DevOps is widely adopted in name, but successful adoption in practice remains uneven across organizations. In this talk, I will present the main outcomes of my PhD research on how IT organizations can improve DevOps adoption. I will focus on the capabilities, metrics, and lifecycle practices that have the strongest impact on delivery performance and operational reliability. I will share a practical framework that helps teams identify common adoption barriers, connect engineering practices to measurable outcomes, and design improvement strategies that support both faster delivery and more resilient operations. The session is intended for leaders and practitioners who want a clearer, evidence-based view of what makes DevOps work beyond tooling and slogans.
Ricardo Amaro is an Engineering Manager at Elastic, a PhD in Information Technologies, an O’Reilly author, and a university visiting professor at Técnico and ISCTE. He has spent his career working across software engineering, infrastructure, and operations, with a strong focus on DevOps, reliability, and large-scale systems. Ricardo is also President of the Portuguese Drupal Association.
