The DevOps Effectiveness Assessment (DEA) is a new IVI assessment drawing on the IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF). The assessment provides a holistic analysis of an organization’s DevOps maturity, and identifies the key relevant IT-CMF Critical Capabilities (CCs) to aid improvement. DevOps refers to a set of technical, architectural, and cultural practices aimed at increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of delivering business needs into production, through improved communication and collaboration between business, development, and IT operations. The DEA is based on rigorous academic research and collaboration with experts from leading organizations. This paper outlines the key insights from this research, which have informed the development of the DEA.