Release planning: What is it and why is it important?

No matter what software you’re shipping to your customers, release planning is the magic wand that ensures your release is executed smoothly and without any hiccups.

While the term “release planning” may seem self-explanatory, it’s often oversimplified as merely setting timelines and documenting release changes. To truly understand the value of release planning and its pivotal role in successful software delivery, this post explores what it is, why it matters, and how it supports engineering and QA teams.

At its core, release planning is a structured process involving checklists, documentation, and workflows that ensure a software release is well-organized and runs smoothly.

What is release planning?

At its core, release planning is a structured process involving checklists, documentation, and workflows that ensure a software release is well-organized and runs smoothly. It breaks down various components of a release and clearly defines each of them.

Typically, release planning entails figuring out what the release would include—bug fixes, enhancements, UI updates, new features, etc. It lays out the objectives and scope of the release. It also specifies timelines for the release and how resources will be allocated to manage the release.

If a release were your next trip to the Cayman Islands, release planning would be everything you do to ensure the trip is smooth and enjoyable.

What is the difference between sprint planning and release planning?

You may find people using the terms “release planning” and “sprint planning” interchangeably, but they are distinctly different.

Sprint planning focuses on shorter releases that go on for about a week, or maybe two to three weeks. Release planning, on the other hand, focuses on longer releases that span across more than four weeks or even a couple of months.

Whereas sprint planning revolves around quick things that need to be shipped, release planning is a broader process that aligns with the long-term strategy of a business or a company.

As project management has evolved, release planning has also evolved significantly within Agile frameworks. It’s an integral part of common Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban.

Why is release planning important?

Executing a release can be chaotic and cumbersome without a clear path to how the release will be executed, what it will include, etc. Release planning streamlines your release and gives you and your stakeholders better visibility. It mitigates communication gaps across people involved in the release, provides clarity to those who are executing the release, and keeps other cross-functional teams informed of the impact of the release so they can plan their work accordingly.

Release planning makes sure a release is well thought out and executed correctly.

“Plans are worthless; planning is everything.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower’s quote, famously echoed in DevOps and Agile circles, highlights the dynamic characteristics of software development. Even if the original release plan changes, the act of planning enables the team to have foresight, alignment, and makes them adaptable, making release planning an irreplaceable process.

What should a release plan include?

A release plan should outline and document what items the release will involve, classify these items, set priority levels for these items, and indicate how these items will be executed and who will execute them. It should also include estimations on workloads for the release items and timelines that the release should adhere to.

Key components and steps of release planning

Let’s dive deeper and dissect the various components involved in release planning.

Scope definition

As the first step, you should define everything that will be included in the release. List every feature enhancement or bug fix that the release will contain, and also classify each as a new feature, enhancement, bug fix, etc. You can have your own custom types for release items, even if they are internal jargon you commonly use, as long as it’s something that helps everyone working on the release identify that release item.

This step defines the scope of your release and gives you a sense of how big or small it will be. At this point, your release items are listed out alongside the broad category they belong to.

Prioritization

Now that your release has a defined scope, you can weigh how each release item compares against another based on various factors.

A common question people often face is: How do you prioritize features and tasks during the release planning process?

You can define certain rules for prioritizing release items. For instance, considering which features offer the most business value, or which are the most technically feasible, etc. These rules are subjective and may vary depending on your business’s short-term and long-term goals.

Based on these factors, you can determine the priority order for the features. This prioritization will help you trim things down when your release is falling behind schedule, or allow you to allocate resources accordingly.

Popular prioritization techniques include:

• MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won’t-have)
• WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)

Estimating workloads

In this step, you can estimate the overall workload that will be required for the entire release, as well as for its individual items. Using estimation techniques like story points or T-shirt sizing can be helpful here.

In this step, you determine how to allocate parts of the release to individuals based on their expertise and the skills required.

Resource allocation

Next, you can determine the staffing and technical resources needed to execute the release. In this step, you determine how to allocate parts of the release to individuals based on their expertise and the skills required.

For example, depending on how much end-to-end testing is needed, you can allocate the proper number of QA engineers to the release.

Timelines and milestones

The next step is laying out clear timelines and breaking these timelines into milestones. Milestones help you gauge if your release is on track or how far off it is from its schedule, so you can account for the delay in advance.

Risk management

By now, you should have a good understanding of what the release will involve. Now’s the time to identify potential delays, blockers, or risks that could disrupt progress. Being proactive enables you to create mitigation strategies that can be applied if surprises occur.

Execution and monitoring

Once your release is planned, you need to ensure it executes correctly by monitoring the release progress from time to time. Milestones can be helpful here, but you can also monitor potential blockers or risks, de-prioritize some release items based on dynamic factors like sudden resource crunch, etc.

Keeping a tight loop on how the release is taking shape is crucial to knowing what targets you’ll hit and by when.

Retrospective analysis

Stakeholder communication

Post release, make sure you’re evaluating its success and identifying areas for improvement. For instance, if the release was delayed due to underestimated technical work, factor that into future planning. When the release is in motion, keep stakeholders (like managers and business owners) informed and aligned. Continuous updates help maintain trust and ensure everyone is on the same page.

Who is responsible for release planning?

Release planning is a highly collaborative process and typically involves:

• Product managers
• Scrum masters or project managers
• Software developers/engineers
• QA engineers
• DevOps teams/SREs

Benefits of release planning

The following advantages make a strong case for why release planning should be essential for organizations, both big and small.

Expectation alignment

Effective release planning helps set expectations and alignment among teams in the organization. For instance, if your business teams know what’s going out and when, they can plan sales and marketing campaigns accordingly.

Lack of visibility and accountability can be frustrating for people whose work depends on the originally planned timelines for the release.

Accountability and visibility

Effective release planning sets clear expectations across teams. For example, when business teams know what’s shipping and when, they can schedule sales and marketing campaigns accordingly. Lack of visibility and accountability can be frustrating for people whose work depends on the originally planned timelines for the release.

Improved communication

Release planning also helps keep a tight loop of communication within your team and the broader organization. If you’ve defined a release early on, your stakeholders and teammates are well informed. Your managers know which release you’re going to be occupied with for the next two months, your QA teams know when to allocate bandwidth for testing the release, etc.

Efficient resource allocation

The biggest advantage of release planning is proactive and efficient resource allocation.

When you define what the release involves and the complexity of each task, you gain a clear picture of which people and teams you’ll need and when.

For example, say a new marketing website is launching in two months. With a proper release plan, you’ll know in advance that you need:

• Designers for visuals
• A content team for SEO
• A frontend developer for coding
• A QA engineer for testing
• A DevOps engineer for deployment

Risk reduction

With release planning, you can foresee potential risks well in advance and plan actionable steps to mitigate those risks. Risk reduction can be crucial in meeting the objectives of your release.

Improved release quality

When everyone understands what they’re working on and why, they tend to take greater ownership of their responsibilities.

This clarity drives up the quality of individual deliverables—and ultimately, the entire release.

Challenges of release planning

Release planning offers numerous benefits, but it also comes with its own set of challenges.

• Incorporating dynamic changes into the scope: Marketing or business teams may request additional features mid-cycle. Technical challenges might also require rescoping. These last-minute changes can inflate the release scope and delay delivery.
• Unpredictable hurdles: Technical challenges or resource constraints can show up at any point, making it difficult to adhere to the timelines originally planned.
• Balancing expectations: Different stakeholders can have conflicting priorities on release items, which can make it difficult to balance expectations.

The very challenges release planning includes can be effectively overcome by being more effective at release planning. For instance,

• Buffer resources to accommodate unexpected constraints.
• Set realistic timelines with wiggle room.
• Document plans thoroughly and maintain proactive communication to manage expectations across teams.

Planning releases properly can help drive down the effects of these challenges, and the net outcome of effective release planning can be positive despite these challenges.

Conclusion

Release planning is essential for successful software delivery, and effective release planning can help you make the most of its advantages. Additionally, by understanding its components, challenges, and benefits, teams can align well and deliver software of exceptional quality, in turn meeting their business objectives.

This post was written by Siddhant Varma. Siddhant is a full stack JavaScript developer with expertise in frontend engineering. He’s worked with scaling multiple startups in India and has experience building products in the Ed-Tech and healthcare industries. Siddhant has a passion for teaching and a knack for writing. He’s also taught programming to many graduates, helping them become better future developers.