- The business demands high service and IT needs to respond. Rapid customer response through efficient release and deployment is critical to maintain high business satisfaction.
- The lack of process ownership leads to chaotic and uncoordinated releases, resulting in costly rework and poor hand-offs.
- IT emphasizes tools but release tools and technologies alone will not fix the problem. Tools are integrated into the processes they support – if the process challenges aren’t addressed first, then the tool won’t help.
- Releases are traditionally executed in silos with limited communication across the entire release pipeline. Culturally, there is little motivation for cross-functional collaboration and holistic process optimization.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Release management is not solely driven by tools. It is about delivering high quality releases on time through accountability and governance aided by the support of tools.
- Release management is independent of your software development lifecycle (SDLC). Release management practices sit as an agnostic umbrella over your chosen development methodology.
- Ownership of the entire process is vital. Release managers ensure standards are upheld and the pipeline operates efficiently.
Impact and Result
- Acquire release management ownership. Ensure there is appropriate accountability for speed and quality of the releases passing through the entire pipeline. A release manager has oversight over the entire release process and facilitates the necessary communication between business stakeholders and various IT roles.
- Instill holistic thinking. Release management includes all steps required to push release and change requests to production along with the hand-off to Operations and Support. Increase the transparency and visibility of the entire pipeline to ensure local optimizations do not generate bottlenecks in other areas.
- Standardize and lay a strong release management foundation. Optimize the key areas where you are experiencing the most pain and continually improve.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.3/10
Overall Impact
$44,874
Average $ Saved
21
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Lee County Clerk of Courts
Guided Implementation
10/10
$62,999
10
Shared Services Canada
Workshop
10/10
$23,500
9
Kiewit
Guided Implementation
9/10
$30,999
10
Omaha Public Power District
Guided Implementation
8/10
$61,999
55
City of Virginia Beach
Guided Implementation
5/10
N/A
N/A
Elections Canada
Workshop
9/10
$25,000
10
Ovivo Water
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
Delta Dental Washington
Guided Implementation
3/10
N/A
N/A
Workshop: Optimize Applications Release Management
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Review Your Release Management Objectives
The Purpose
- Reveal the motivators behind the optimization of release management.
- Identify the root causes of current release issues and challenges.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Ensure business alignment of optimization efforts.
- Firm grasp of why teams are facing release issues and the impacts they have on the organization.
Activities
Outputs
Identify the objectives for application release.
- Release management business objectives and technical drivers
Conduct a current state assessment of release practices.
- Current state assessment of release processes, communication flows, and tools and technologies
Module 2: Standardize Release Management
The Purpose
- Alleviate current release issues and challenges with best practices.
- Standardize a core set of processes, tools, and roles & responsibilities to achieve consistency, cadence, and transparency.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Repeatable execution of the same set of processes to increase the predictability of release delivery.
- Defined ownership of release management.
- Adaptable and flexible release management practices to changing business and technical environments.
Activities
Outputs
Strengthen your release process.
- Processes accommodating each release type and approach the team is required to complete
Coordinate releases with a program framework.
- Release calendars and program framework
Manage release issues with change management practices.
- Release change management process
Define your release management team.
- Defined responsibilities and accountabilities of release manager and release management team
Module 3: Roll Out Release Management Enhancements
The Purpose
- Define metrics to validate release management improvements.
- Identify the degree of oversight and involvement of the release management team.
- Prioritize optimization roadmap against business needs and effort.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Easy-to-gather metrics to measure success that can be communicated to stakeholders.
- Understanding of how involved release management teams are in enforcing release management standards.
- Practical and achievable optimization roadmap.
Activities
Outputs
Define your release management metrics.
- List of metrics to gauge success
Ensure adherence to standards.
- Oversight and reporting structure of release management team
Create your optimization roadmap.
- Release management optimization roadmap