Releasing the Product for Testers Part 2

One handy thing Scrum teams can provide to their users is a centralised place – like a wiki – that contains information about their product, including FAQs, installation guides, and release notes. Access to Scrum boards, burn-down charts, and release road-maps are also useful for customers so that they can visualise the progress of the product development. If the Scrum teams is using a tracking tool, they could also consider including an automated system for notifying their users every time they release a new version of the product.

How can customers access a Product Deliverable?

Scrum teams also need to assess and plan the best way their customers can access the product deliverable. Do they need to make an update assistant program? Should the newest version be downloaded from a website? Will it automatically install on their user’s machines after a certain period of time? Or will the changes simply show up as soon as the application is restarted?

Regardless of development style, whether it’s a completed product using a traditional process or an interim or partial deliverable using Scrum, the project team must make certain that the product is delivered to the users. There must be standards to be met by the team before they can safely hand over and deploy the software to their users.

It would help for Scrum projects to have a Definition of Done (DoD) at the release level, understood by everyone during Release Planning. This DoD could include things like:

• Passing unit tests
• Passing acceptance tests
• Passing regression tests
• All known critical bugs resolved
• Release notes completed and reviewed

Because Scrum releases the product in increments, this means that they must carry out the checks that are part of their DoD before every release.

It is also best practice for the Scrum team to test the download of their product release, to see that the enhancements will also be seamlessly downloaded by the users.

Delivering product increments to users involve coming up with a sound release plan that’s understood and followed by everyone in the project. By ensuring that the enhancements are well-made, are clearly communicated to the users, and are available for the users to access, Scrum teams are well on their way to successful releases of their products.

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Our Book Recommendations

We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum: