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Survey Highlights Divide Between Development and Operations

Pete Goldin
Editor and Publisher
APMdigest

IT is struggling to keep up with the resulting pace of service demand, according to a new survey by Serena of 200 IT professionals that focused on the current state of IT Service Management (ITSM), with a particular focus on what ITIL calls Service Transition.

In addition, the survey shows the majority of those polled (92 percent) agreed business groups do not perceive IT as a true partner and in some cases report that IT actually impedes their success.

Development and Operations blame each other, the survey indicates. Three quarters cited operations as a roadblock to agile development, and 72 percent cite development as not supporting the goals of operations.

“There is massive interest in DevOps within enterprises today, as there should be. What our survey revealed, however, is the distance that IT organizations need to evolve to realize the promise of DevOps,” said Amita Abraham, Group Product Marketing Manager at Serena Software and the author of the survey report. “This data was telling in that we were able to learn about today’s key ITSM issues, in particular, the need to improve Service Transition, the ITIL set of processes that cover the juncture of Development and Operations.”

Other key findings include:

· Inconsistent and manual ITSM practices are too slow for online, agile business. 70 percent reported poor release management processes.

· Disconnected processes limit Development and Operations’ success. 72 percent revealed that operational change and release management, which are central to the Service Transition prescribed by ITILv3, were the most disconnected.

· Rudimentary communication practices lead to limited visibility into planned changes. 60 percent cited they had “little to no” visibility into planned changes. Survey data showed antiquated communication practices such as email, spreadsheets, and word of mouth are still relied upon for sharing critical and time-sensitive information about planned development of operational changes.

· Poor reporting leads to inaccurate status updates to the business. Only six percent reported having shared release calendars across development and operations.

In addition to the Dev and Ops divide, the survey also highlighted the gap between IT and Business:

· Only 9 percent responded that the business views IT as completely aligned with its goals and as a true partner.

· 56 percent indicated that their organizations were yet to define and automate request management. The lack of a single place for business users to submit requests and automatically get status updates results in further discontent with IT.

The Serena survey was conducted at itSMF’s FUSION 12 Conference last month. Respondents were polled from a variety of industries, including financial services, government, healthcare, online services, manufacturing and more. The sampling of participants included general attendees and speakers.

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest

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Survey Highlights Divide Between Development and Operations

Pete Goldin
Editor and Publisher
APMdigest

IT is struggling to keep up with the resulting pace of service demand, according to a new survey by Serena of 200 IT professionals that focused on the current state of IT Service Management (ITSM), with a particular focus on what ITIL calls Service Transition.

In addition, the survey shows the majority of those polled (92 percent) agreed business groups do not perceive IT as a true partner and in some cases report that IT actually impedes their success.

Development and Operations blame each other, the survey indicates. Three quarters cited operations as a roadblock to agile development, and 72 percent cite development as not supporting the goals of operations.

“There is massive interest in DevOps within enterprises today, as there should be. What our survey revealed, however, is the distance that IT organizations need to evolve to realize the promise of DevOps,” said Amita Abraham, Group Product Marketing Manager at Serena Software and the author of the survey report. “This data was telling in that we were able to learn about today’s key ITSM issues, in particular, the need to improve Service Transition, the ITIL set of processes that cover the juncture of Development and Operations.”

Other key findings include:

· Inconsistent and manual ITSM practices are too slow for online, agile business. 70 percent reported poor release management processes.

· Disconnected processes limit Development and Operations’ success. 72 percent revealed that operational change and release management, which are central to the Service Transition prescribed by ITILv3, were the most disconnected.

· Rudimentary communication practices lead to limited visibility into planned changes. 60 percent cited they had “little to no” visibility into planned changes. Survey data showed antiquated communication practices such as email, spreadsheets, and word of mouth are still relied upon for sharing critical and time-sensitive information about planned development of operational changes.

· Poor reporting leads to inaccurate status updates to the business. Only six percent reported having shared release calendars across development and operations.

In addition to the Dev and Ops divide, the survey also highlighted the gap between IT and Business:

· Only 9 percent responded that the business views IT as completely aligned with its goals and as a true partner.

· 56 percent indicated that their organizations were yet to define and automate request management. The lack of a single place for business users to submit requests and automatically get status updates results in further discontent with IT.

The Serena survey was conducted at itSMF’s FUSION 12 Conference last month. Respondents were polled from a variety of industries, including financial services, government, healthcare, online services, manufacturing and more. The sampling of participants included general attendees and speakers.

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest

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The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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