Releases
Hi guys,
Currently the company where I am at, there are 5 different teams, which have releases almost on a daily basis, some of them unplanned (just notified 1 day ago). This is so because the dynamic of the business is very high, and the amount of tickets in development is high as well. But at the same time this makes it difficult to have smooth releases, a release plan, etc. Also, when at the beginning of the week we have the release meeting, some releases scheduled for 1 day end up going live on a different date.
Is there any way to enhance this process? Any way a more stable process can be defined?
Thank you in advance.
There really should be nothing that prevents the team from releasing in the realm of Scrum and Agile - if every iteration yields a working increment, then it's the PO's discretion if the increment should be released. And that's a good thing, because the release goes to market sooner and customer feedback can come back in sooner as well.
If the instance is that the release keeps yielding bugs/issues, then that's a problem - for this, you'll want to enhance the process starting from the Definition of Done; the increment must match your company's DoD and with built-in quality as well (i.e. unit tests, automated testing).
I'm curious about the infrastructure for your company's releases. Do you have a sandbox and production/live environment to ensure working increments are Done-Done? Is there anything automated in your company's release workflow?
"some releases scheduled for 1 day end up going live on a different date." - why is that? Bad quality? Changing priorities?
Is there any way to enhance this process? Any way a more stable process can be defined?
In Scrum, the Product Owner orders the Product Backlog and is the ultimate arbiter of what goes on it and when, and of what any release plan ought to be. Is that the case here, and if so, is there any evidence that the PO is dissatisfied?