How to Improve Your Software Release Management

iCrowd Newswire
25 Nov 2021, 16:49 GMT+10

Do you know why releases are hard? It happens because of the lack of structure. Consistency and alignment make it easier even for the most experienced and talented teams to collaborate and work together. What can bring consistency and alignment? Software release management.

What Is Release Management and How Can You Improve It?

First of all, let us have a clear understanding of what release management is. Why does it play such an important role in web application testing and software practices?

Software release process or management is a technique of preparing, planning, scheduling, and managing the software build through all stages of development.

Why is it relevant for a software testing agency to follow release management? It helps to move from development and testing to production in a predictable and scheduled manner. The prime purpose of release management is to ensure the correct components are released and the business goals achieved. And it is something you can regularly improve and optimize. How? Let's have a look.

5 Steps to Successful Software Release Management

Here are five effective practices of improving and structuring software release management to help you with the process and make it easier and smoother.

Learn the requirements. Requirements are important. Without understanding basic release features you will not have the vision of a final goal. Thus, you will not set priorities right, which can lead to poor decisions made. Have a detailed picture of browser, device, and network compatibility before starting a project. These are critical aspects people usually forget.

Initiate small and regular releases. Minor changes and frequent releases ensure less risk of failure, allowing you to go back if any issues appear. Short release cycles eliminate delays and troubles with the integration of more code and features. It ensures you create the product a customer expects. After a short release, you briefly review the process, analyze the changes made, look over the accuracy of the team, and decide how to improve documentation. Keep track of what works out and what doesn't. Every release serves as a checkpoint for a team to evaluate Quality Assurance with KPIs to analyze QA effectiveness and level up a testing process for better decisions in the future. It helps to understand which area requires improvement.

Establish a continuous release cycle. Keep it as accurate as possible. Give realistic dates and achievable plans only. It is not about how fast a release ends but about the level of quality it has. A continuous release cycle with a clear timetable allows the team and stakeholders to understand when to expect a specific functionality or feature. An established routine improves the way you handle and deliver a release. Plan a QA strategy and all Mobile App testing stages to ensure better test coverage and team alignment.

Automate the process. Automation is advancing. Allow a computer to run through thousands of repetitive tests in a matter of moments, saving money and time for critical tasks instead. Identify the processes to automate and choose an appropriate automation solution to match your release policies and the needs of a team. Then, standardize and maintain the procedure. It takes less time to diagnose and solve the issue in the program with automated testing, which increases your team efficiency as well. But not all testing experts know what types of test cases to automate or how to automate at all. In this case, additional assistance is a must. Make sure to hire the right specialists. Outsourcing might be an option.

Invest in a team. Before even starting a project, focus on finding the right people for a team. Fancy tools, hardware, and release cycles are important as long as you have motivated people with result-oriented approaches. Without a committed team, all of those are worthless. What makes a good team? It depends. But it is your responsibility to encourage your staff and invest in tools and skills. Some people find it hard to organize a software team smartly. Thus, they apply to professional outsourcing software testing companies while others spend months setting it up on their own. In a nutshell, care about your team to make your team care about your product. That's simple.

Effective release management takes time and work, but it's worth it. It helps with successful software deployments and decreases quality issues and risks. If any potential problem with a product update or launch occurs, release management is the thing to help you notice and fix it right away.

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