The recipe for a smooth release: the PM’s guide

This plan is what developers and "auditors" refer to in completing their assigned tasks, the latter being colleagues from other departments in charge of reviewing the solution (yes, this is also a life hack). We hope this crib sheet will be useful for you as you prepare your product for release.

Infrastructure

• On our side, we ensure that everything is in accordance with the UAT requirements and the customer’s Prod infrastructure has been prepared, and we have got the customer to accept them. The actual infrastructure has been prepared on the customer's side and access has been provided.
• For enterprise mobile apps: the scheme has been agreed upon for distributing the app to users' devices (app store/MDM system/etc.). The customer has bought the devices.
• The CI/CD pipeline has been configured and/or the technology for updating the solution has been registered.
• A backup and recovery strategy has been developed and the appropriate infrastructure has been prepared.
• The problem solution technical monitoring and diagnostics system (ELK stack, Kubernetes monitoring tools, etc.) has also been developed and implemented.

Initial Filling of the Solution

• Historical data: the sources from which data are to be migrated as well as at which depth the data should be migrated, and technologies/mechanisms/tools for migration are on hand.
• The procedure has been developed and tools (utilities, scripts) have been prepared to ensure that the migrated historical data are correct (completeness, consistency).
• Catalogs have been written up.
• The User/organizational structure has been transferred.

Integration

• The functionality of integration services in the UAT/Prod environment has been checked. Versioning of services has been accounted for from the customer and/or the customer has agreed on the procedure for the preparation of a services version upgrade on their side.
• Service monitoring or availability tools have been set up to "instantaneously" check which side the problem is on.

Pilot user group training

• Demo stands are prepared for Demonstrating the solution to the customer; access has been given, and the app distribution and test devices are organized.
• The implementation team has been identified on the customer's side and involved in testing during the release’s preparation on the QA platform: demonstrations have been held.
• Final pilot user group test sessions/demo sessions have been performed.
• User materials have been prepared: demonstration scenarios, short “How-to” guides with screenshots/videos demonstrating business actions.

Solution transfer

• The source code transition plan and the build servers configuration plan on the customer's side.
• The source code and UI resources transfer plan: layouts, UI kit, and UI instructions kit.
• Architectural documents (infrastructure topology, deployment technology, etc.) have been prepared for transfer to the customer for operation.
• A briefing and training depot have been conducted with the customer’s admins.
• It has been checked whether anything else needs to be done for formal/legal transfer into operation in accordance with the customer contract requirements
• The procedure for directing the solution for tech support on the customer's side (first line) and on our side (second line) has been worked out. The addresses account system has been configured.

User documentation

• User manual/instructions in the format agreed upon with the customer (scripts, videos, etc.)

Business monitoring

• We have gained an understanding of what business performance solutions (KPI) we will monitor and an analysis has been developed and discussed with the customer.
• The data and infrastructure to monitor business performance are available: for instance, an analytical cube with sales statistics in the system or Grafana with user activity statistics.

The timing of the release

A convenient time for release/switching to a new version has been chosen, taking into account the peak loads of the current solution’s functionality, user availability time, engineers' availability time on both sides, etc.