When to Release?

It is often a question to release manager or product manager -- when is the new application or new changes to be released to production. Some managers believe in “release early” and some believe in “release often”, and not to our surprises, many managers like to “release early and release often”. No matter what your belief is, never ever release an application/change that is NOT STABLE.

I was a release manager for a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) of a UK based commercial bank, we had 4 major releases in a year. We conducted reviews and assessment and extensive testing on the application/changes. We had meeting with the project teams and service managers about whether to release the new changes.

Reasons to Release

1. The changes were tested and stable.
2. The release of the changes had been scheduled. If we missed the release date, we would miss the release window and re-scheduled was required. Individual release could be arranged but was not encouraged.
3. Regulatory Compliance.
4. Real pressures from business users.

Reasons not to Release

1. The changes were not meeting the requirements.
2. The changes were potential harms to production.
3. User Acceptance Test was not signed off.
4. Disagreement from CAB (Change Advisory Board).
   

There were many struggling internally, with everyone has their own stake. However, we had to face the reality, the real pressures were come from business users and the regulators, we decided to release the changes. The most important lesson to me was that we couldn’t set the priority to the changes, the priority was often set by the business users.

I kept a simple checklist when came to production readiness assessments:

1. Are there any major bugs in the changes?
2. Has all stakeholders made aware of the new changes?
3. What is the impact if the changes are not release?
4. What is the impact if the changes are delayed?
5. Will the new changes be impacting other modules?

I couldn’t answer the assessment by myself. Instead, I worked with other teams to complete all the necessary assessments.