Release and Deployment Management
Plan, schedule, and control the build and deployment of service releases to deliver the changes and/or new functionality required by the business, while also protecting the integrity of existing services.
Improvement Planning
Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)
Representative POMs are described for Release and Deployment Management at each level of maturity.
- 2Basic
- Practice
- Develop a basic procedure for release and deployment management covering technical functionality and integration with the IT environment.
- Outcome
- Releases are deployed, but there may be inconsistencies — for example, the integrity of the live environment may not be protected and varying levels of disruption may be experienced.
- Metrics
- # of service desk calls following deployment.
- Downtime resulting from service deployment disruption.
- 3Intermediate
- Practice
- Develop a standardized release management approach with validated release procedures and templates to coordinate all aspects of the release including technical functionality, integration with the environment, allocation of resources to develop, test, and deploy the release, and training, support, and release documentation.
- Outcomes
- All aspects of the release are considered together, ensuring that the release is successful and that the service and service components are distributed and delivered at the correct location and time in the target environment.
- The standardized release and deployment management process enables effective management and coordination of releases with different scope, complexity, and degrees of risk.
- Metrics
- # of service desk calls following deployment.
- Downtime resulting from service deployment disruption.
- 4Advanced
- Practices
- Deploy releases in alignment with an organization-wide version control approach, where changes are assessed for their positive/negative impact and prioritized accordingly.
- Confirm the operational readiness and training of service desk personnel prior to releasing into production.
- Outcomes
- Releases can be achieved more cost effectively.
- Releases do not impact negatively on each other.
- Metrics
- # of service desk calls following deployment.
- Downtime resulting from service deployment disruption.
- Unit cost per release.
- 5Optimized
- Practice
- Continually review the release management and deployment data and look for improvement opportunities based on vendor advice, industry best practice, and research.
- Outcome
- Release management approaches are continually improved, to allow the seamless flow of new IT services into the operational environment.
- Metrics
- Frequency of review of release management procedures.
- # of service desk calls following deployment.
- Downtime resulting from service deployment disruption.
- Unit cost per release.