Pretty much every engineering team working on application software today is familiar with DevOps. It brings development and operations together to enable continuous integration, automated testing, application monitoring, and the frequent, reliable delivery of software. In short: agile methodology at speed.
But speed of delivery, while important, is not the whole story. The real measure of a software project is whether it delivers genuine business value. And on that measure, the industry has a troubling track record.
The Business–IT Alignment Problem
New application development has a long history of project failure or costly rework. Analyst estimates of IT project failure rates vary, but figures ranging from 30% to nearly 50% are commonly cited in industry research. Even projects that technically succeed often require significant revision before they can be considered fit for deployment.
A consistent root cause across failed projects is misalignment between what the business actually needed and what the development team delivered. This misalignment typically stems from poorly defined requirements and insufficient communication between developers, end users, and other business stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle — not just at the requirements-gathering stage.
A lack of ongoing collaboration between IT and the business is widely recognised as one of the primary obstacles to successful digital initiatives. Addressing this gap is the core motivation behind an emerging practice called BizDevOps.
What Is BizDevOps?
BizDevOps extends the DevOps model by explicitly including business teams (Biz) as active, continuous participants alongside development and operations. Rather than treating the business as a one-time source of requirements at the start of a project, BizDevOps integrates business stakeholders into feedback loops that run throughout the entire application lifecycle — from initial conception through release and ongoing iteration.
The goal is not simply a faster or more efficient outcome, but a genuinely successful one from a business value perspective. BizDevOps asks teams to optimise for business outcomes, not just deployment frequency.
The Role of Low-Code Platforms in BizDevOps
One practical enabler of BizDevOps is the low-code development platform. Low-code platforms use visual, model-driven techniques to define an application’s user interface, data model, and business logic. Because these visual models are accessible to non-engineers, they create a shared language between business stakeholders and development teams.
This shared representation unlocks several collaboration benefits:
- Real-time co-design: A developer can sit with an end user, review workflow visually, validate assumptions, and iterate on functionality in the same session — without a translation layer of technical jargon.
- Instant preview and feedback: Many low-code platforms allow apps to be previewed immediately, enabling developers to make changes in real time based on user feedback rather than waiting for formal review cycles.
- Structured in-app feedback: Users can submit feedback — categorised as ideas, bugs, or enhancement requests — directly within the application. Feedback can include screenshots and metadata that pinpoint the exact element requiring attention, making it immediately actionable for the product owner.
- Cross-functional issue resolution: When a DevOps engineer identifies a production issue, they can work jointly with the developer and business stakeholder to implement a fix that balances technical constraints and business priorities — rather than resolving it purely as a technical problem.
Addressing the “Low Control” Concern
A common objection to low-code platforms — usually from engineers who haven’t used them — is that high productivity must come at the cost of control and customisation. This is a false trade-off. Modern low-code platforms are designed to support both high productivity and high control, including the ability to extend with custom code, integrate with existing systems, and enforce enterprise-grade governance and security policies. The abstraction layer accelerates common development tasks; it does not remove engineering rigour.
Getting Started with BizDevOps
Like DevOps itself, BizDevOps is not a tool you install — it is a practice that requires changes to people, process, and culture. The most effective way to adopt it is incrementally:
- Start small: Pair a business-oriented developer with a technically minded business stakeholder. Use a low-code platform to build a small, low-risk application together. Focus on establishing the collaboration habit, not on the complexity of the application.
- Build an innovation group: Grow this pairing to a small team of three to five people and tackle slightly more complex applications. Celebrate and document successful outcomes to build internal momentum and demonstrate the model’s value.
- Formalise the process: Once the approach is proven at small scale, define the team structure, collaboration cadences, tooling choices, and feedback mechanisms more formally. Establish clear roles for business stakeholders within sprints and release cycles.
- Scale deliberately: Plan how to extend BizDevOps practices across a broader portfolio of applications, including customer-facing portals, mobile apps, and internal automation initiatives.
The Business Case for BizDevOps
DevOps solved the friction between development and operations. BizDevOps solves the deeper friction between technology execution and business intent. When both problems are addressed together, teams can move fast and build the right things — reducing wasted effort, lowering rework rates, and increasing the proportion of projects that deliver measurable business outcomes.
The cultural shift required is real, but the payoff is significant: development teams that are genuinely aligned with business objectives are better positioned to build competitive products, automate operations intelligently, and respond to change without losing sight of why they are building in the first place.
This article is based on a piece originally published at information-age.com.