioners don’t
‣ More than half of orgs ‣ 85% of respondents have see eye to eye.
have been practicing faced barriers in their
‣ Confidence in
DevOps for over three DevOps implementation
measurements of DevOps
years
‣ Lack of skills, legacy success vary
‣ Over 90% said DevOps infrastructure, and
‣ Practitioners emphasize
had a direct impact on adjusting corporate
collaboration culture while
business metrics culture are top complaints
executives value individual
mindset

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Executive Summary / The positive impact of DevOps

Impact on career

99%
78% had to learn a new skill The top factors in
48% of respondents say it helped implementing
them get a raise DevOps successfully
are the right tools
of respondents and the right people.
Better deliverables
say DevOps has
61% say it helped them produce The top factors in a
had a positive higher quality deliverables DevOps team
impact on their performing well
organization Faster deliverables are collaboration and
the ability to
49% say they see a faster time to market
problem-solve.
49% say it improved their
deployment frequency

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Executive Summary
However, most face issues with DevOps implementation

Barrier to
85% Implementation 37% Lack of skills in employees
of DevOps

36% Legacy infrastructure

Nearly all (85%) of organizations face
some type of hurdle when implementing
DevOps, with lack of skills in employees,
legacy infrastructure, and adjusting 35% Adjusting corporate culture
corporate culture being the top complaints.

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Executive Summary
While most feel they can effectively measure DevOps success, executives
feel much more confident in their measurements than the practitioners.

Compared to Executives, the Practitioner is:

Most are measuring DevOps success/impact
More likely to agree it is difficult to measure the and feel they are doing it effectively…
impact of DevOps progress and success – 62%
agree compared to 49% of decision-makers
Have a way to measure DevOps
More likely to agree my organization has no clear
way to measure DevOps success –
74% success (most commonly
deployment frequency)
58% agree compared to 47% of decision-makers

More likely to agree I’m unsure how to improve my

organization’s DevOps processes – Feel they are very or
47% agree compared to 34% of decision-makers somewhat effective in 97%
measuring DevOps success

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Detailed findings

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Detailed findings
PART 1

DEVOPS PRACTICES

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DevOps titles are the norm…

Organizations use DevOps in titles – DEVOPS PRACTICES

69% have a team with DevOps in
the name and/or employees with 52%
49%
DevOps in their titles.
42%
‣ Larger organizations with 500+
employees are especially likely
to have a team with DevOps in
the title (57%).
20%
‣ Organizations that have been
using DevOps for 3+ years are
also more likely to have a team
with DevOps in the name (57%).
We have a team with We have We have We have
the name DevOps in employee(s) with dedicated teams employees who
the title DevOps titles responsible for are responsible
Which of the following best describes your DevOps, but for this, but
organization’s management of DevOps? without DevOps in without DevOps
Please select all that apply. their title in their title

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…but almost half of organizations are just starting with DevOps, practicing
it for less than 3 years.

LONGEVITY OF DEVOPS PRACTICES

‣ 46% of organizations are
relatively new to DevOps 39%
with under 3 years of doing it. 36%

‣ 54% of organizations have

been practicing DevOps for
3 years or more.

18%

Approximately how long has your

organization used DevOps practices?

7%

1%

Less than one year 1 year to 3 years to 5 years or more Unsure

less than 3 years less than 5 years

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Source code management and code development are the most widespread
toolchains used

TOOLCHAIN USAGE
Respondents are using an average
of 10.3 toolchains, with 80%+ using
Source code management 100%
source code management, code
Code development and review 90%
development and review and
applications performance Applications performance monitoring 82%

monitoring. The least common is Agile planning 79%

artifact repository, although almost Continuous testing tools 79%
half are using this toolchain as well.
Incident response and management 79%

Continuous integration 79%

Which of the following DevOps toolchains
does your company currently use? [N=417 Infrastructure configuration and… 77%
who have use source code management toolchain]
Application release automation and… 76%

End-user experience 74%

Change and release management 72%

Packaging 59%

Artifact repository 53%

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 Detailed findings
PART 2

PERCEPTIONS OF DEVOPS – IMPACT & CHALLENGES

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DevOps has a resoundingly positive impact on organizations…

Nearly all respondents say the implementation of DEVOPS IMPACT

DevOps will have a positive impact on their
organization on the future.

‣ Interestingly, decision-maker employees are

more likely to say very positive (75% compared 30% Somewhat
to only 60% of practitioners).

‣ Those who measure DevOps success are more

likely to say its very positive as well (76%).

69% Very
Generally, what impact do you expect
implementing DevOps will have on your
organization in the future?
1%

Positive Negative

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...across a variety of metrics...

‣ Organizations see a multitude of positive results from IMPACT OF DEVOPS ON ORGANIZATION

DevOps implementation, most frequently higher
quality deliverables (61%). Higher quality deliverables 61%

‣ About half see faster time to market/lead time, Faster time to market / lead time 49%

improvement deployment frequency, better team Improved deployment frequency 49%

culture and increased collaboration across teams/ Better team culture 48%
departments. Increased collaboration across
48%
different teams and departments
‣ Those who work on both Developing and Operations Faster recovery times 47%
are significantly more likely to see various impacts, Building better products and services 46%
such higher quality deliverables (65%), faster recovery
Lower failure rate of new releases 40%
times (52%), building better products and services
Increased collaboration with
36%
(48%), and lower failure rate of new releases (45%). non-technical departments
Less incidents 35%
‣ Those who have been practicing DevOps for longer
None of the above 1%
(3+ years) are more likely to have seen higher-quality
Other (please specify) 0%
deliverables (66%), lower failure rate of new releases
(45%) and less incidents (40%).
Which of the following, if any, have been the impact of implementing
DevOps practices on your organization? Please select all that apply.
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...and it leads to career transformation.

9 out of 10 respondents say DevOps impacted their career IMPACT OF DEVOPS ON CAREER
‣ The majority of respondents say DevOps
implementation has required them to learn new skills. I have had to learn new skills 78%

‣ Almost half (48%) say it helped them get a raise.

‣ A third had to shift roles.

It helped me get a raise 48%

What impact has DevOps implementation

had on your career, personally?
I have had to shift roles 31%

It has had no impact on my career 8%

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Collaboration is the key for DevOps success…

Overall, Collaboration and Ability to MOST IMPORTANT TRAITS FOR

problem solve are ranked first among DEVOPS TEAM TO PERFORM WELL
traits of a successful DevOps team

‣ Ops respondents are more likely to

rank Ability to problem solve and
autonomy #1 at 32%.

‣ Devs are more likely to rank

Collaboration #1 36%.

‣ Decision-makers are more likely to

rate Forward-thinking as #1 at 18%. Collaboration Ability to Alignment/ Forward- Visibility Autonomy Openness Empathy
problem-solve coordination thinking within the
with other organization
Which of the following are the most teams
important traits for a DevOps team/
department to have in order to perform
well? Please rate the top 3 traits,
with 1 being the most important to a
successful DevOps team.

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…And the right people and culture lead to successful implementation.

The right people and/or company MOST IMPORTANT TRAITS FOR

culture is the top trait for successful SUCCESSFUL DEVOPS IMPLEMENTATION
DevOps implementation. The right
tools and support from senior
leadership are also important.

‣ Devs respondents are especially

likely to say A way to measure
DevOps success is #1 (19%).

‣ Software Developers are more

likely than IT professionals to
feel they need The right tools The right people / The right tools Support from A way to
Company Culture senior leadership measure DevOps
(38% rank this #1). success

Which of the following, if any, are the most

important factors to a successful DevOps
implementation? Please rate the top 3
factors, with 1 being the most important to
a successful DevOps team.

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Lack of skills, legacy infrastructure and corporate culture are biggest hurdles to
DevOps implementation.

The majority of respondents (84%) BARRIERS TO DEVOPS IMPLEMENTATION

have faced barriers to their DevOps
implementation. Most common
hurdles are lack of skills in
37% 36%
employees, legacy infrastructure 35%
30%
and adjusting corporate culture. 26%
24%

‣ C-suite respondents are more 16% 16%

12%
likely to see inability to cleanly
coordinate well with other 1%
teams (38%) as a barrier.
Lack of Legacy Adjusting Silos Inability to Wrong / No clear None No clear Other
skills in infrastructure corporate between cleanly insufficient way to of the plan (please
employees culture Developers coordinate tools measure above specify)
and well with DevOps
Which of the following, if any, have Operations other success
been barriers to implementing DevOps teams teams
practices into your organization?
Please select all that apply.

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Detailed findings
PART 3

MEASURING TEAM SUCCESS

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Three quarters measure DevOps success, most commonly through
deployment frequency
Unsure
7%
‣ Most measure DevOps success or impact (74%).
No Does your organization
‣ Deployment frequency is by far the most 19%
have a way to measure
common method of DevOps success DevOps success or impact?
measurement as companies want to be more
agile and move faster. MEASURE DEVOPS
Yes
‣ Nearly half of respondents leverage the four key 74% SUCCESS / IMPACT
DevOps metrics identified by DORA.

‣ Interestingly, 79% of decision-makers say they Which of the following does your organization use to measure DevOps success?
measure success compared to only 67% of Please select all that apply. [N=372]
practitioners. Decision-makers are more likely
to say they use MTTR to measure success at METHODS OF DEVOPS SUCCESS MEASUREMENT
60% vs. 45% of practitioners. Deployment frequency 75%
Mean time to restore (MTTR) 55%
Lead time 53%
Change fail percentage 48%
Other (please specify) 1%

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Most agree it is important to measure the impact of DevOps,
but don’t have a clear way to do so

‣ Respondents agree it is important AGREEMENT WITH DEVOPS

to measure DevOps progress/ MEASUREMENT / IMPACT STATEMENTS
success (95%), DevOps has an
impact on important metrics (94%) It is important to measure the impact
58% 37% 4% 1%
of DevOps progress and success
and has an impact on business
metrics (93%). It is clear that DevOps has an impact on mean time
to repair, cycle time and other important metrics 50% 44% 6% 0%

‣ Three quarters prefer to use best of It is clear that DevOps has an impact on business
51% 42% 6% 1%
metrics, such as revenue and profitability
breed tools versus one toolchain.
I prefer using best of breed tools
36% 41% 20% 3%
over one toolchain for DevOps
‣ Half of respondents say that it is
difficult to measure the impact of It is difficult to measure the impact
of DevOps progress and success 21% 33% 28% 17%
DevOps progress, and that their
My organization does not have a clear
organization does not have a clear way to measure DevOps success 21% 30% 22% 26%
way to measure success. I’m unsure how to improve my
13% 26% 35% 26%
organization’s DevOps process

How much do you agree or disagree

Completely agree Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Completely disagree
with each of the following statements?

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Organizations are frequently shifting priorities

‣ Organizations are changing priorities FREQUENCY OF CHANGE

(60%) and projects (49%) daily or
weekly. The Decision-maker perceives Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly Annually

more change than practitioners – they

Priorities 27% 34% 20% 15% 4%
are more likely to say all of these items
change daily or weekly. Tools 22% 21% 19% 18% 20%

‣ People and Budgets have a much People 20% 15% 12% 22% 31%
lower frequency of change than
Projects 18% 31% 29% 18% 4%
priorities and projects.
Technology stacks 16% 30% 20% 20% 14%

Business targets 14% 27% 26% 24% 9%

How often does your development team
change each of the following? 11% 18% 21% 27% 24%
Budgets

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 Detailed findings
PART 4

TRACKING MODERN SOFTWARE TRENDS

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Most organizations continue to spend up to 30% of their time on updates

‣ There are no statistically TIME SPENT ON UPGRADES/UPDATES

significant changes in the amount
of time spent on upgrades and 2018 2020

updates since the 2018 report.

28% 28%
‣ Seven in ten (70%) are spending 26%
27%
up to 30% of their time on
upgrades and updates.
19%

Approximately what percentage 15% 15%

14%
of your team’s time each month
is spent on updates or upgrades 10%
to self-hosted software you use?
7%
5% 5%

1% 1%

Zero 1-10% 11-20% 21-30% 41-50% 51-60% 70% or more

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The frequency of being asked status and updating status may be declining...

Since 2018, the frequency respondents are asked status and the frequency they update status in a tool is statistically less often.

‣ In 2020, respondents are less likely to say they are asked a few times a day or once a day to provide their work status.

‣ They are also less likely to stay they need to update status in a tool a few times a day or once a day.

FREQUENCY ASKED STATUS FREQUENCY UPDATE STATUS IN TOOL

Approximately how often are you asked by someone to How many times a day do you have to update status in a
provide the status of your or your team’s work? software development tool?
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…But the number of tools to understand a project status is on the rise.

The number of tools respondents use to NUMBER OF TOOLS CONSULTED TO

understand the status of their software UNDERSTAND PROJECT STATUS
development projects are on the rise:
2018 2020

‣ Significantly less say they need 3-4

tools to know their status, while 39% 39%

significantly more say they need 5+ 35%

33%
tools to understand their status. 32%

How many tools do you need to consult to

understand the status of your software 21%
development projects?

1 to 2 3 to 4 5 or more

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Bugs and delays remain the top issues with releases

Issues with releases are similar to 2018 in ISSUES WITH RELEASES

that defects / bugs are the most common 2018 2020
issue, followed by unexpected delays and
Defects / bugs 57%
outages/downtimes. 48%

‣ Significantly less say they deal with Unexpected delays 46%

50%

bugs, but it is still the most common

release issue. Outages / downtime 34%
29%

Significantly more say they deal with Over budget 30%

27%
none of the issues listed. Notably, this is
still a minority of 12%. Customer complaints 30%
26%

Missed deadlines 29%

Which of the following issues has your 32%
current team faced with a release?
Dropped important features 21%
Please select all that apply. 21%

4%
None of the above 12%

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Organizations are measuring customer satisfaction on new releases less often

‣ Organizations are statistically less MEASUREMENT OF CUSTOMER

likely since 2018 to be measuring SATISFACTION OF NEW RELEASES
customer satisfaction on new
2018 2020
releases now. The proportion that say
they do measure customer
satisfaction has decreased
significantly, while the proportion that 84%
76%
do not has increased significantly.

‣ Even so, the majority continue to

measure customer satisfaction on
new releases.
20%
11%
Does your organization have practices 5% 4%
in place to measure customer satisfaction
on newly released features? Yes No Unsure

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Having too many manual processes is becoming a more pervasive issue

‣ Respondents are reporting fewer overall ISSUES PREVENTING GOING FASTER

issues preventing them from going faster in FROM CODE TO DEVELOPMENT
moving code from development to production
2018 2020
since 2018. Significantly more say they
We lack sufficient automated test 32%
experience none of the issues tested. coverage to avoid manual testing 24%
We have people who understand 27%
‣ The proportion that say they lack sufficient how the build pipeline works 26%
automated test coverage to avoid manual We haven’t automated the whole 27%
build and deployment pipeline 23%
testing and that say we have too many tools
27%
has integrated in a fragile way have We have too many manual processes 31%
decreased significantly. We have defects caused by code merges 26%
22%
‣ Meanwhile, the proportion that says we have We have too many tools, 25%
integrated in a fragile way 18%
too many manual processes has increased
We lack visibility into 22%
(although not at a statistically significant dependencies across code bases 19%
level) to become the most common issue. 21%
We have a slow build process 21%
We lack tracking for code 18%
Which of the following prevent your current team 19%
from dev to production
from going faster in moving code from development
8%
to production? Please select all that apply. None of the above 18%

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Customer satisfaction remains the chief means of measuring team success

While customer satisfaction remains the METRICS MEASURING TEAM SUCCESS

most commonly used metric for software 2018 2020
teams to evaluate and track success,
Customer satisfaction 46%
usage of several metrics have increased: 49%

Mean time to recover/repair 33%

35%
‣ Team velocity
Application crash rate 31%
36%
‣ Revenue
Issues closed 30%
31%
‣ Mean time between failures 29%
Open / close rate 31%

Feature usage 28%

29%
Which of the following metrics does
your team use to evaluate and track Team velocity 25%
32%
your team’s success? Please think of
Number of story points 25%
these measurements specifically 21%
related to the software development 25%
Revenue 36%
team, rather than the organization
overall. Please select all that apply. Mean time between failures 22%
30%

Features shipped 20%

22%

None of the above 1%

2%
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IT may be more responsible for resolving incidents now

The percentage of respondents who say IT is responsible for resolving major incidents and the percentage that prefer IT to resolve major
incidents has increased since 2018. However, this may be due to IT professionals being a larger part of the sample in the 2020 survey.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY FOR PREFERRED PARTY RESPONSIBLE FOR

RESOLVING MAJOR INCIDENTS RESOLVING MAJOR INCIDENTS
2018 2020 2018 2020
60% 59%

51% 51%
49% 49%

41%
39%

1% 0%
A central IT Application
Other (please specify) A central IT Operations team Application development team
Operations team development team

For major incidents, which team is currently primarily For major incidents, which team would you prefer to be
responsible for responding and resolving them? primarily responsible for responding and resolving them?
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Appendix

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DEMOGRAPHICS & FIRMOGRAPHICS

GENDER LEVEL TITLE

Male 72% Chief Executive Officer 4% DevOps Engineer 1%
Female 28% Chief Information Officer 8% Team Leader of Application
Chief Technology Officer 1%
13% Engineering
AGE President 1% Director of IT 30%
18-24 2% Vice President 3%
IT manager 40%
25-34 24% Director 31%
IT Ops manager 3%
35-44 47% Manager / Team Lead 39%
Manager, Operations and
45-54 19% 1%
Release
55-64 7% DEVOPS RESPONSIBILITY CTO 6%
65 or older 1% Building apps 15% Infrastructure Engineer 1%
Operating apps 17%
REGION Director of Development 2%
Both 66%
Northeast 24% Other 1% CIO 8%
South 18% Architect 1%
Midwest 33%
DEPARTMENT Director of DevOps 1%
West 25%
IT 90% Senior Software Developer 4%

Software Development 10%

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FIRMOGRAPHICS

REPORTING TO REPORTING TO, CONTINUED NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES REVENUE

DevOps Engineer 2% Senior Developer 1% 101-249 8% $0 - $5 Million 3%

Team Leader of Application Build/automation manager 1% 250-499 12%
1% $5.1 Million - $10 Million 7%
Engineering Director of Developer Tools 2% 500-1,000 24%
Director of IT 21% CIO 14% 1,001-4,999 $10.1 Million - $25 Million
30% 8%
IT manager 23% Architect 1% 5,000-9,999 11%
$25.1 Million - $50 Million
DevOps Lead 1% 10,000+ 14% 8%
IT Ops manager 2%
Manager, Operations and Director of DevOps 2% $50.1 Million - $100 Million
2% 11%
Release Senior Software Developer 1% ENGINEERING TEAM SIZE
DevOps architect 1% Other 4% $100.1 Million - $250 Million
Less than 10 employees 6% 9%
Lead developer 1% None of the above 2%
11-20 employees 16%
$250.1 Million - $500 Million
CTO 16% 21-50 employees 9%
24%
ORGANIZATION TENURE
Infrastructure Engineer 1% 51-100 employees 24% $500.1 Million - $1 Billion
Less than one year 1% 19%
Director of Development 2% 101+ employees 29%
1 to less than 3 years 6% $1.1 Billion - $5 Billion 13%
3 to less than 5 years 13% $5.1 Billion - $10 Billion 5%
5 to less than 10 years 24% $10.1 Billion + 6%
10 years or more 56% Don’t Know 2%
38