RELEASE PLANNING IN AGILE
Release planning in Agile is the establishment of a series of scheduled feature deliveries based on the expectations of the Product Owner and Stakeholders. The scrum team is included in release planning discussions to outline features and functionality in the product backlog by priority order. Technical debt reduction, environment and integration dependencies can be included in releases along with any new features. Testers within a scrum team are key to establishing guidelines, and advising on feature approval for releases.
Releases can be scheduled after each sprint or after the delivery of a series of sprints. The goal of release planning sessions is not to have a static plan for the life of the project. Release plans are iterative and will be revisited along with the product backlog. There are several approaches to guide features included in release planning such as Functionality Driven releases and Date Driven releases.
Establishing Guidelines for Release Planning
Each release should be defined based on a set of criteria that is agreed upon and reviewed during the life of an agile project for relevance. Two key criteria in establishing guidelines are:
- Prioritisation of the feature testing and
- Advising on feature approvals from testing
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: