Software Development: Release Methodology

Definition: Process of planning, scheduling, managing, controlling the progress of a software build through the various stages of development and deployment.

Stages

Start Stage: Specification

Development

Unit Testing

Integration Testing

System Testing

User Acceptance Testing

Sign-off

Final Stage: Roll out / Deployment

Requires a number of skills

Technical Knowledge

Risk Management

Stakeholder Engagement

Enterprise Release Management

Business Awareness

Contingency planning, Rolling back, Recovery

A good project manager would be aware of the skills and be able to deploy them on small projects, but for larger projects he needs a dedicated multiple managers.

Revise: A subset of project management skills

Pros And Cons

Pros

Cons

Reduced cycle time

Lack of process description

Too high release distribution rate

Poor Traceability between incident records and release records

Fewer defects

Increased predictability

Excellent compliance

Reduced costs