Release Planning — Why, When, How and Who?
Are you familiar with Release Planning? Release Planning is a concept which is predominantly used in Agile to build out a product release road map.
The underlying benefit which a “Release Plan” provides is huge as it aligns all stakeholders to a product road map.
Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan — Tom Landry
Why Release Plan?
- Level set objective and priority with respect to the immediate road map within the team
- Accelerate feature development by level setting on requirements as a team; reduces multiple to-fro meetings which might be needed otherwise
- Ability to evaluate priority and discuss on trade-off options
- Ability to think through the scope/functionality as a team and identify dependencies, risk/mitigation and potential impediments
- Set the goal and measure performance benchmarks
# Team here refers to multiple teams and stakeholders across these teams
When?
- Need to build/enhance a product road map
- Need to make commitments on release timelines
- Scrum teams are settled, have established Scrum Ceremonies and have stable velocity
Entry Criteria for Release Planning
- Draft product road map available with features outlined
- High level requirements for features available
- Clarity in feature priority
Who?
- Product Owner/Manager
- Scrum Team
- Scrum Master (Lead Facilitator)
- Sponsors
- Architecture Team
- Other Support Teams (Based on your organisation)
Typical Agenda for Release Planning?
Introduction (Scrum Master, Product Owner)
The Scrum Master and the Product Owner set the base for Release Planning by outlining the need, agenda and key deliverable from this session.
Working Agreement (Scrum Master)
The Scrum Master facilitates the Working Agreement for the Release Planning sessions — Basic team behavior is nailed out during this session.
Product Vision (Product Owner)
The Product Owner outlines the product goals with the team, this provides the much needed transparency and direction to the team. Teams which have a good understanding of the product vision are likely to be more engaged and deliver better results in the longer run.
Product road map with Tangible & Intangible Benefits (Product Owner)
Define the product road map and outline feature value and priority
Tangible Benefits (Sample)
- Increased Revenue
- Improved Product Quality
- Productivity Gain
- Process Improvement
Intangible Benefits (Sample)
- Improved User Experience
- Increase in Customer Satisfaction
- Compliance Adherence
Persona — As a (Person) definition (Product Owner, Scrum Team)
- Define the various persona the application would need
- Understand persona and how their role affects their use of the application
- Focus on requirement by persona, key problems and expectations
Review Proposed User Stories & Acceptance Criteria ( Product Owner, Scrum Team
- As a Persona, I would like (Need) so that (Business Benefit)
Review of Requirements(Team Breakout)
- Refining User Stories and Acceptance Criteria
- Review Non Functional Requirements including performance, compliance, vulnerability etc.
- Story Point Estimation — Scrum Team
Architecture (Scrum Team, Architects)
- Discuss on impact to architecture based on product road map
- Discuss Integration approach across multiple product lines
Exit Criteria
- Draft Release Plan & Release Train — Scrum Master, Product Owner
- Feature Priority — Value — Cost Comparison — Schedule
- Backlog of Open Questions, Clarifications — Scrum Master, Product Owner
- Next Steps with owners and due date — Scrum Master
Conclusion
Release Planning provides a good platform to level set a plan across teams. It is a great mechanism to align all the stakeholders on feature road map, priority, requirements, risk & mitigation plan and schedule. When done right, release planning can ensure there is a solid backlog for the team to work; the team can focus on burning the backlog as against churning on the backlog.
One other option teams can evaluate is to bring in the key customer stakeholders and for the release planning session to get their feedback and buy-in on requirements, priority and schedule. This can be handled based on customer relationship and maturity of the engagement.
Credits
Thanks to my colleagues Bindiya , Naomi , Sunny and the teams who helped me understand the concept of Release Planning.
