In order for release management to succeed and achieve the expected results it has to begin with analyzing the problems then propose different solutions and finally to apply tremendous effort implementing these solutions. There are several problems that face any company or an IT firm that tries to implement it. The first one that causes a lot of confusion is defining and understanding what are the things that fall under the control of release management. This is why the first step is stating and defining what is under the control of change control and what is not.
For example, for an IT business the things that would be under the management of release management will include several things. These things include anything that is related to network configurations and any changes with the production computing environment of the data center. This includes application software changes that are asked by the customer or the IT team. It also included any upgrades that need to be implemented to the infrastructure of the server or the network which includes DBMS, hardware and OS among others. As for the things that were not included. It was the needed application fixes for the emergency production software. Any emergency fixes should be the responsibility of the software developer team and its manager and not the responsibility of the release manager.
The second issue is to know who is responsible for what parts of the project. The projects are always managed from the start to the end by project managers. The problem is at any big organization, any four project managers would have from two to five projects under their control. These projects include fixing bugs and client service change among other things. This is why each project manager has to know his own tasks and to recognize the tasks of the stakeholders. Release management will succeed if the release manager himself known his tasks which will then be conveyed to the different stakeholders who will then recognize the scope and the tasks tasked to them.
The solution for this problem is SPOC. SPOC stands for single point of contact. This was a great model to be used in order to follow the responsibility of different team and team members and to hold every one accountable for his responsibility. By using this model, the SPOC, it was easy to follow the progress of each team in order to hold them accountable for their outcome.
For example, for an IT business the things that would be under the management of release management will include several things. These things include anything that is related to network configurations and any changes with the production computing environment of the data center. This includes application software changes that are asked by the customer or the IT team. It also included any upgrades that need to be implemented to the infrastructure of the server or the network which includes DBMS, hardware and OS among others. As for the things that were not included. It was the needed application fixes for the emergency production software. Any emergency fixes should be the responsibility of the software developer team and its manager and not the responsibility of the release manager.
The second issue is to know who is responsible for what parts of the project. The projects are always managed from the start to the end by project managers. The problem is at any big organization, any four project managers would have from two to five projects under their control. These projects include fixing bugs and client service change among other things. This is why each project manager has to know his own tasks and to recognize the tasks of the stakeholders. Release management will succeed if the release manager himself known his tasks which will then be conveyed to the different stakeholders who will then recognize the scope and the tasks tasked to them.
The solution for this problem is SPOC. SPOC stands for single point of contact. This was a great model to be used in order to follow the responsibility of different team and team members and to hold every one accountable for his responsibility. By using this model, the SPOC, it was easy to follow the progress of each team in order to hold them accountable for their outcome.
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