What is your vision?

What is the vision or purpose of your Release Management process?

A number of companies employ someone in a Release Manager role but why do they go to all that trouble? Sure it makes sense for someone to “manage a Release to Production” but is that role created simply so someone more important doesn’t have to stay up late at night?

Individuals that own the Release Management process at a company should have a prepared “elevator pitch” regarding their Release Management vision. In addition that vision or purpose would be part of the interview process and part of training the people touching the Release process. With a vision or purpose the Release Manager will easily understand what to focus on and what can be improved or addressed at a later time.

My personal favorite from a previous boss was “No surprises” as a purpose. His main objective for me was to reduce the list of problems that no one thought about until the last minute. Although simple, this was something I used to successfully create a Release Manager role for the company.