I’ve been thinking about something that keeps bothering me: why do so many Agile DevSecOps projects fail to deliver the efficiency they promise? We buy the tools, run the trainings, and everyone starts speaking Agile. We have sprints, stand-ups, burn-down charts, CI/CD pipelines, security scans. It looks great on paper. And yet, projects drag on. Releases slip. We end up with the same frustrations we had during the old Waterfall days.
Why? Because somewhere along the way, we missed the point.
Agile as Waterfall in Disguise
Here’s what I’ve seen in most organisations:
- Sprints exist, but they’re really mini-Waterfall phases.
- We still have multiple environments — Dev, Test, UAT, Pre-Prod, Prod. Each with its own handoffs, its own approvals.
- Security? It’s still a checklist at the end of the cycle.
What’s the outcome? A lot of overhead, but no real agility.
Let’s be honest: Agile DevSecOps isn’t failing because the ideas are bad. It’s failing because we are trying to force-fit our old habits into a new framework.
The Environment Problem
One of the biggest culprits is our obsession with multiple environments.
Back in the Waterfall days, this made sense. We worked in big batches. We needed Dev for development, QA for testing, UAT for business validation, Pre-Prod for sanity checks, and then the big bang into Production.
But Agile DevSecOps was supposed to kill that model. The promise was simple:
- Build in small increments.
- Test automatically.
- Deploy continuously.
Yet, what do we do? We recreate the old chain of environments, except now we call it “Agile.”
Every handoff adds delay. Every delay adds risk. And let’s not even talk about the configuration drift. Ever had code that worked perfectly in Test but broke in UAT because the environments weren’t identical? Yeah, me too.
So here’s a hard truth: if your Agile pipeline looks like a relay race across five environments, you’re not Agile. You’re just Waterfall wearing a hoodie.
What Agile DevSecOps Was Meant to Be
Let’s rewind and remind ourselves what the core principles were:
- Each sprint delivers something usable, ideally in production.
- Testing is automated, not a separate phase.
- Security is built in, not bolted on at the end.
- Deployment is frequent and safe, not something you need a CAB meeting for every quarter.
This means you don’t need an army of environments. You need a strong CI/CD pipeline, good automated tests, and deployment strategies like feature toggles, blue-green, or canary releases.
Production shouldn’t be a scary place. It should be the place your pipeline naturally flows into.
The Sprint Misunderstanding
Now let’s talk about sprints. This one really hits home because I see it everywhere.
Most project managers treat sprints like phases:
- Sprint 1: Requirements.
- Sprint 2: Development.
- Sprint 3: Testing.
- Sprint 4: UAT.
That’s not Agile. That’s Waterfall sliced into two-week chunks.
A sprint should be a mini end-to-end cycle: pick a feature, design it, build it, test it, secure it, and make it production-ready. At the end of the sprint, the feature should be deployable. Maybe you hide it behind a feature toggle, but it should be sitting there in production, ready to go.
If your sprints end with code sitting in a branch, waiting for a big release window, then you’re not Agile. You’re just calling your phases “sprints” to feel modern.
Security: Still an Afterthought?
The “Sec” in DevSecOps was supposed to change the game. It was supposed to shift security left. But in reality, I see a lot of teams doing what they’ve always done: running a big security check at the end.
Guess what happens then? You find a critical vulnerability after UAT. Now you need rework across multiple sprints. Timelines blow up. Everyone panics.
Embedding security into your pipeline isn’t optional. Static analysis, dependency scanning, container checks — these should run automatically. Every commit should go through them. That’s how you prevent security from becoming another gate that slows you down.
So, What Needs to Change?
Honestly, it’s not the tools. We have amazing tools. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, SonarQube, OWASP scanners, containerisation with Docker and Kubernetes — the ecosystem is solid.
The problem is mindset. We need to stop treating Agile as “faster Waterfall” and DevSecOps as “some extra security steps.”
Here’s what I’d recommend:
1. Redefine what a sprint means for you : If a sprint doesn’t produce something deployable, it’s not Agile. Period.
2. Kill the environment bloat : Move to ephemeral environments for testing and use safe rollout strategies in production.
3. Automate like crazy : Testing, security scans, approvals — if it can be automated, it should be.
4. Use feature toggles : This is the easiest way to decouple deployment from release. Deploy often, release when you’re ready.
5. Educate leadership : Many PMOs still measure success by Gantt charts and fixed scope. That’s a relic of another era. Success in Agile means delivering value continuously, not completing phases on time.
Why This Matters
Here’s the real question: why bother changing? Because if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll continue wasting time, money, and energy.
Agile DevSecOps, done right, gives you:
- Faster time to market.
- Lower risk (because changes are small and security is continuous).
- Better quality (because feedback loops are tight).
Done wrong, it gives you the worst of both worlds: the bureaucracy of Waterfall plus the chaos of fake Agile.
And I don’t know about you, but that’s not the world I want to work in.
Agile and DevSecOps are not labels. They’re cultural shifts. They demand that we question old habits — like multiple environments and big release cycles — and embrace flow, automation, and continuous value delivery.
If your team still runs sprints like phases and treats production as a scary place, you’re missing the point. And until that changes, the promise of Agile DevSecOps will remain just that — a promise.
C
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