Can somebody point me to resources on the internet that deals with best practices for managing IT product releases?
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RamaRaghavendran's picture

Can somebody point me to resources on the internet that deals with best practices for managing IT product releases?

We are a small IT company developing a variety of IT products. I want to incorporate best practices into our product lifecycle management (PLM) process

Thanks,
Rama

Sourabh Chowdhury's picture

Best practices for managing IT product releases:

Plan release

The planning stage may be the most time intensive as this is where your entire release is structured from start to finish. A robust release plan will help your team stay on track and ensure standards and requirements are properly met.

 Build release

With the release plan finalized, you can start designing and building the product for release. This is the actual “development” of the product based on the requirements outlined in the release plan.

User acceptance testing

User acceptance testing, also known as UAT, is when the end users the product was built for get to actually use it and give feedback. This is often done as a free beta trial online or shared with a larger group of employees within the company.

Prepare release

This step is to put the finishing touches on the product, taking into account everything that was learned in UAT. Release preparation also includes a final quality review by the QA team.

Deploy release

The big day has finally arrived and here is where all your team’s hard work pays off. It’s time to release your product into the wilds of the live production environment.

Besides simply sending the build out into production, the deployment stage also includes messaging and education on the product to both the end user and your company at large.

 

For an automation tool for mobile app testing, an interface which can be easily used by anyone means that the automation tool brings everything at one place and assists the QA community on their journey of testing. QAppAssure is one such testing tool that acts as an interface which can be easily used by anyone. It provides a platform for the QA folks to easily integrate issue management portal, test case management portal, CI/CD tools and messaging channels and test their products on a test bed of both real and cloud devices.

jptownsend's picture

Rama,

There ais no clear answer to your question. When you use the term best practices, it can be misleading. Remember this one statement, what is good for me can poison you.

So with that said, a lot of it depends on your environment, your testing abilities and what you are developing. There is no magic answer and it all deoends on a lot of variables. Are these products inward or outward facing? Are they going to be SaaS applications, in the cloud, fat clients, etc. Are you using Agile Development methodlogies or waterfall? Are you a regulated industry or not, how big is your team, a small IT shop to you may be a big IT shop to me.

So to sum it up, there are many factors that your release schedule depends on, finding the right mix and the right way will take time.

Regards,

Joe

2 Answers

jptownsend's picture

Rama,

There ais no clear answer to your question. When you use the term best practices, it can be misleading. Remember this one statement, what is good for me can poison you.

So with that said, a lot of it depends on your environment, your testing abilities and what you are developing. There is no magic answer and it all deoends on a lot of variables. Are these products inward or outward facing? Are they going to be SaaS applications, in the cloud, fat clients, etc. Are you using Agile Development methodlogies or waterfall? Are you a regulated industry or not, how big is your team, a small IT shop to you may be a big IT shop to me.

So to sum it up, there are many factors that your release schedule depends on, finding the right mix and the right way will take time.

Regards,

Joe

Sourabh Chowdhury's picture

Best practices for managing IT product releases:

Plan release

The planning stage may be the most time intensive as this is where your entire release is structured from start to finish. A robust release plan will help your team stay on track and ensure standards and requirements are properly met.

 Build release

With the release plan finalized, you can start designing and building the product for release. This is the actual “development” of the product based on the requirements outlined in the release plan.

User acceptance testing

User acceptance testing, also known as UAT, is when the end users the product was built for get to actually use it and give feedback. This is often done as a free beta trial online or shared with a larger group of employees within the company.

Prepare release

This step is to put the finishing touches on the product, taking into account everything that was learned in UAT. Release preparation also includes a final quality review by the QA team.

Deploy release

The big day has finally arrived and here is where all your team’s hard work pays off. It’s time to release your product into the wilds of the live production environment.

Besides simply sending the build out into production, the deployment stage also includes messaging and education on the product to both the end user and your company at large.

 

For an automation tool for mobile app testing, an interface which can be easily used by anyone means that the automation tool brings everything at one place and assists the QA community on their journey of testing. QAppAssure is one such testing tool that acts as an interface which can be easily used by anyone. It provides a platform for the QA folks to easily integrate issue management portal, test case management portal, CI/CD tools and messaging channels and test their products on a test bed of both real and cloud devices.
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