{"id":1857,"date":"2020-11-27T14:27:06","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T14:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2023-09-02T10:29:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T10:29:53","slug":"agile-software-release-checklist-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/agile-software-release-checklist-manifesto","title":{"rendered":"Agile Software Release Checklist Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span><!-- pn-tldr --><h2>Key takeaways<\/h2><ul><li>Releasing often only works if the pre-release checks are automated and identical every time.<\/li><li>A written checklist beats institutional memory the first time someone is on holiday.<\/li><li>Anything you check manually before every release is a candidate for the pipeline.<\/li><\/ul><!-- \/pn-tldr -->\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p class=\"lead\">In this new agile world, you want to improve your application every day by releasing early and often.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you manage to release often without major issues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Create a checklist for your software releases, a list of steps to blindly follow every time release a new piece of software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is an example of what steps your list should contain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Is the code to be released tested? Tested should include the following types of tests: functional testing, <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/load-testing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">load testing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/website-speed-test\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"\">speed testing<\/a>, accessibility testing, exploratory testing, API testing, Unit testing and others.<\/li><li>Are all branches code reviewed and merged?<\/li><li>Is the code to be released tagged with the correct version?<\/li><li>Do we have approval from all teams to release this piece of functionality in front of live customers?<\/li><li>Has it been tested on local and staging environments?<\/li><li>Do we have a rollback plan in case something goes wrong? if yes, which are the steps to rollback?<\/li><li>Are all assets minified and optimized for production release?<\/li><li>Are All automated and manual tests passing on local and staging environments?<\/li><li>Do we have someone on-call?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This list can go on and on, by I would suggest that every team should have a similar checklist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This checklist should be reviewed and updated every 1-2 weeks (doesn&#8217;t matter if you do <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scrum_(software_development)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Scrum<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kanban_(development)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kanban<\/a>), most likely at the team retrospective meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" src=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-1024x731.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1865\" srcset=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-1024x731.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-600x428.jpg 600w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-400x286.jpg 400w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-768x548.jpg 768w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list-1536x1097.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/personal-list.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Create a Software Release Checklist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Make sure you starting working on this list and share it with your team as soon as possible. It will help you discover a lost of issues or bugs earlier on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>How does your checklist look like?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Written by <a href=\"https:\/\/coursinator.com\/instructor\/bogdan-vazzolla\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">Bogdan Vazzolla<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/\">LoadFocus<\/a> is a cloud performance, load and stress testing tool which provides the infrastructure and the ability to run all these tests with thousands of concurrent users, from <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/locations\">multiple cloud locations<\/a>, in less than a few minutes, keep history of the results, compare different runs to inspect performance improvements or performance degradation.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- pn-faq --><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><h3>Why write the release steps down if the team already knows them?<\/h3><p>Because the team is not always the same people. The first time someone is on holiday or a new joiner runs the release, institutional memory is not available and the checklist is the only thing that is.<\/p><h3>What belongs on the list?<\/h3><p>Everything you would be unhappy to discover was skipped: the test types that must have run, the environment checks, the rollback plan, and who is told when it ships.<\/p><h3>Should the checklist stay manual?<\/h3><p>Only until you can automate an item. Anything checked by hand before every single release is a candidate for the pipeline, and moving it there is what makes releasing often survivable.<\/p><!-- \/pn-faq --><!-- pn-related-reading --><h2>Related reading<\/h2><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/what-is-a-staging-environment-in-software-development\">What is a Staging Environment in Software Development?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/unit-testing-vs-functional-testing\">Unit Testing vs Functional Testing Explained<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2021\/05\/so-you-want-to-become-a-software-testing-expert\">So you want to become a Software Testing Expert?<\/a><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span>Key takeaways Releasing often only works if the pre-release checks are automated and identical every time. A written checklist beats institutional memory the first time someone is on holiday. Anything you check manually before every release is a candidate for the pipeline. In this new agile world, you want to improve your application every day&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/agile-software-release-checklist-manifesto\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read Agile Software Release Checklist Manifesto\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[555,155],"tags":[255,312],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-testing","category-mobile-testing","tag-software-development","tag-software-release-checklist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2699,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions\/2699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}