This article is based on a piece originally published on Forbes Agency Council (December 2018).
The Speed Problem Facing Modern Agencies
Consumer expectations for instant, always-on digital content have fundamentally changed the pace at which marketing, PR, and communications agencies must operate. Campaigns need to pivot quickly. Clients expect rapid response. And when something breaks in a client’s branded app or website, a fix in days is too slow — it’s needed in hours.
Over time, many agencies have quietly become software shops. The inbound marketing frameworks, APIs, automation platforms, and integrations that underpin modern digital services mean that code is now at the heart of what agencies deliver. The speed of that code delivery directly limits how fast an agency can serve its clients.
What DevOps Actually Means for an Agency
DevOps, at its core, is the restructuring of how software is built and delivered within an organisation to be as fast, automated, reliable, and efficient as possible. While the term originated in enterprise software development, its principles apply directly to any team responsible for deploying and maintaining web-based platforms and integrations.
The DevOps ecosystem includes a broad set of practices and technologies:
- Continuous Integration (CI): Automatically building and testing code every time a developer commits a change, catching errors early.
- Continuous Delivery (CD): Automating the release pipeline so validated code can be deployed to production reliably and frequently.
- Containerisation: Packaging applications and their dependencies (e.g., using Docker) so they run consistently across environments.
- Cloud infrastructure: Leveraging scalable, on-demand compute resources rather than fixed on-premises servers.
- Serverless architecture: Offloading infrastructure management entirely to a cloud provider for specific workloads.
- Agile practices: Iterative planning and delivery that aligns development work with client and business priorities.
Importantly, DevOps is not just a tool set. It requires an organisational culture shift, leadership buy-in, redefined business processes, and the right infrastructure. Tools alone will not deliver the benefits.
Is DevOps Viable for Smaller Agencies?
Historically, mature DevOps tooling and methodologies were associated with large software companies and enterprise organisations. That barrier has lowered significantly. The availability of open-source CI/CD tools, Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings means that agencies with development teams of 10 to 100 developers can now implement high-velocity delivery pipelines without enterprise-level budgets.
Many agencies already have foundational pieces in place without recognising them as DevOps components — version control systems like GitHub, project management tools, or cloud hosting arrangements all contribute to a DevOps-ready foundation.
How to Tell If Your Agency Needs DevOps
Ask yourself the following questions. If you answer yes to any of them, DevOps deserves a high position on your strategic roadmap:
- Does your agency have five or more developers working on internal and external web-based platforms?
- Do you manage hosting — whether directly or via SaaS — and handle API or integration requirements internally?
- Are there significant process bottlenecks preventing your development and hosting/infrastructure teams from working fluidly together?
- Are client marketing needs generating delivery requirements that your current team structure cannot reliably meet at speed?
If any of these resonate, your agency’s growth and competitiveness are likely being constrained by the absence of a structured DevOps approach. Even if you are not a software company in the traditional sense, a development team that powers digital deliverables needs the same operational discipline as one.
A Realistic Implementation Timeline
Done properly, a meaningful DevOps adoption takes time. Expect 18 to 24 months to implement the practices, culture, and tooling in a way that is stable and genuinely adopted across your organisation. Rushing the process typically results in tool sprawl, inconsistent adoption, and frustrated teams.
Practical Steps to Get Started
1. Build an Adoption Strategy and Secure Leadership Buy-In
Before touching any tools, map out the structural and business process changes required. Create workflow diagrams that visualise the full lifecycle of a piece of code — from a developer writing it to it being deployed to a client’s production environment. Run through these workflows multiple times with your team and treat early iterations as learning exercises, not final processes. Expect to diagnose and resolve blockers as you go.
2. Select, Test, and Refine Your Tool Set
Identify tools that address your specific gaps, prioritising those that integrate with systems you already use. Key considerations include:
- Automation and integration capability: Tools that cannot connect to your existing ecosystem will create silos rather than eliminate them.
- Familiarity: Choose a deployment tool your team can learn quickly. A powerful tool nobody uses confidently delivers no value.
- Iteration: Treat your tool set as a work in progress until you have validated it through real use. Establish it as the organisational standard only after it has proven itself.
3. Implement and Enforce New Processes Consistently
Once the tool set is stable, focus on embedding the new ways of working across the organisation. Employee trust in the tooling is a prerequisite for genuine adoption. If developers do not trust the deployment pipeline, they will work around it. Invest in training, documentation, and visible leadership support to build that confidence.
4. Adopt a Pipeline That Fits Your Organisation
There is no single correct DevOps implementation. Draw on best practices from different methodologies — GitOps, trunk-based development, feature flags, blue-green deployments — and combine them into a pipeline that reflects how your teams actually work. Pragmatism matters more than ideological purity.
The Outcome: An Agency That Can Deliver at Speed
When DevOps practices are embedded alongside your agency’s existing services, the result is a development and deployment capability that stops being a bottleneck and starts being a competitive advantage. Faster, more reliable delivery means you can respond to client demands with confidence, adapt campaigns in real time, and take on technically complex work without the risk of execution delays undermining the relationship.
The investment is significant. But for any agency with a development team at its core, the cost of not adopting DevOps — in lost clients, missed opportunities, and accumulating technical debt — will almost certainly be higher.