The “Three Ways” are foundational principles in DevOps:

The First Wayfocuses on increasing the flow of work from left (development) to right (operations). It is about optimizing the entire system for fast delivery, limiting bottlenecks, and enabling a rapid flow of features and fixes to customers.

The Second Wayis about amplifying feedback loops so corrections can be made early.

The Third Wayemphasizes continual learning and experimentation.

Extract-style reference:

“The First Way emphasizes the performance of the entire system, as opposed to the performance of a specific silo of work or department. The goal is to maximize the flow of work (value) from Development to Operations to the customer.”

—Gene Kim, The Phoenix Project / DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6highlights this in the section on "Principles and Practices," emphasizing The First Way as critical to accelerating flow.

Let’s clarify what these terms mean in DevOps:

Continuous Integration (CI):Developers integrate code into a shared repository frequently (ideally daily), with each integration automatically verified by tests.

Continuous Delivery (CD):Ensures software is always in a releasable state. Every change can be deployed to production, but the deployment itself may be a manual decision.

Continuous Deployment:Every change that passes automated tests is automatically deployed to production,withoutmanual intervention.

Why is D (“Continuous Deployment requires a manual push button”) NOT TRUE?

BecauseContinuous Deploymentis aboutno manual intervention—once code passes all tests, it’s automatically pushed live. Manual deployment is a feature of Continuous Delivery, not Continuous Deployment.

Extract-style reference:

“Continuous Deployment means that every change goes through the pipeline and is automatically put into production, resulting in many production deployments every day.”

—Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, Jez Humble & Nicole Forsgren

DevOps Foundation v3.6distinguishes between Continuous Delivery (manual trigger) and Continuous Deployment (fully automated).

When work is delayed due to resource availability or local optimizations causing global degradation, the issue relates toThe First Way—maximizing flow from left to right.

Organizations should analyze and remove bottlenecks in the delivery pipeline (e.g., in testing).

Extract-style reference:

“Optimizing the flow of work requires eliminating bottlenecks, delays, and handoffs that slow the movement of changes from development to operations.”

—The Phoenix Project

DevOps Foundation courseware discusses value stream mapping and the First Way as critical tools for diagnosing and correcting such issues.

Ablame cultureis toxic and inhibits innovation. DevOps encourages a culture where risk-taking and experimentation are rewarded, not punished.

Organizations should "build rituals that reward risk taking"—examples include celebrating “fast failures” and running blameless post-mortems.

Extract-style reference:

“Encourage a culture where failure is seen as a learning opportunity, not a cause for punishment. Rituals that reward risk-taking foster innovation and create psychological safety.”

—DevOps Handbook

DevOps Foundation v3.6 (Cultural Principles section) advocates psychological safety, learning from failure, and reward systems that incentivize experimentation.

Lean tools and practicesare foundational to DevOps because they help organizations systematically identify and eliminate waste, optimize value delivery, and continuously improve processes.

Lean thinkingfocuses on value stream mapping, reducing delays, bottlenecks, over-processing, handoffs, rework, and unnecessary tasks—core to making DevOps successful.

Option D, “They help identify waste and assist in the creation of improvement practices,” perfectly captures this focus.

Extract-style reference:

“Lean enables teams to identify value and non-value-added activities and to use continuous improvement techniques such as Kaizen, value stream mapping, and removing waste.”

—DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6: Lean tools like Value Stream Mapping, 5S, and Kaizen are cited as critical enablers for optimizing the flow and improving IT and business alignment.

Manufacturingisnota type of IT work in DevOps.

DevOps classifies IT work as:

Business projects:New value-creating work.

Planned work:Routine, repeatable tasks (maintenance, upgrades).

Unplanned work:Incidents, emergencies, support.

Extract-style reference:

“IT work includes business projects, planned work, and unplanned work. Manufacturing is an analogy for flow, but not a category of IT work itself.”

—The Phoenix Project

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6:Recognizes these three categories to manage and improve IT workloads.

Command(authoritarianism) is not a crucial ingredient for leading digital transformation.

The key ingredients:

Collaboration

Curiosity

Courage

DevOps leadership is about empowering teams, experimenting, and driving change,notcommand-and-control.

Extract-style reference:

“Digital transformation leaders embrace collaboration, curiosity, and courage, fostering an environment where experimentation and learning drive change.”

—Accelerate,DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6:Advocates servant and transformational leadership, not command/control.