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Is it time for the rival camps of DevOps and IT service management (ITSM)/ITIL practitioners to call a truce? And is the journey towards genuine ITSM and DevOps collaboration – to echo the Chinese proverb – truly a journey of a thousand miles?
Jonathan Wafford – now an ITIL 4 Master and PeopleCert Ambassador – was one of the first service management professionals on the Axelos blog (run by the company acquired by PeopleCert in 2021) to share his experience of working with DevOps teams: “…it’s time for ITIL 4 and DevOps practitioners to work together in earnest,” he said, which could be “a challenge for both sets of professionals, who may have either preconceptions or simply a lack of understanding about what each other does and the concepts they use”.
He went on to cite ITIL 4’s guiding principles and their synergy with DevOps approaches, adding that they “ought to bring teams closer to whoever they’re creating value for: identifying what the value is and creating something more applicable. By keeping the dialogue going, you should be delivering value continuously and making relevant changes throughout the process”.
Fast-forward to 2025 and where are the two worlds of DevOps and ITSM/ITIL today?
The “two eyes” of service management and DevOps
Viewpoints expressed by a commentator on the Modern Service Management blog – powered by the Microsoft Community Hub – suggests that any animosity between advocates of each discipline should definitely be confined to history: “ITIL and DevOps are not competing methodologies but powerful tools that, when integrated, create a dynamic IT service management model.
By leveraging both, organizations can achieve operational stability, adaptability and continuous innovation – key factors for success in the modern digital landscape.”
And the writer proposes a summary of the key steps for integrating the two:
Senior business analyst, Tamer Abdelhamid, adds a rhetorical flavour to the discussion, posting on LinkedIn: “You can’t run modern IT with Dev and Ops pulling in different directions. Because, when delivery is fast but stability breaks, everyone loses.
“And when Ops blocks every change out of fear, innovation dies.” The answer, Abdelhamid suggests, “isn’t choosing sides” but “building a system where both teams win”.
Some professionals have been squaring the circle of ITSM and DevOps for a decade; so, what do they observe today?
Suresh GP, Managing Director, TaUB Solutions and DEVOPS INSTITUTE Enterprise Coach, said: “Service management is the backbone for setting up a platform to develop new products and services, then DevOps takes it to the next level. We live in a world of attention deficient syndrome, so DevOps provides a focus on the product mindset: understanding customer needs better and delivering faster value.”
He added that while DevOps is trying to balance velocity and stability, service management through ITIL ensures stability and structure. And with a striking metaphor to make his point: “Service management and DevOps are like two eyes: only when you use both eyes can you see clearly.”
Ioannis Routsis, Senior IT Executive, said: “Integrating ITSM (ITIL) and DevOps can create a robust foundation for successful IT-enabled businesses. ITIL 4 offers a comprehensive, end-to-end framework that seamlessly integrates with methodologies like DevOps.
“Both frameworks emphasise cross-functional collaboration among development, operations and service management. Their integration can enhance various practices, for instance, ITIL incident management and change enablement can leverage DevOps tools such as telemetry and automation. Organizations that effectively combine ITSM with DevOps practices can achieve both high velocity and high reliability.”
Bringing ITSM and DevOps together also, according to Ioannis, “dispels the myths of bureaucratic ITSM”. For example, in change management, “CAB meetings are reserved for impactful changes or major releases, where coordination among different stakeholders and careful risk consideration are essential”.
Quantifying DevOps benefits
The key metrics for success that Suresh has seen in organizations integrating service management and DevOps have included faster deployment and frequency of providing new features and functionality, ensuring changes are made without failure and shortening the go-to-market lead time.
He’s also witnessed organizations reducing the time from customer request to fulfilment and improving the mean time to repair – in other words, how quickly an incident is addressed, fixed and prevented from happening again.
Achieving better alignment between the IT organization and the business is something Ioannis sees as the most significant outcome of ITSM/DevOps integration: “IT transforms into a valuable partner rather than an administrative overhead. Another crucial result is a faster time to market, delivered in a meaningful and user-focused manner.
“The combination of DevOps observability capabilities with strong incident and problem management practices leads to fewer outages and faster recovery,” he added.
But while the practical application of ITIL/DevOps integration is working well in a proportion of cases, is it sufficiently widespread – and what’s the risk of not doing it?
Is a 60/40 split good enough?
Today, according to Suresh, many organizations have understood the need to combine ITSM and DevOps as their customers are now demanding it.
“Customers are driving outcomes and companies need to change or go out of business,” he said.
Different levels of maturity mean that elite organizations are now navigating the next level of high performance while others – those choosing to wait and watch – need to step up, or watch the window of opportunity start to close.
“I think 60% of organizations worldwide have already matured while 40% are still dabbling. And, of those 40%, half are taking steps to figure it out and the other half are staying in their comfort zone, at least for now,” Suresh said.
Maturity in adopting ITSM and DevOps practices dictates the benefits gained, according to Ioannis, but this can be hindered by mistakes such as lacking KPIs across all practices: “When teams share KPIs, they tend to collaborate more effectively. It is also common for IT organizations to use different practices or tools across DevOps and ITSM teams, which can hinder collaboration.”
Combining ITIL and DevOps – still a work in progress
So, if the ITSM (ITIL)/DevOps combination still needs work, what should organizations concentrate on?
“In 2025, organizations need to assess their gaps across all fronts and decide where to focus their efforts,” Ioannis said. “They must delve into the real issues preventing operational alignment between ITSM and DevOps – and to identify these issues, organizations need to measure progress: where are we in ITSM and DevOps integration? Have we reached the necessary maturity?”
He also points to building cohesive structures where DevOps and ITSM practices and tools complement each other along with value stream mapping, addressing gaps in cultural collaboration, silos, leadership, misaligned tools, skills and talent and looking beyond standard metrics to ask whether integration has contributed to business objectives.
The ITIL 4 concepts of the service value system, service value chain and four dimensions of service management are elements that Suresh believes practitioners should understand: “It means unlearning and relearning to get away from siloed IT environments and broadening your horizons to embrace an end-to-end value chain and achieve better business outcomes.
“People need to have an open mind and, above all, focus on the customer: we exist only because of them.”
Because people need products and services faster, cheaper and delivered more efficiently, this needs best of breed frameworks – like ITIL and DevOps working in tandem – to meet these demands.
“When training people, PeopleCert provides a platform of complementary frameworks which is necessary to avoid having blind spots in your knowledge and competencies,” Suresh added.
“Education creates understanding of the fundamentals which are instrumental to changing the way cross-functional teams operate: coming together with mutual understanding to work towards a common goal – only then can you achieve real change.”
TechPro Academy has successfully wrapped up another one of its usual Fall Meet-ups, on October 8th at the KEDEA Amphitheater.
TechSaloniki 2025 marked our 9th and most exciting chapter yet, leading us towards our 10th anniversary milestone.