New functionality is being deployed from your learning or talent management vendor to your system on a consistent basis.
In this video, Caitlin shares her some best practices for effectively managing these product releases.
Video Transcript
Hi, I’m Caitlin Josten, and I’m an Associate here at Educe. Today we’re going to talk about release management! Now, I know…it’s not the most glamorous topic. But it is a really important part of keeping your learning and talent management system operating effectively.
Let’s start with a quick definition. When we’re talking about release management, what we are really talking about is proactively monitoring, reviewing, testing, and deploying new functionality that your platform vendor is making available on a consistent basis. The keyword here is “proactive.” Most platform vendors publish a schedule of release dates and a roadmap of future enhancements at the beginning of each year. So, there is no excuse not to know when a release is coming.
Once you have the notes for each release, it’s time to get to work.
- Go through the release notes or release matrix (if available) line-by-line and eliminate those items that do not impact your configuration. This will help you to focus on only the functionality that will impact your platform.
- Then, when the code is pushed into the staging environment, go through the list you prepared to understand the functionality and test each item. You cannot test too thoroughly!
- Think about your existing processes and workflows to determine if you have existing solutions that address the same functionality available in the release. If so, you will need to determine how to address – either stick with what you have or incorporate the new functionality (now or in the future). Any decisions should be made and decided on in tandem with your governance committee.
- Once the release is available in production, double check the final draft of the release notes to make sure all features you anticipated were in fact pushed to production. Then, begin incorporating any updates that you had planned for. Remember to test (again!) to make sure it is working as anticipated. If it is not, submit a support ticket right away.
- Lastly, remember to communicate any changes that will impact your stakeholders proactively, (see, there’s my favorite word again) before they stumble across it in the system. It will help to build trust internally and show that you are actively managing your system.
Thanks for listening!
