Release judgment mechanism・The best way to determine the release is the official review

21/06/2018Release Judgment

Release judgment uses official review, two-department meeting, or individual judgment

I introduced in the article of 4 mechanisms for release judgment that it is easy to understand if you think about the mechanism for judging software release by dividing it into 4 parts . In this article, I will introduce the third release judgment method in a little more detail. There are three methods of release judgment: official review , two-department meeting, and individual judgment .

Software release is an important event related to all departments of planning, sales, design, manufacturing, and maintenance, so the best way to judge the release is an official review with the participation of related departments . However, it is quite difficult to judge everything by official review, from the release such as the bug fix version, which is highly urgent but there are very few changes from the software currently on the market.

What kind of release judgment method is there?

How do you determine the release? There are various methods depending on the company, and there is no one that is correct. Father Gutara used the following three methods properly depending on the content (scale and usage) of the software to be released and the situation (first edition or bug fix). In this article, I’ll introduce you to the three methods used by Father Gutara.

  1. Official review : Software-related department managers get together and hold a meeting
  2. Two-department meeting : Held at a meeting attended by the managers of the quality assurance department and the development department
  3. Individual judgment  : The person in charge of the quality assurance department carries out by himself and the quality assurance department manager approves the contents.

Relevant departments gather to judge important releases by official review

The official review meeting is the best way to judge a release. As I wrote in the previous article, the person in charge of determining whether or not to release is often the person in charge of the quality assurance department. In order for the person in charge of judgment to make an objective judgment based on various information when deciding whether or not to release the software, the person in charge of the department related to the release of the software gathers and holds a meeting to make an official review (Public Review). ) Is the method of making a release judgment.

The departments that participate in the release judgment meeting are the sales department, planning department, development department, test department, manufacturing department, maintenance department, etc. The departments that actually participate will differ depending on the company, but in general, the person in charge of such departments gathers to hold a release judgment meeting, and the person in charge of judgment makes the final release judgment based on the information from each department. to hold.

For releases that are of great importance to the product, such as the first release of the software to the market for the first time, or an important major version upgrade with major feature additions , this official review is a good way to determine the release. Let’s take a look at what information each department provides in turn.

Sales department submits market conditions

The sales department will provide information on the market expectations of the software to be released and the usage status of existing software . In addition to the first edition release, software releases include version upgrade releases for improving functions and fixing bugs. At the time of version upgrade release, we will ask you to provide information such as how many software is currently in operation in the market and the status of problems pointed out by users in recent use . In addition, if it is the first edition release, we will ask you to provide information on the sales of similar software existing in the market and competing software of our own software.

From this information, we can see the scale of operation of the software released this time and the degree of market expectation . Whether hundreds of thousands of users or thousands of users will start using it from the first day of release is especially important information when there are residual issues .

Planning department provides upcoming release schedule

The planning department will provide information on the next release plan if this release is completed successfully . Incorporate any function improvements and bug fixes in the next release, when I was released the aim of whether the appointments be, from the information that the version of a determination is made as of this release lifetime in the software market (something month Toka years Whether it will be used or not) can be estimated. This affects the level of long-term stability requirements, so if you are concerned about long-term stability, it can be a great source of information for release decisions.

The development department provides the software development status

The development department will provide information on the requirements (functional improvements and bug fixes) that have been achieved in this release and the requirements that have been postponed . From the point of view of release judgment, this information is the basic information when confirming whether the status of the software is correctly communicated to the user. In other words, to confirm whether the function improvements and bug fixes that were postponed even though they were originally required are surely communicated to the user in the release notes and public information. information. 

At the same time, it will provide information on an overview of this development . Information such as how large the development was, what features were added and what affected features, and how many bug fixes were incorporated. This information will be needed as supplementary information when checking the next test status.

The test department provides the test plan and its results

The testing department will provide information on the status of the tests related to the software that makes this release judgment . What category of tests were performed and how much was tested ? It is information that shows the product quality of what the status of the bugs found as a result is, what the fixed bugs are and what the remaining bugs are. By comparing this information with the information on the development outline from the previous development department , whether the necessary and sufficient tests have been carried out, the test results are okay, and the quality has reached a level that can be released. It will be judged whether or not.

The manufacturing department provides a manufacturing plan for products equipped with software

Manufacturing sector from, the product of which is mounted the Sofutou when this software has passed the release decision in the production plan of the factory you got to provide information about. This information does not directly affect the release decision of the software, so it is usually not very necessary for the manufacturing department to attend the release decision meeting.

However, if the lease time of the resoft and the production start time at the factory are very close, if the release judgment is NG, the production plan of the factory must be revised immediately based on the time when the repaired version is completed. Therefore, the manufacturing department may come to the release decision meeting to collect information. In some cases, you may have to shut down your production line and rush to secure a place to store your in-warehouse inventory.

The maintenance department provides a software maintenance plan

Finally, the maintenance department , but is, if the release has been approved by the release decision conference, for that version of the software maintenance maintenance plan (from the time, what kind of maintenance services or to start, from the development department for the maintenance takeover At what time You will be asked to provide information about whether to do it, etc.). This information does not directly affect the quality of the product or the quality of the development process. However, since it is information that estimates the quality of the maintenance process, it is necessary information when judging including maintenance quality in the release review.

Based on the collected information, the person in charge of release judgment will discuss and judge

After having the above information provided by each related department and reviewing the contents, the person in charge of the quality assurance department, who is in charge of the release judgment , finally decides whether or not to release . However, it is a release judgment by the renewal review method.

By gathering all the related departments together, it is possible to collect necessary information without omission and efficiently, check whether there is a problem from many points of view, and then judge whether or not to release it, so it is highly reliable. It will be a release judgment .

Not all releases can be judged by official reviews

In order to carry out a release decision based on an official review, it is necessary to have the person in charge of each busy department gather, and it is also necessary for each department to prepare the necessary information for the meeting, so it is quite costly. Therefore, for software that is a little less important, it is better to be able to judge the release by a slightly simpler method. In the next article, I will introduce the two-department meeting and individual judgment.