Release Planning

Release Plan

A Release Plan indicates how the team intends to achieve the product vision within the project objectives and constraints identified in the project data sheet. Release plans convey critical information related to the product being developed, and they: • help the product owner and the team to decide the time required to create or develop a product; • convey the expectations; and • serve as a guidepost. For new projects with no historic velocity trend, release planning is done either by: • Comparing with similar projects and determining velocity by analogy; or • Running some sprints to determine the velocity.

Agile Product Roadmap

Product Roadmap is a planned approach that helps with strategic project planning and communication of that plan with respect to important product milestones. A product roadmap: • forms an integral part of any product strategy; • provides the framework to plan changes; • manages the effects of changes on the product; and • represents the long term product vision or goal of the product. *Product Roadmap* Release 1 Features • Road Rage Ported (part l) • Brickyard port started (stretch goal to complete) • Distributed platform demo Game 1 Demo— Proof of viability on new platform Release 2 Features • Road Rage Completed (single user) • Brickyard Ported (single user) • Road Rage multiuser demonstrable • First multiuser game feature for Road Rage First two games available (Road Rage and Brickyard) Release 3 Features • Multiuser Road Rage first release • Brickyard Ported multiuser demo • New features for both games (see prioritized list) First distributed game (Road Rage)

Release Planning—Example

Suppose a team's average historic velocity is 6 story points and there are 5 sprints in a release, then the capacity for the release is 30 story points.

Steps in Planning a Release

The flow of activities during a release plan can be represented as follows:

Release Plan - Purpose

The purpose of release planning is to define the contents of a release or a specific shippable product increment. The two key information required for release planning are: 1. Average historic velocity of the team 2. Number of Sprints within a release