Software development has grown into a highly complex process requiring thorough knowledge, understanding, expertise, mastery, and talent. A concrete software release plan is essential for a successful software launch. In Software Development, terms like “Downtime”, “Bugs”, “Dissatisfied Customers,” “Lifecycle”, etc., suggest that it’s time we understand the software release process.
You cannot afford half-cooked releases in this ever-changing digital world. However, we have seen problems arising from the changes done in the software or its environment. There is a need to avoid costly losses and keep your business running flawlessly; investing in steady Software release planning is crucial.
Table of Contents
Meaning of Software Release
Software Release denotes a software release from the Licensor consisting of two or three digits split by decimal points. The first digit indicates the Major Release number, followed by the second digit, the Minor Release number, and then optionally a third digit corresponding to the Maintenance Release number.
What is Software Release Planning?
Software Release Planning is the selected program for various software release dates that ensure meeting the schedule.
It needs planning, management, and control of a software development lifecycle through creating, testing, positioning, and upholding the software release.
Software release planning has to assure software delivery speed, quality, and efficacy. You can arm your team with the required information with a proper release plan to improve the likelihood of a successful software release. Therefore, a software release offers services and functions that are accessible to customers and is not a strategy but a service.
According to the ISO/IEC 20000 standard, Software Release Planning is a set of changed services or service components deployed to production due to one or more modifications.
A company releases software features based on a compatible marketing plan or pauses releases to stop existing products from being dismantled. The release is a crucial action that might become a counter-competitive activity if released impulsively.
12 Steps for a Software Release Plan
1. Setting the Goal to the requirements of both business and target consumers. A software release plan should have reasonable goals that cater to your target audience & your business goals.
2. Check and Map Out Backlogs that should have high-level scope definitions. All team members must comprehend the scale at the highest level and map out the tasks. Before release, you must recognize the product’s lack and check the backlogs.
Meet your Agile team if you use Scrum for tackling product backlog. Refrain from wasting your time on unrelated work that might stop you from reaching your obligation.
3. Assess the release after drafting the goal and assessing the product backlog; you must plan a quick session with stakeholders and your Agile team. You have to check the suggested release plan and add, dismiss or limit additional provisions if needed.
The release plan has to complement the product idea and move one step toward your goal. Ensure everyone in your team is on the same page and is working toward the common goal of the project.
4. Explain the Number of Sprints. Sprints are small release plans, and you can estimate the sprints required to achieve the product vision based on your team’s speed.
Each sprint should be balanced and manageable. Avoid overstuffing the sprint, or else your team might face a load of executing it, which may interfere with the release quality. On the contrary, if your targets are few in the sprint, your project will take much time to complete and delay the release date.
5. Assemble a Release Sprint. There should be no more development at this release planning stage, and a release Sprint should devote exclusively to new deliverables. Focus is now on the joint task within your backlog for each release, like testing, user documentation, bug fixing, etc.
You can skip repeating this step in all your release plans. If you have unfinished work before launching software into production, it is better to have an additional sprint for the tasks.
6. Share Only Completed Functions
Releasing incomplete features reduces the quality of a project which can lead to the collection of technical debt.
7. Use Analytics
Analyze the speed, power, and bugs before adding new features to your release. The tools you can use for this are the Burndown/Burndown Chart and the Cumulative Flow Chart.
8. Involve More People
Involving the stakeholders and team members in the planning process is advisable to ensure smooth functioning.
9. Need an Efficient Deployment Process in Place
It would be best if you had automation tools for deployment in place, a systemized granular flow for collecting and analyzing data, and a contingency plan ready.
10. Continuous Improvement of the Release Process
Your current release process may look fine, but it could get seriously impaired or buggy at any time. You should have constant attention to planning which will ensure better performance.
11. Fix a Release Date. Fixing a release date is an integral part of an effective release plan, and all the stakeholders and team members should have access to your release plan. A specific timeline and workflow will have the stakeholders bet on the product.
12. Keep Plan Up to the Minute. A plan is always subject to changes; sticking to a rigid schedule and developing your product takes time. Remain open to revising the plan, so the process runs hassle-free, and you can have a high-quality release on time.
Types of Releases
Software release management has three types: major, minor, and emergency.
1. Major Software Releases
Major releases either add changes to existing features or add entirely new features to the software, and these fix problems in the earlier software versions.
2. Minor Software Releases
Minor releases fix minor bugs and also make improvements to the existing features. Significant releases with modifications and changes are added on the top for large-scale point updates.
3. Emergency Fixes
When problems need an immediate address, emergency fixes are used to fix the bugs and issues in software.
Stages of Software Release Processes
The five most crucial phases of the release management lifecycle are planning, building, testing, preparing, and deploying.
Stage 1. Planning
Take the initiative to meet with your stakeholders and discuss the software planning. Consider the following steps before you embark upon this preliminary step:
- Kick off a meeting
- Compose a business case
- Make a Scope of Work with a breakdown structure displaying the project dependencies.
The manager will find it easier to complete the system development lifecycle once stage 1 is done. It benefits your software development team members to understand your project’s high-level scope.
Stage 2. Building
Team members start building the software at this stage, which is time-consuming since there can be testing and improving software features. Stakeholders need to be informed about the goals. Share details of the release plan now.
It would help if you started scrutinizing possible risks or bugs in your production setting before you go to the testing phase.
Stage 3. Testing
Testing confirms that the product functions perfectly and is ready to be launched. You must ensure that the product is bug-free and start user testing, particularly at this stage. You will benefit if you allow the consumer to test your solution at this stage.
Stage 4. Preparing
In the pre-release phase, teams should make the changes and optimize functionality in the staging environment. It will guarantee that the software functions correctly and can be released for a run.
One final quality checks to ensure that your software functions correctly. The more checks, the better it will be. Once the software is ready and approved, you can plan its deployment in a live environment.
Stage 5. Deployment
This step is final in releasing software; additional testing while deploying software ensures proper release. You must complete the project tasks after running the software and making all required changes to the integration.
Approaches of Release Management
It will be helpful if you follow the five steps above; you can use several other ways to complete your release. Agile and Waterfall development are the most popular and practical methods.
Agile Release Management
The Agile approach to release management is continuous development, which is the capability to change new features, configuration changes, bug fixes, experiments, etc. Agile management releases them into production or to the users fast and quickly. Similar to Agile development, releases comprise small loads of high-priority, high-value features. Therefore, agile teams go for more minor, regular releases than the standard ones.
Traditional Waterfall Release Management
A traditional Waterfall Approach is where we build releases following different steps in the process. When we complete those other steps, we deploy the complete solution. The release is about building, testing, and packaging these software releases.
Waterfall methodologies work best when you have a clear and definite requirement for a software product in advance. Discussion with the business side is vital before release. Management should know the release needs and have the coordinates with IT on a table to decide what will be the priority according to resource availability.
The release manager is responsible for making and running the software release plan. Then the release package is tested and accepted by the quality assurance team. It is finally ready to be deployed to a production domain where newly released features are available to consumers.
Software Release Plan Template
A plan template is a prerequisite for a release which gives team members and stakeholders a better picture. The release manager has to incorporate a release plan template with the team’s sprint planning. Teams use agile releases for product groups which are fast and flexible software development, and the release manager creates new iterations of release templates to keep everything in one place.
Select the Best Software Release Planning Template for the Team
You can present a release plan with PowerPoint and Google Sheets, using tables and text boxes to deliver your plan. You may need other in-house development aids to combine with your existing tools and processes for the template.
Takeaways
- Remember that software planning release is not easy, but it’s worth it.
- Planning always equips you with a better grasp of the goals and helps you better control their achievement.
- In the end, success rates of well-planned releases are more and have fewer bugs.
