# Exploring the Benefits of Combining DevOps and Agile
## 4 Results  
The twelve case study reports associated with each company presented in Table 2 were thoroughly read and each identified benefit was assigned a unique identifier. Each theme is identified by the acronym \"BF\" and a number is associated to differentiate each benefit. Common themes have the same acronym. A brief description of how each benefit is understood in the case studies is also included. Table 3 presents the identification process of the themes associated with each case study. Table 3 shows the themes for all the case studies mentioned in Table 2. We highlight the existence of themes that are common to several case studies. Although the themes are common, the vision of each case study in relation to them has some relevant oscillations, which indicate a complementary vision of the institutions present in the case studies. For example, in CS1 time to market emerges due to increased collaboration between teams, whereas in CS8 process integration is highlighted. Something similar emerges in relation to cost. Cost reduction is understood in CS6 as achieved from the existence of multi-skilled human resources, whereas in CS8 cost reduction is motivated by the effects of increased team performance. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c p{284.5 pt}} \hline \hline
**ID** & **Benefit** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{CS1} & (BF1) Time to market: greater collaboration between teams reduces software delivery cycles (BF2) Automation: the combined development and production process becomes more automated to meet market needs \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{CS2} & (BF2) Automation: continuous delivery and integration combined with fast releases lead to the automation of activities (BF3) Communication: promote constant communication between development and operational team (BF4) Mindset and culture: establishment of collaboration among teams \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{CS3} & (BF1) Time to market: through continuous delivery from the development phases (BF5) Planning: the product backlog now includes services are products that need to be deployed, scalable, maintained, monitored, and supported as a service \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{CS4} & (BF4) Mindset and culture: increase the quality of collaboration (BF6) Visibility: more visibility for release and upgrade processes (BF7) Risk mitigation: better identification of risks in the context of each sprint (BF8) Software quality: decrease the existence of software errors and helps to launch faster patches (BF2) Automation: contribution for the implementation of Agile fluency model which focus on value, transparency, and alignment (BF3) Communication: amplify feedback loops between development and operational team (BF4) Mindset and culture: looks to the performance of all system instead of local departments. Furthermore, promotes learning from failure. (BF5) Planning: increase the planning dimension of unplanned events typically found in the context of operational teams \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Identified benefits themes in the case studies. Figure 1: Thematic analysis process (authors own illustration). Table 4 summarizes the comparative analysis of the identified benefits. All previously identified benefits are mapped. The \"ranking\" attribute allows us to understand the relative importance of the benefits and to perceive which ones are transversal to several case studies and which ones emerge only in a very specific context of each organization. The benefits related to automation (BF2), communication (BF3), and time to market (BF1) stand out. These are the three main benefits that can be found in the combined adoption of Agile and DevOps. Conversely, there are other benefits that are identified in a smaller number of case studies, namely, those related to efficiency (BF11), risk mitigation (BF7), and software quality (BF8). These benefits are less relevant and arise in the specific context of each organization, which indicates that they are more difficult to replicate in other software companies.