
Release Management Demystified: The Workings of a Necessary Evil or the Holy Grail of Software Development
Release management can have different effects on the members of the organizational hierarchy depending on their position and responsibilities. It is a necessary step in the software development process. It can signify different things for the development team and the production management team. Release management can involve a new product or the update of old working software.
The presence of a robust release management process enables the production, and development team to monitor the value of the services to the customers of the software service package. There might come a time when today's service package loses its importance to the company. The five critical steps of the release management process help the corporate decision makers determine the right time to retire a particular set of services.
Here are a few things the leading software development companies do to streamline their release management process.
It is imperative for any software development company to have a complete understanding of their release management process. With that knowledge, they establish a regular release cycle. A number of factors including the cycles of non-functional testing and the length of each test will determine the frequency of the release cycles.
The lightweight processes usually need minimum input and output, without the hassle of bureaucratic approvals. The accurate documentation of the testing and building help the teams understand which elements of the entire process requires improving and reviewing.
The release infrastructure puts the requirements of the software building and deployment in the forefront. It encompasses storage, hardware, bandwidth, software licenses, network connections, access permissions, and user profiles. It will help you unveil the hidden bottlenecks in your software development process or the missing skills before the service package goes into mass deployment.
Automation has become a part of every software review and development process. Standardization of the automation process will help you craft a deployment package. Enforcement of the standardized structure will enable the building of the software packages according to a consistent structure at every release point.
When we spoke to Vinod Jethwani, an entrepreneur, he said "the improvement of hardware, software and automation can take an organization only so far. You need to invest in the people – the team members, who commit to the development and deployment of the service packages. Without their commitment, sustainable success of a software release will remain a dream."