2020 DevOps Trends Survey
by Atlassian & CITE ResearchForeword
Over the last 15 years, tens of thousands of organizations haveadopted a DevOps way of working with the help of our tools.
We’ve seen how DevOps has grown from a term only familiar totechnical teams to becoming part of the C-suite vocabulary.
Practices like CI/CD and automation have become the norm inevery engineering organization.
In February of this year, we conducted a DevOps trends survey tounderstand 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.

2

Table of Contents

Background &methodology

Executive
summary

Detailed
findings

Appendix

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
an online survey among 500 Developers & IT
Decision Makers in February 2020.

‣ What practices companies have in place for DevOps‣ How do companies measure DevOps success‣ Barriers to DevOps transformation‣ Impact of DevOps practices‣ Differences in perceptions of DevOps by level, team, etc.

RESPONDENTCRITERIA‣ Employed full-time‣ At companies with 101+ employees‣ Be in Software Development or IT‣ Work at an organization thatpractices DevOps‣ Manager-level or above5

Executive summary

6

Executive Summary / Survey Highlights

DevOps is now acorporate term.

There are still
obstacles.

‣ More than half of orgs

‣ 85% of respondents have

have been practicing
DevOps for over three
years

faced barriers in their
DevOps implementation‣ Over 90% said DevOps

had a direct impact on
business metrics‣ Lack of skills, legacy

infrastructure, andadjusting corporate
culture are top complaints

Executives andpractitioners don’t
see eye to eye.
‣ Confidence inmeasurements of DevOps
success vary
‣ Practitioners emphasize

collaboration culture while
executives value individual
mindset7

Executive Summary / The positive impact of DevOps

99%

of respondents
say DevOps has
had a positive
impact on theirorganization

Impact on career
78% had to learn a new skill
48% of respondents say it helped
them get a raise

Better deliverables
61% say it helped them produce
higher quality deliverables

Faster deliverables
49% say they see a faster time to market
49% say it improved theirdeployment frequency

The top factors in
implementing
DevOps successfully
are the right tools
and the right people.
The top factors in a
DevOps teamperforming well
are collaboration andthe ability to
problem-solve.

8

Executive Summary
However, most face issues with DevOps implementation

85%

Barrier toImplementationof DevOps

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

37%

Lack of skills in employees

36%

Legacy infrastructure

35%

Adjusting corporate culture

9

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:More likely to agree it is difficult to measure theimpact of DevOps progress and success – 62%agree compared to 49% of decision-makers
More likely to agree my organization has no clear
way to measure DevOps success –58% agree compared to 47% of decision-makers
More likely to agree I’m unsure how to improve myorganization’s DevOps processes –47% agree compared to 34% of decision-makers

Most are measuring DevOps success/impact
and feel they are doing it effectively…

74%

Have a way to measure DevOps
success (most commonly
deployment frequency)

Feel they are very orsomewhat effective inmeasuring DevOps success

97%10

Detailed findings

11

Detailed findings
PART 1DEVOPS PRACTICES

12

DevOps titles are the norm…
Organizations use DevOps in titles –69% have a team with DevOps in
the name and/or employees with
DevOps in their titles.
‣

DEVOPS PRACTICES
52%

49%
42%

Larger organizations with 500+
employees are especially likely
to have a team with DevOps in
the title (57%).

20%‣

Organizations that have beenusing DevOps for 3+ years arealso more likely to have a teamwith DevOps in the name (57%).

Which of the following best describes yourorganization’s management of DevOps?
Please select all that apply.

We have a team with
the name DevOps in
the title

We have
employee(s) with
DevOps titles

We have
dedicated teams
responsible for
DevOps, but
without DevOps intheir title

We have
employees who
are responsible
for this, but
without DevOpsin their title

13

…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
with under 3 years of doing it.

39%
36%

54% of organizations havebeen practicing DevOps for
3 years or more.
18%

Approximately how long has yourorganization used DevOps practices?
7%1%
Less than one year

1 year toless than 3 years

3 years toless than 5 years

5 years or more

Unsure14

Source code management and code development are the most widespread
toolchains used
Respondents are using an averageof 10.3 toolchains, with 80%+ using
source code management, codedevelopment and review andapplications performancemonitoring. The least common is
artifact repository, although almost
half are using this toolchain as well.
Which of the following DevOps toolchains
does your company currently use? [N=417
who have use source code management toolchain]

TOOLCHAIN USAGE
100%

Source code management

90%

Code development and review
Applications performance monitoring

82%

Agile planning

79%

Continuous testing tools

79%

Incident response and management

79%

Continuous integration

79%

Infrastructure configuration and…

77%

Application release automation and…

76%

End-user experience74%

Change and release management

72%

Packaging
Artifact repository

59%
53%

15

Detailed findings
PART 2PERCEPTIONS OF DEVOPS – IMPACT & CHALLENGES

16

DevOps has a resoundingly positive impact on organizations…
DEVOPS IMPACT

Nearly all respondents say the implementation of
DevOps will have a positive impact on theirorganization on the future.
‣‣

Interestingly, decision-maker employees are
more likely to say very positive (75% compared
to only 60% of practitioners).

30%

Somewhat

69%

Very

Those who measure DevOps success are more
likely to say its very positive as well (76%).
Generally, what impact do you expect
implementing DevOps will have on yourorganization in the future?

1%

Positive

Negative17

...across a variety of metrics...

‣

‣

‣

‣

Organizations see a multitude of positive results from
DevOps implementation, most frequently higher
quality deliverables (61%).
About half see faster time to market/lead time,
improvement deployment frequency, better teamculture and increased collaboration across teams/
departments.
Those who work on both Developing and Operations
are significantly more likely to see various impacts,
such higher quality deliverables (65%), faster recovery
times (52%), building better products and services(48%), and lower failure rate of new releases (45%).
Those who have been practicing DevOps for longer(3+ years) are more likely to have seen higher-quality
deliverables (66%), lower failure rate of new releases(45%) and less incidents (40%).

IMPACT OF DEVOPS ON ORGANIZATION
61%

Higher quality deliverables
Faster time to market / lead time

49%

Improved deployment frequency

49%

Better team culture

48%

Increased collaboration acrossdifferent teams and departments

48%

Faster recovery times

47%

Building better products and services

46%
40%

Lower failure rate of new releases
Increased collaboration with
non-technical departments

36%

Less incidents

35%

None of the above

1%

Other (please specify)

0%Which of the following, if any, have been the impact of implementing
DevOps practices on your organization? Please select all that apply.
18

...and it leads to career transformation.
9 out of 10 respondents say DevOps impacted their career‣

The majority of respondents say DevOps
implementation has required them to learn new skills.

‣

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

‣

A third had to shift roles.

What impact has DevOps implementation
had on your career, personally?

IMPACT OF DEVOPS ON CAREER
I have had to learn new skills

78%

It helped me get a raise

48%

31%

I have had to shift roles

It has had no impact on my career

8%19

Collaboration is the key for DevOps success…
MOST IMPORTANT TRAITS FOR
DEVOPS TEAM TO PERFORM WELL

Overall, Collaboration and Ability to
problem solve are ranked first among
traits of a successful DevOps team‣Ops respondents are more likely torank Ability to problem solve andautonomy #1 at 32%.

‣

Devs are more likely to rank
Collaboration #1 36%.

‣

Decision-makers are more likely torate Forward-thinking as #1 at 18%.
Which of the following are the mostimportant traits for a DevOps team/department to have in order to performwell? Please rate the top 3 traits,with 1 being the most important to a
successful DevOps team.

Collaboration

Ability to
problem-solve

Alignment/
coordination
with otherteams

Forwardthinking

Visibility
within theorganization

Autonomy

Openness

Empathy

20

…And the right people and culture lead to successful implementation.
MOST IMPORTANT TRAITS FOR
SUCCESSFUL DEVOPS IMPLEMENTATIONThe right people and/or company
culture is the top trait for successful
DevOps implementation. The righttools and support from seniorleadership are also important.
‣

Devs respondents are especiallylikely to say A way to measure
DevOps success is #1 (19%).

‣

Software Developers are more
likely than IT professionals tofeel they need The right tools(38% rank this #1).

The right people /Company Culture

The right tools

Support fromsenior leadership

A way tomeasure DevOps
success

Which of the following, if any, are the mostimportant factors to a successful DevOps
implementation? Please rate the top 3
factors, with 1 being the most important toa successful DevOps team.
21

Lack of skills, legacy infrastructure and corporate culture are biggest hurdles to
DevOps implementation.
The majority of respondents (84%)
have faced barriers to their DevOps
implementation. Most common
hurdles are lack of skills in
employees, legacy infrastructure
and adjusting corporate culture.
‣C-suite respondents are more
likely to see inability to cleanly
coordinate well with otherteams (38%) as a barrier.

Which of the following, if any, havebeen barriers to implementing DevOps
practices into your organization?
Please select all that apply.

BARRIERS TO DEVOPS IMPLEMENTATION

37%

36%

35%
30%

26%

24%
16%

16%

12%
1%

Lack of
LegacyAdjusting
Silos
Inability toskills in infrastructure corporate between
cleanly
employees
cultureDevelopers coordinate
andwell withOperations
other
teams
teams

Wrong /
insufficienttools

No clear
way tomeasureDevOpssuccessNoneof theabove

No clear
plan

Other
(pleasespecify)22

Detailed findings
PART 3

MEASURING TEAM SUCCESS

23

Three quarters measure DevOps success, most commonly throughdeployment frequency‣‣

Most measure DevOps success or impact (74%).
Deployment frequency is by far the mostcommon method of DevOps successmeasurement as companies want to be moreagile and move faster.

‣

Nearly half of respondents leverage the four key
DevOps metrics identified by DORA.

‣

Interestingly, 79% of decision-makers say theymeasure success compared to only 67% ofpractitioners. Decision-makers are more likely
to say they use MTTR to measure success at
60% vs. 45% of practitioners.

Unsure7%
No
19%

Does your organization
have a way to measure
DevOps success or impact?

Yes
74%

MEASURE DEVOPSSUCCESS / IMPACT

Which of the following does your organization use to measure DevOps success?
Please select all that apply. [N=372]

METHODS OF DEVOPS SUCCESS MEASUREMENT
Deployment frequency

75%

Mean time to restore (MTTR)

55%

Lead time

53%

Change fail percentage
Other (please specify)

48%
1%

24

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
to measure DevOps progress/
success (95%), DevOps has an
impact on important metrics (94%)
and has an impact on businessmetrics (93%).
Three quarters prefer to use best of
breed tools versus one toolchain.
Half of respondents say that it isdifficult to measure the impact of
DevOps progress, and that theirorganization does not have a clear
way to measure success.
How much do you agree or disagreewith each of the following statements?

AGREEMENT WITH DEVOPSMEASUREMENT / IMPACT STATEMENTS
It is important to measure the impactof DevOps progress and success

58%

It is clear that DevOps has an impact on mean time
to repair, cycle time and other important metrics

50%

44%

6% 0%

It is clear that DevOps has an impact on businessmetrics, such as revenue and profitability

51%

42%

6%

I prefer using best of breed tools
over one toolchain for DevOps

36%

It is difficult to measure the impactof DevOps progress and success

21%

33%

My organization does not have a clear
way to measure DevOps success

21%

30%

I’m unsure how to improve myorganization’s DevOps process

13%

Completely agree

37%

41%

26%

Somewhat agree

4% 1%

20%

3%
17%

28%

26%

22%

26%

35%

Somewhat disagree

1%Completely disagree

25Organizations are frequently shifting priorities‣‣

Organizations are changing priorities(60%) and projects (49%) daily or
weekly. The Decision-maker perceives
more change than practitioners – they
are more likely to say all of these items
change daily or weekly.
People and Budgets have a much
lower frequency of change thanpriorities and projects.

How often does your development teamchange each of the following?

FREQUENCY OF CHANGE
Daily
Priorities

Monthly

27%

Tools

22%

People20%

Projects

18%

Technology stacks

16%

Business targets

14%

Budgets

Weekly11%

Quarterly

34%
21%
15%

19%
12%

20%

15%

18%

20%

22%

31%
20%

27%

18%
20%

26%
21%

4%

31%
29%

30%

18%

Annually

14%

24%
27%

4%

9%
24%

26

Detailed findings
PART 4

TRACKING MODERN SOFTWARE TRENDS

27

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

TIME SPENT ON UPGRADES/UPDATESThere are no statisticallysignificant changes in the amountof time spent on upgrades andupdates since the 2018 report.

2018

28%
26%

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

2020

28%
27%

19%
15%

Approximately what percentageof your team’s time each monthis spent on updates or upgrades
to self-hosted software you use?

15%

14%

10%
7%
5% 5%
1% 1%

Zero

1-10%

11-20%

21-30%

41-50%

51-60%

70% or more

28

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

Approximately how often are you asked by someone toprovide the status of your or your team’s work?

FREQUENCY UPDATE STATUS IN TOOL

How many times a day do you have to update status in asoftware development tool?
29

…But the number of tools to understand a project status is on the rise.
The number of tools respondents use tounderstand the status of their softwaredevelopment projects are on the rise:‣

Significantly less say they need 3-4
tools to know their status, while
significantly more say they need 5+
tools to understand their status.

NUMBER OF TOOLS CONSULTED TO
UNDERSTAND PROJECT STATUS
2018

39%

2020

39%
35%

33%

How many tools do you need to consult tounderstand the status of your softwaredevelopment projects?

32%

21%

1 to 23 to 45 or more30

Bugs and delays remain the top issues with releases
Issues with releases are similar to 2018 inthat defects / bugs are the most common
issue, followed by unexpected delays andoutages/downtimes.
‣

Significantly less say they deal withbugs, but it is still the most common
release issue.

Significantly more say they deal withnone of the issues listed. Notably, this is
still a minority of 12%.
Which of the following issues has yourcurrent team faced with a release?
Please select all that apply.

ISSUES WITH RELEASES
2018

2020

Defects / bugs

48%
50%
46%

Unexpected delays
34%

Outages / downtime

29%

Over budget

30%
27%

Customer complaints

30%

26%

29%
32%

Missed deadlines
21%
21%

Dropped important features
None of the above

57%

4%

12%

31

Organizations are measuring customer satisfaction on new releases less often‣‣

Organizations are statistically lesslikely since 2018 to be measuring
customer satisfaction on newreleases now. The proportion that say
they do measure customer
satisfaction has decreased
significantly, while the proportion that
do not has increased significantly.

MEASUREMENT OF CUSTOMERSATISFACTION OF NEW RELEASES
2018

2020

84%
76%

Even so, the majority continue tomeasure customer satisfaction on
new releases.
20%

Does your organization have practices
in place to measure customer satisfaction
on newly released features?

11%

Yes

5%
No

4%
Unsure32

Having too many manual processes is becoming a more pervasive issue

‣

‣

‣

Respondents are reporting fewer overall
issues preventing them from going faster inmoving code from development to production
since 2018. Significantly more say theyexperience none of the issues tested.
The proportion that say they lack sufficient
automated test coverage to avoid manual
testing and that say we have too many tools
has integrated in a fragile way havedecreased significantly.
Meanwhile, the proportion that says we havetoo many manual processes has increased(although not at a statistically significant
level) to become the most common issue.
Which of the following prevent your current teamfrom going faster in moving code from development
to production? Please select all that apply.

ISSUES PREVENTING GOING FASTERFROM CODE TO DEVELOPMENT
2018

2020

We lack sufficient automated test
coverage to avoid manual testing

32%

24%

We have people who understandhow the build pipeline works

27%
26%

We haven’t automated the wholebuild and deployment pipeline

27%

23%

27%

We have too many manual processes
We have defects caused by code merges

22%

We have too many tools,
integrated in a fragile way

19%

22%

21%
21%

We have a slow build process
We lack tracking for codefrom dev to production
None of the above

26%
25%

18%

We lack visibility into
dependencies across code bases

31%

18%
19%
8%

18%

33

Customer satisfaction remains the chief means of measuring team success
While customer satisfaction remains themost commonly used metric for software
teams to evaluate and track success,usage of several metrics have increased:‣

Team velocity‣

Revenue‣

Mean time between failures
Which of the following metrics does
your team use to evaluate and track
your team’s success? Please think ofthese measurements specificallyrelated to the software development
team, rather than the organization
overall. Please select all that apply.

METRICS MEASURING TEAM SUCCESS
2018

2020
46%
49%

Customer satisfaction
33%
35%

Mean time to recover/repair
Application crash rate

31%

Issues closed

30%
31%

Open / close rate

29%
31%
28%
29%

Feature usage

25%

Team velocity
Number of story points

21%

32%

25%
25%

Revenue
Mean time between failures

22%

Features shipped

20%
22%

None of the above

36%

36%
30%

1%
2%

34

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.

PREFERRED PARTY RESPONSIBLE FORRESOLVING MAJOR INCIDENTS

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY FORRESOLVING MAJOR INCIDENTS
60%
51%

2018

2020

2018
59%

49%

49%

1%
Application
development team

51%
41%

39%

A central IT
Operations team

2020

0%

Other (please specify)

For major incidents, which team is currently primarily
responsible for responding and resolving them?

A central IT Operations teamApplication development team

For major incidents, which team would you prefer to be
primarily responsible for responding and resolving them?
35

Appendix

36

DEMOGRAPHICS & FIRMOGRAPHICS

GENDER

LEVEL

TITLE

Male

72%

Chief Executive Officer

4%1%Female28%

Chief Information Officer

DevOps Engineer

8%

Chief Technology Officer

13%Team Leader of Application
Engineering

1%

President

1%

Director of IT30%

IT manager

40%

IT Ops manager

3%

Manager, Operations andRelease

1%

CTO

6%

Infrastructure Engineer

1%Director of Development

2%

CIO

8%

Architect1%

Director of DevOps

1%

Senior Software Developer

4%

AGE
18-24

2%

Vice President

3%

25-34

24%

Director

31%

35-44

47%

Manager / Team Lead

39%

45-54

19%

55-64

7%

65 or older

1%
REGION

Northeast

24%

South

18%

Midwest33%

West

DEVOPS RESPONSIBILITY
Building apps

15%

Operating apps

17%

Both

66%

Other

1%

DEPARTMENT

25%
IT

90%

Software Development

10%37

FIRMOGRAPHICSREPORTING TO, CONTINUEDREPORTING TO
DevOps Engineer

2%

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEESREVENUE

Senior Developer1%

101-249

8%$0 - $5 Million

3%

Build/automation manager

1%

250-49912%$5.1 Million - $10 Million

Director of Developer Tools

2%

500-1,000

24%

7%Team Leader of Application
Engineering

1%

Director of IT

21%

CIO

14%

1,001-4,999

30%

IT manager

23%

Architect1%

5,000-9,999

11%

IT Ops manager

2%

DevOps Lead1%

10,000+14%

Director of DevOps

2%

Senior Software Developer

1%

Manager, Operations andRelease2%

DevOps architect

1%

Other

4%

Lead developer

1%

None of the above

2%

CTO

16%

Infrastructure Engineer

1%Director of Development

2%

ORGANIZATION TENURE
Less than one year1%

1 to less than 3 years

6%

3 to less than 5 years$10.1 Million - $25 Million$25.1 Million - $50 Million$50.1 Million - $100 Million

ENGINEERING TEAM SIZE
Less than 10 employees

6%11-20 employees

16%21-50 employees

24%51-100 employees

24%101+ employees

29%$100.1 Million - $250 Million$250.1 Million - $500 Million$500.1 Million - $1 Billion

8%
8%
11%
9%
9%
19%

$1.1 Billion - $5 Billion

13%

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 Know2%38