Entrepreneurs and business managers generally have a busy day with several things to take care of---- from meeting the investors to planning the financial year activities to setting business goals (monthly, quarterly, and yearly).
Still, most professionals manage to streamline their work and provide positive outcomes. How?
Through efficient planning and strategizing!
That's exactly what software release management does for SaaS and IT-focused businesses.
So, what exactly is release management?
What is software release management?
Software release management is a process by which you track, plan, and manage the development of your software. It's a way to ensure that all your developers in a particular team work towards the same goal and create an optimal product.
You can leverage a release management strategy in the DevSecOps environment to ensure that your team is hitting deadlines and creating timely updates for your customers without compromising on security.
What are the various phases in software release management?
Planning phase
The first phase is the planning and requirement analysis phase.
- This is when you determine what your end users demand in the next update and how you'll achieve it.
- The stakeholders and leadership professionals pick out the best and most crucial changes that need to be part of the release.
- You'll also need to plan the timelines and resources associated with the release.
Design phase
- During this stage, you should identify the solution's functionality and how it will work to solve your client's problems.
- The design phase is also when you work with the technology stack to actually build the product.
Also read: IT Management Tools: A Definitive Guide
Testing phase
- In this stage, you implement the solution into a working environment and test it for bugs and functionality.
- You also ensure that all resources are available for testing purposes (e.g., memory, bandwidth).
- The DevSecOps environment integrates security at the early stages of release management.
- Both the designing and testing phases are iterative.
Deployment phase
At this point, you deploy your solution to production—usually via an automated process.
You also start collecting user feedback, monitoring product performance, discussing the events during the particular release, and creating a preliminary blueprint for the next release.
What are the software release management best practices?
Release management aims to ensure that your software meets customer needs and expectations.
Define the scope and release goals
Have a clear understanding of who your customers are and their expectations before you begin working on a project. This will help you plan the scope of your project early on so that you can ensure that it fits within your budget.
Set realistic timelines
Before beginning work on it, you should also consider how long it'll take to develop your product or service. If you do not have enough time to complete your project before its due date, this may cause problems later down the road when it comes to releasing it into production.
Communication is the key to smooth release
Communicate with your customers about what features will be available at each stage of development so they know when they can expect to see new features in their products or services.
Appoint a release manager
Appoint a release manager to monitor the workflows regularly throughout the software release management window to ensure everything runs smoothly.
What are the benefits of software release management?
Software release management is a process that helps software teams to ship software products faster and more reliably. The benefits of using the process include the following:
- Improving team communication and coordination by establishing a process for releasing software.
- Identifying and addressing risks associated with releases.
- Reducing risk by eliminating surprises.
- Making releases more predictable leads to improved customer satisfaction.
- Improving quality by removing bottlenecks in the development process
- Reducing the time required to create a new release
What are the qualities or skills of a good release manager?
A release manager is a person who ensures that all of the components of a software release are in place and ready to be used. These people are responsible for keeping track of the release, ensuring that everything is ready for use, and ensuring the product is released on time.
The most important skills of a release manager include the following:
- Strong communication skills.
- Good understanding of technical concepts associated with a release.
- The ability to manage multiple projects together.
- A good sense of time management.
Wrapping up!
Release management is the most optimal way to streamline a software release workflow and save time and money. An efficient release keeps both customers and investors happy! Your business also generates a good ROI. Aren't these great news for a business leader? What are you waiting for? Hire the best resources to streamline your release process today!
