Establishing Guidelines for Release Planning
Features with the highest complexities (generally meaning that it also has the highest level of risk) are generally prioritised for early validation during the testing process. Testers will work with the developers to ensure that these features go through an extensive set of quality assurance tests. Feature testing can also be prioritised based on the expected usage by customers. Features that will be utilised the most should be validated with a higher priority to ensure a positive user experience.
Testing approvals will be defined by the testers and approved by the Product Owner. An example would be categorising defects as show-stoppers, important and low impact defects. Testers will not allow features to move into production that are show-stoppers. This may mean delaying the release of features or moving the next iteration of development to a future sprint to correct either initial use cases or defects. Important feature defects will be reviewed on a one-by-one basis with the product owner to determine if a workaround is acceptable. Defects that do not impact the product in production can be moved to the product backlog for later consideration in sprint planning.
Functionality Driven and Date Driven releases are two primary modelling techniques used to define the scope of a release.
Functionality Driven release cycles use modelling techniques that employ the input of the product owner and project stakeholders in determining which features need to be delivered to the end user in order to gain the greatest value. The scope of features and the time that it will take to deliver determines the release date. The testers will actively work on the backlog and release planning with the product owner to assign viability to feature sets based upon known complexities and dependencies in testing.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: