Release Planning

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hi, this is Ray Sheen.
• 00:06 One more item associated with managing the backlog is Release planning.
• 00:10 The Product Owner will often segregate the product backlog into releases
• 00:15 to aid in the management of the project.
• 00:18 So let's talk about releases and some considerations when planning them.
• 00:22 If you have a large Agile/Scrum project,
• 00:24 it is often helpful to divide the product backlog into releases.
• 00:28 This will allow you an opportunity to do periodic evaluations
• 00:32 of project progress with an actual product or system.
• 00:36 The deliverable that is needed for
• 00:37 each release is a potentially shippable product.
• 00:41 This means that the product or system is at a state
• 00:44 where the Product Owner is willing to allow others to evaluate the system.
• 00:47 It has fully functioning set of features and
• 00:49 capabilities that were defined to be part of the release.
• 00:53 Not necessarily everything on the product backlog, but
• 00:56 a subset of functions that will work together.
• 00:59 It does not mean that you must ship the product, but
• 01:01 rather that is a complete enough state that you can evaluate product performance.
• 01:06 Think of it as an alpha or beta prototype unit that are used for evaluation and
• 01:10 characterization.
• 01:12 Depending upon the goals and the target of the release, and
• 01:15 its potentially shippable product, a subset of the story cards often including
• 01:20 some of the must have, should have, could have's and want have's will be included.
• 01:26 There are two different approaches that can be used when doing Release planning,
• 01:29 either Development-focused or Market-focused.
• 01:32 Either way, the release will often have several Sprints.
• 01:35 You can do a release after every Sprint and on a small project,
• 01:39 that may make sense.
• 01:40 But often on large projects, there is not enough new capability created in a two or
• 01:45 three week Sprint to make it worthwhile for
• 01:47 the organization to do the work of another release.
• 01:51 Let's consider Development Release Planning first.
• 01:54 This is normally used for projects they're developing a brand new product, system, or
• 01:58 process.
• 01:59 Because it is new there are many aspects of the features and
• 02:03 functions that must be tested and tried.
• 02:05 The early releases are used to reduce the technical risk on the project
• 02:09 by having the new technology or system do some of the basic or
• 02:12 simple functions that it will need to do.
• 02:14 With the early release of basic functions, the stakeholders can be evaluating
• 02:19 that while the scrum team is working on a next Sprint.
• 02:23 You can expect a bunch of new and
• 02:25 changing stories from the early releases of a technology development project.
• 02:30 The early release will answer some questions, raise some others, and
• 02:34 provide a much better context for the stakeholders to set their expectations.
• 02:39 When used well,
• 02:40 the early release resolves the highest technical risk items on the project.
• 02:45 The other type of Release planning is Market-focused Release planning.
• 02:48 This is often used with a product or
• 02:50 system that goes through regular updates or releases.
• 02:54 An example could be a system that has a quarterly update to add new features and
• 02:58 improve performance.
• 03:00 The basic function doesn't change, but every release incorporates those features
• 03:04 that are most important at that time to the market or business.
• 03:07 Another example is a product that prepares a new release for each new selling season.
• 03:13 In that case, the Product Owner often has a very long wishlist of stories.
• 03:17 Here she will decide which stores will be in the next release
• 03:20 based upon the Sprint capacity and velocity.
• 03:24 Let me give you an example of Release planning.
• 03:27 In this case, we have a website who are upgrading for
• 03:30 consumer products company that was formed from a recent merger.
• 03:33 The company quickly put a basic website in place, but
• 03:36 they now want to set up a schedule where they provide major upgrades every quarter.
• 03:41 For the first quarterly update,
• 03:43 the Product Owner decides that the focus would be to get online sales started.
• 03:47 They needed to get their online store operational.
• 03:50 In the first Sprint, the emphasis was just getting the structure in place for
• 03:54 large online shopping website.
• 03:56 And insuring that the highest technical risk of secure login was working.
• 04:00 The next Sprint focused on getting the store database and functionality working.
• 04:05 The third Sprint, added some basic social media and
• 04:07 interaction elements to the website.
• 04:10 With that the first release was ready.
• 04:12 It was focused on a basic functionality of the new store and how it works.
• 04:17 This is a potentially shippable product and can be released to the customer base
• 04:21 to allow them to buy products from the new company and
• 04:24 allow the new company to engage with their customers.
• 04:27 The next release is scheduled for three months later,
• 04:30 and then we'll add a lot more interactivity and customer customization.
• 04:33 The first Sprint in this quarter, converts the site into the responsive web approach
• 04:38 and adds the customization capability and structure.
• 04:41 The next Sprint adds the web page analytics and
• 04:44 embeds features that allows a customer to customize the look and feel of the page.
• 04:49 The third sprint begins to preload some of the customizable content and
• 04:53 includes poles and games for
• 04:54 customers that will provide incentives to improve their shopping experience.
• 04:59 This release is focused on user customization.
• 05:02 Of course, this release will also probably include a few stories
• 05:06 that have been added to correct bugs or
• 05:08 improve the functionality from their preceding release.
• 05:11 Knowing the release plan, the product owner is better able to determine which
• 05:15 stories best fit each of the releases and if there are other stories that don't fit
• 05:20 either release, the product owner can decide how to prioritize them and
• 05:24 whether to include them or wait for another release in another quarter.
• 05:30 Release planning is a great benefit to the Product Owner
• 05:33 when prioritizing the product backlog.
• 05:35 Releases can be structured to minimize the technical risk or focus on market offers.

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