DevOps is a culture that culminates the goals of the development and operations teams. This approach provides one main benefit, an alignment of goals towards the customer and the product. When both teams work independently, the development team focuses only on the technical aspect of the product, while the operations team is only focused on maintaining hardware internally. However, with DevOps, the only goal is to create a quality product as quickly as possible, using new tools and cloud computing techniques.
While the customer does not care about the development process, they care about the end result. With DevOps, the end result (or product) is delivered to them faster and tightly integrated. This faster delivery not only increases customer satisfaction but also increases the chance of the product succeeding. With the production environment today, it is incredibly critical for clients that the development phase is done quickly and iteratively.
Of course, once the product is rolled out. There are new feature requests and bug fixes. This can usually be frustrating for customers as they are left in the dark to deal with either the development team or the operations team separately, causing a gap in understanding between all stakeholders. However, DevOps is not bound by this limitation. With a DevOps approach, both teams are always on call. This leads to a collective understanding of requirements, goals, and issues. Rather than having to wait around on personnel, bugs can be better analyzed, prioritized, and fixed.
Besides the technical aspects, there is also a factor of the mindset that DevOps incorporates in the product development team. DevOps allows a more flexible attitude towards customer needs and problem-solving. Clients hear no less often and are offered a solution more often. There is no doubt that this enhances customer success and matures the product as well.
Overall, DevOps increases product stability, development pace and achieves greater satisfaction. While the process can initially seem a bit disruptive to traditional teams adopting it, a well-integrated DevOps team can be the backbone of a successful product development business.
