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Release Management Defined: Process Flow, Best Practices, and More

Release management is a growing discipline of software engineering. It concerns everything involved in the software release process, from managing, planning, scheduling, and controlling a software build to the testing, deployment, and future maintenance of the software and its eventual versions.

Thanks in part to agile software development and continuous software delivery, there is a much steadier stream of new and updated software on the Internet these days. For companies in charge of creating and maintaining said software, this can be a daunting undertaking — without a proper release management process, that is.

Without a solid release management cycle and plan, all that investment and time spent in R&D is wasted. So, how exactly is one supposed to standardize something like software, which is continually being updated and rereleased? With the universal release plan:

  1. First, someone decides changes need to be made to an application. This need is documented and results in a release.
  2. A developer sees the changes to be made and edits the source code of the application to remedy the issue(s).
  3. Once ready, the code is aggregated and compiled into a build.
  4. The build is deployed in a staging environment to be thoroughly tested. This staging environment is generally referred to as “dev,” “staging,” or simply “integration.”
  5. The build is tested. The testing can be something as simple as seeing if the page loads, called a “smoke test,” or it can be in depth and executed by a tester.
  6. After initial testing, if the build is up to snuff, it enters another non-production-testing environment. If there are bugs or it doesn’t meet the criteria, it will be retested until it can be considered ready.
  7. Once an application is ready, it is deployed, or “released,” into production.

If one step in the above process suffers, the entire process suffers, which can result in a loss of millions of dollars for some companies. In order to help organizations make the most of their release management, there are several best practices to be aware of.

Best Practices in Release Management

Best practices include building immutability and completeness. Whatever build is deployed into the first environment needs to be the same as the build that is deployed into the final environment. It is also extremely important that a build be released in its entirety as opposed to piecemeal. If a certain feature or change isn’t ready, it should be excluded entirely.

Best practices involve planning and making changes. While it is possible to release an application without a formal process, we don’t recommend it. Release and management planning can be as simple as drafting up release numbers and dates on a whiteboard, or so complex that a well-structured software manager is necessary. Organizing different releases this way will help keep your team from becoming overwhelmed.

Release management is still in its infancy and will continue to grow and change as needed; when it comes to change, communication is key. What works for one organization may not work for everyone else. One way to keep your operation and development teams on the same page is by creating a shared calendar and allowing all parties access. Make sure to include all planned software and all planned changes on the calendar.

Release management is an art, not a science, and the success of an application depends on an organization’s ability to communicate and work together throughout the entire release cycle.

Related Resources

Since you now know some of the basics steps and best practices that the release management process entails, we’ve provided several helpful resources for you to check out about balancing time-to-market pressure with continuity and regulatory demands; new software release management trends that are worth adopting; and an eight question pre-launch checklist that we recommend bookmarking.

Did you enjoy what you just read, learn something new, or find answers that you were looking for? We encourage you to recommend and share this article, so others can learn too! Do you have questions about the release management process or would you like to learn more about one of the specific steps in the process? Let us know in the responses section below.