Show
Release on Demand is the process that deploys new functionality into production and releases it immediately or incrementally to customers based on demand. Release on Demand is the final aspect in the four-part Continuous Delivery Pipeline of Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, and Release on Demand (Figure 1). Figure 1. Release on Demand is the final element of the Continuous Delivery PipelineThe three aspects that precede Release on Demand help ensure that new functionality is continuously readied and verified in the production environment. But since tangible development value only occurs when end users are operating the Solution in their environment, releasing that value at the right time is critical for the enterprise to gain the real benefits of agility. The decision as to when and what to release is a crucial economic driver that requires careful consideration. For many, continuous delivery is the desired end state, allowing new functionality to be released as soon as it is developed. But more often the release is a decoupled, on-demand activity, occurring for specific users, timed for when they need it, or when it makes the most economic sense for the enterprise. DetailsThe Agile Product Delivery competency article describes how the Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand competency creates the ability to deliver increasingly valuable solutions to end users with optimal frequency. The second part of this competency, the ability to release on demand, raises three questions for Product and Solution Management. These are:
A customer-centric mindset guides how Product and Solution Management answers these questions:
Decoupling releases provides additional benefits that promote business agility, especially for value streams serving external customers:
The Four Activities of Release on DemandAs illustrated in Figure 2, SAFe describes four practices associated Release on Demand:
Release Value to CustomersWhen the Solution is in production and has been verified as operable, the time has come to make it available to customers. This is a crucial business decision, as releasing value too early or too late can have negative economic repercussions. Product management, in collaboration with other stakeholders, establishes policies that govern this process, ranging from automatically allowing qualified code to be released to customers or establishing a more formal review process with a manual gate. The more complex the system, the more likely there will be a manual gate to determine the answers to the critical questions presented earlier (what to release, to whom, and when). Four practices contribute to the ability to release:
For example, the SAFe website that’s hosting this article has multiple, and somewhat independent release cycles. Scaled Agile can:
These separate flows – ‘value streamlets’ – continue to represent a full, end-to-end flow of value within a Value Stream, each of which is managed to deliver value according to its own needs and pace. Identifying streamlets is critical to enable release on demand, as they allow the different elements of the solution to be released independently in a separate cadence. They also provide insights on the organization of teams and ARTs so that they can independently release on demand. Stabilize and OperateThe changes to the solution have been verified after they were deployed, but once customers have access to them, new problems might arise. These new problems not only may be due to the increase in usage, but also due to unexpected usage patterns. Incidents and security threats must be resolved quickly and within agreed to Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Four practices help operate the solution:
Measure the Business ValueThe first activity of continuous exploration is to hypothesize—and as value is released to customers, it’s time to use the application telemetry to measure the hypothesis and the business value delivered. Two practices support this effort:
Learn and ReactThe information gathered from release is used to close the loop in the continuous delivery pipeline. Product management will use these data to make a choices about Epics, determining if the Epic hypothesis was proven true, if a pivot is warranted, or if the Epic should be stopped and development effort applied elsewhere. This is also where learning about the process comes into effect, and the information on how value flowed must be used to improve the continuous delivery pipeline. Three practices help accomplish this:
When features are in the hands-on customers, the value is finally realized. When this value is measured, knowledge informs the ongoing exploration efforts, starting the cycle anew. For one feature, this is the end of the pipeline. For another, however, it’s the beginning, as the continuous delivery process drives new value to users and new learning to the organization continually. Release GovernanceRelease governance is the process of planning, managing, and governing solution releases, which helps guide the value stream toward the business goals. In some enterprises, especially those with significant regulatory and compliance criteria, this is a centralized, Portfolio SAFe team or function (Release Management is a common term) that assures releases meet all the relevant business criteria. In other circumstances, ART and Solution Train leadership and stakeholders from development operations, quality, sales, and other stakeholders assume some release management and governance responsibilities. In either case, release governance facilitates the activities needed to help internal and external stakeholders receive and deploy the new solution. It also ensures that the most critical governance quality elements are appropriately addressed before deployment—particularly internal and external security, regulatory, and other compliance guidelines. Release planning is part of the PI planning process. But that’s the easy part; the hard part is coordinating the implementation of all the capabilities and features over multiple iterations within a release. This is especially true when new issues, roadblocks, dependencies, and gaps in Vision and backlogs are uncovered. Due to these challenges, the scope of each release must be continually managed, revalidated, and communicated. Primary considerations include:
Many enterprises hold release governance events on a regular cadence to address the following questions:
This weekly event provides senior management with regular visibility into the release progress. It’s also the place to approve any scope, timing, people or resource adjustments necessary to assure the release. In a more continuous delivery environment, the participants closely monitor the release section of the Program Kanban, making sure items are released when needed to the right audiences, managing dark and canary releases, verifying that hypotheses are evaluated, and that feature toggles are removed after production verification. Enabling Release on Demand with DevOpsThis aspect of the continuous delivery pipeline reveals the cumulative value of all upstream efforts, closing the learning loop that began with continuous exploration. All activities must be quick, low-risk, aligned to business outcomes, and optimized for fast, accurate feedback. DevOps practices and tooling enable the responsiveness that is so critical in this ‘last mile’ of the delivery pipeline. As depicted in Figure 4, release on demand is enabled by SAFe’s CALMR approach to DevOps (center) as well as several practice domains (inner rings). Each of the four activities (in green) is a collaborative effort that draws upon DevOps expertise from multiple domains to maximize business value and validated learning. Figure 4. DevOps enables release on demandReleasing, for example, requires instantaneous activation of deployed solutions using infrastructure configurations stored in version control, proactive monitoring that informs operations teams of the health, security, and value of those solutions, and fast recovery from production issues in accordance with value stream service level agreements. All four release on demand activities are enabled by DevOps, though with different combinations of technical practices and tooling. For more guidance on DevOps and how it enables the continuous delivery pipeline, see the DevOps article series. Learn More[1] Ries, Eric. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Random House, Inc, 2011. [2] Womack, Jim. Gemba Walks Expanded 2nd Edition. Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc, 2019. [3] Leffingwell, Dean. Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Agile Software Development Series). Pearson Education, 2011. [4] http://www.innovationgames.com [5] Gothelf, Jeff, and Josh Seiden. Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams. O’Reilly Media, 2016. Last update: 27 September 2021 The information on this page is © 2010-2022 Scaled Agile, Inc. and is protected by US and International copyright laws. Neither images nor text can be copied from this site without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Scaled Agile Framework and SAFe are registered trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc. Please visit Permissions FAQs and contact us for permissions. © 2022 Scaled Agile, Inc. All rights reserved. Is a scheduling method that employs a less regular schedule with intermittent periods of advertising and non advertising?Flighting is an advertising scheduling strategy that alternates between running a normal schedule of advertising and a complete cessation of all runs.
What term refers to the collection of traditional media sources like radio newspapers magazines and television?journalism, the collection, preparation, and distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials through such print and electronic media as newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, webcasts, podcasts, social networking and social media sites, and e-mail as well as through radio, motion pictures, and ...
Which index uses information about the product category in the numerator to understand the development potential of the total product category?The brand development index (BDI) uses information regarding the product category in the numerator to understand the potential for development of the total product category.
What are the advantages of using the continuity method of scheduling?What are the advantages of using the continuity method of scheduling? It covers the entire buying cycle. It enables advertisers to use media based on their priorities. Identify an advantage of the flighting method of scheduling.
|