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The First Way: Flow (Systems Thinking)
- Emphasizes the optimization of the entire system's flow of work, not just individual silos. The goal is to accelerate the movement of work from development through operations to the customer.
- Practices include making work visible (e.g., Kanban boards), limiting work-in-progress, reducing batch sizes, and removing constraints or bottlenecks[2][4][3].
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The Second Way: Feedback Loops
- Focuses on creating short, constant feedback loops at every stage of development and operations, so errors and quality issues are detected early and improvements are made continuously.
- Practices include shift-left testing, quick reviews, embedding knowledge where needed, and encouraging collaboration between departments[2][4][3].
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The Third Way: Continual Learning and Experimentation
- Promotes a culture of safe experimentation, learning from both successes and failures, and constant improvement.
- Practices include allowing time for improvement, rewarding risk-taking, and institutionalizing practices that encourage learning at all levels of the organization[2][4][3].
These principles are widely adopted as a framework for successful DevOps organizations, aiming to bring together people, process, and technology to deliver value to customers in a reliable and continuous way.
There is also a political concept known as The Third Way, which refers to a centrist political approach blending right-wing and left-wing politics, but in most IT, business, and organizational contexts, The Three Ways refers specifically to the DevOps principles discussed above[5].