Hey there!
Releasing a new software update inevitably stirs up equal parts excitement and anxiety. As an app testing veteran with over a decade of experience across 3500+ real mobile devices and browsers, I‘ve been part of hundreds of release cycles. I‘ve seen how a systematic approach prevents those butterflies in your stomach from metamorphosing into roiling ulcers!
This definitive checklist distills all my learning into 24 penetrating questions to ask before you ship any software. I‘ll also share field-tested tips to streamline your release preparations.
Whether you‘re shipping a minor bug fix or launching a pioneering app, reviewing these verification points will lead to deployments that bolster your users‘ trust and loyalty for the long haul.
Let‘s get cracking, shall we?
Table of Contents
- Part 1: Core Functionality and Quality
- Part 2: User Experience and Support Readiness
- Part 3: Infrastructure, Security and Analytics
- Part 4: Executing a Smooth Software Release
Part 1: Core Functionality and Quality
Delivering a high-quality digital experience that solves real problems for users takes precedence over everything else. Before considering a release, first answer these foundational questions to confirm your software‘s core value.
1. Is this release improving our solution‘s viability?
According to a Startup Genome report, premature scaling is responsible for 70% of failed startups. Resist the urge to stack on bells and whistles nobody asked for if fundamental usability issues persist. Stay focused on nailing the basics first.
Prioritize enhancements directly addressing your solution‘s core value proposition and target audience. Evaluate if the updated capabilities substantively advance viability. Incrementally build confidence through releases focused on users‘ high-priority jobs-to-be-done.
Of course, assessing "viability metrics" itself necessitates early user testing well before deployment. This guide covers gathering actionable feedback even with low-fidelity prototypes. Don‘t leave evaluation until post-launch surprises jolt your strategy.
2. Does our test coverage build confidence in release quality?
By now the entire team knows the benefits of test-driven development, I‘m sure! But analysis paralysis often leads to overlooked testing scenarios or gaps.
Before each deployment, examine test coverage across these axes:
| Test Type | Description |
|---|---|
| User Journey | All critical user flows tested end-to-end |
| Features/Code | New features, bug fixes covered via unit, integration testing |
| Devices and OS | On mix of real target mobile devices, desktop OS, browsers |
| Accessibility | Complies with level AA WCAG 2.1 guidelines |
| Localization | Supports all languages app is localized into |
| Security | OWASP Top 10 identified, mitigation tested |
Leverage test case management tools like qTest, TestRail, PractiTest to track coverage, gaps, and testing progress. Allocating devices for on-demand testing needs with services like BrowserStack is invaluable too.
Remember that documented tests reflecting real usage >> thousands of ambiguous automated scripts!
3. Can we swiftly rollback problematic changes?
UAT feedback or early warning signs might necessitate immediate rollbacks. Typically 10-15% of patches need to be pulled back completely from production due to unforeseen downstream issues.
Kubernetes, Amazon ECS, Azure Service Fabric and such container orchestration solutions simplify rollback coordination. But having procedural rollback plans for different scenarios prepares your response team to act decisively.
Identify features where degraded performance is unacceptable too. Establish clear thresholds and rollback protocols for these bounded contexts vs. changes with less severe user impact.
4. Have we mitigated priority defects and tech debt?
Letting known flaws linger til some mythical "next release" leaves your users exposed to recurrent failures, neglected debts accumulate interest quickly.
Before eyeing deployment, first resolve at least priority 1 and 2 defects plus any major technical debt paydown items allocated for this release.
Pay special attention to security vulnerabilities, performance bottlenecks, and reliability threats flagged during preceding release post mortems too.
Use severity * proximity metrics (Factor both defect criticality & its distance from users) to guide sequencing. Optimizing to fix higher risk, front-end issues first reduces field disruptions.
5. Did we retest all previous functionality?
New features often introduce unintended side-effects. Ensure existing capabilities still function reliably post any code changes through regression testing.
Leverage test automation to quickly re-verify previous functions.REVIEW legacy test cases too for needed adjustments. Users want assurance you didn‘t break old stuff while adding new capabilities!
Also use exploratory testing skills to spot assumptions disconnected from evolving usage behavior. Document any fresh scenarios for future regression runs.
Part 2: User Experience and Support Readiness
Beyond back-end quality, users judge apps by their visible look, feel and ongoing support too. Tying up UX and customer service loose ends makes the difference between delighting customers or disappointing them.
6. Is our onboarding and in-app guidance intuitive?
Even the most intuitive interface benefits from some handholding at first exposure. User onboarding introduces critical features and eases unfamiliar users in.
Review if messaging and visual cues educate users to leverage key capabilities, while balancing discoverability without overwhelming everything upfront.
Usability test early flows with first-time users to catch disorienting UX friction points and enhancement opportunities. Tools like UserTesting.com, Validately, TryMyUI and Loop11 all facilitate remote usability studies if you‘d like a second set of eyes.
7. Have we optimized page load times and overall performance?
79% of mobile shoppers abandon sites taking over 3 seconds to load. And a 100 millisecond delay drops Amazon sales by 1%. Your app performance directly impacts user experience and business outcomes.
Put your release build through its paces via stress testing. Profile memory usage, isolate expensive database queries, confirm page response times meet thresholds under load.
Fine-tune caching, employ asynchronous processing, and optimize expensive assets. Test in throttled network conditions replicating real-world cellular and wifi connections too. Identified performance issues will only compound after launch.
8. Is our help documentation complete for this release?
Even well-crafted interfaces benefit from some inline explanations or linked augmented assistance. Yet 50% of software goes to market lacking adequate documentation for users AND operations teams.
Work backwards from release capabilities to evaluate required updates or new help articles:
- User docs explaining new features, interface enhancements
- Dev and admin guides covering new technologies or integrations
- Operational procedures needed by customer support, success teams
Conduct usability testing on any substantially updated help flows and taxonomies too. Optimized findability of relevant information minimizes excessive support tickets.
9. Have we prepared our customer support teams?
Nothing torpedoes user satisfaction faster than frontline staff fumbling through poorly conducted training or lacking context on announced capabilities.
Walk support teams through upcoming features and changes. Identify potentially confusing scenarios and discuss guidance for handling them.
Equip reps via release notes, help documentation, demos and talking points to address expected questions. Connect insight teams to channel post-launch user feedback into future improvements too.
Well aligned first responders make or break your solution‘s brand credibility. So set them up for success!
Part 3: Infrastructure, Security and Analytics
While end users don‘t directly discern technical foundations enabling releases, these pillars profoundly influence their experience. Invest here to manage scale demands and prevent nasty incidents.
10. Can our infrastructure handle projected workloads?
Each launch brings some level of usage spike even if gradual. Review if current capacity headroom suffices based on forecasted traffic patterns. Even a 5% uptick may overwhelm undersized components.
Scale out clusters, databases, load balancers, event queues and CDN to accommodate imminent surges. Doing so avoids playing catch-up later. Reduce scheduled maintenance during launch months too minimizing disruption risks.
Cost optimization should not compromise performance. Consider buffer overhead for peak usage growth rather than reactive and costly system behaviors performing under duress.
11. Have we tested 3rd party integrations and APIs?
With rare exceptions, modern applications exchange data with external services – analytics, payments, data providers, social networks. Brittle dependencies quickly cascade into site outages.
Before launch, rigorously test inbound and outbound integrations touching critical business functions. Address flakiness in partners early or implement mitigating logic on your end.
Monitor SLAs of external services too. Define technical and business escalation protocols for degraded QoS from vendors jeopardizing your own users.
12. Are useful analytics metrics defined to track release impact?
If a new feature delivers value but you lack instrumentation to know, did it ever really get used?
Finalize essential usage metrics aligned to business and product priorities before launch. This allows assessing release effectiveness and steering ongoing investments.
Focus on outcome metrics vs. vanity metrics. Adopt tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel, Heap Analytics also supporting cohort views comparing behavior across user segments.
13. Have we executed all mandated security reviews?
In the sprint from code complete to launch, security controls often get short changed. But modern applications demand robust measures given rising attacker sophistication.
Check if you have evaluated risks, remediated flagged issues across:
- Automated scans assessing vulnerabilities
- Penetration testing mimicking real attacks
- Privacy / data security reviews per regulations
- Extended validation SSL for all public endpoints
Revisit your application‘s threat model too. Update mitigating controls matching evolving data and functionality sensitivities, compliance needs etc.
Part 4: Executing a Smooth Software Release
Alright, we‘ve rigorously reviewed functional capabilities, operational readiness and ancillary factors enabling a smooth release. Let‘s tie it all together for flawless deployment now.
14. Have we validated end-user workflows across all critical journeys?
Unit tests assure individual components function in isolation, but successful software requires connected capabilities harmoniously delivering desired outcomes.
Utilize end-to-end testing validating that sequenced user steps across UI flows, API calls, database operations etc. collectively produce the correct results. Automation suites cannot replace this system-level perspective reflecting reality.
Review priority user journeys from triggers to goals. Confirm aligned outcomes across happy paths and exception scenarios. For example, use tools like Selenium to emulate workflows for digital purchase fulfilled from browsing merchandise all the way through order tracking.
15. Is our release deployment strategy minimizing user impact?
"Move fast and break things" works better for internal systems. Consumer-facing apps require care to avoid disrupting active usage.
Evaluate deployment options balancing business needs and interrupting users:
-
Feature flags allowing gradual rollout
-
Zero-downtime techniques like blue-green and canary deployments
-
Maintenance windows paired with queuing requests across failover resources
-
Backwards-compatible APIs abstracting updated interiors
When downtime is unavoidable, inform users beforehand setting clear expectations.
16. Have we staged multiple dry runs across testing environments?
Venerable Murphy dictates embarrassing gaffes amplify in probability as your audience scales up. Why take chances with preventable snafus?
Replicate deployment procedures across internal staging environments allowing teams to practice critical handoffs:
- Content uploads / cache warming
- Configuration syncs
- Security reviews
- Performance testing
- Smoke tests validating environment readiness
Identify gaps or frictions requiring tuning without real users enduring consequences of rehearsals.
17. Are teams prepared to monitor and support the software 24/7?
The launch horn sounding does not imply resting on your laurels Next comes the most critical phase – actively supporting users interacting with your solution 24/7.
Verify staffing and escalation policies across:
- NOC technicians monitoring for incidents
- On-call engineering rotations with appropriate pager duty lengths
- Support reps prepared for user inquiries by geography/time zone
Proactively validate contact points for vendors critical to operations too. Save precious firefighting time ensuring all responders are already on standby.
18. Have we staged a final pre-launch review?
Before definitively pushing the big green button, conduct an overall release checklist validation. Walk technical and business leadership through deployment particulars seeking final approvals:
- code freeze attained, change freeze upcoming
- test results summarized
- critical open issues, expected limitations highlighted
- deployment windows & rollback provisions
- DR and user support prepared
- metrics baseline established
These synchronized checkpoints across project members set up information integrity required to make an informed go/no-go decision.
19. Will ongoing user feedback influence future roadmaps?
MVP doctrine necessitates learning fast then iterating. But many teams treat production as a finished endpoint rather than the start of another listening cycle.
Prior to launch, confirm workflows collecting qualitative user feedback via:
- In-app surveys on helpfulness of new capabilities
- Support ticket tagging to identify recurring pain points
- Net Promoter Scores quantifying product recommendability
- Social media and app store responses demonstrating traction
Funnel insights to both engineering leaders and product managers to feed forthcoming requirement triage and priority calls.
20. Have we communicated release details to customers beforehand?
Nothing perplexes users more than undisplayed changes in production applications. Sandbagging announcements also limits coordinating partners like support centers or sales teams.
Broadcast concise highlights of upcoming enhancements so users know what is coming and why value accrues to them rather than just to your team.
Share guidance to users on any migration considerations too. Proactive outreach provides assistance for integrating new features into existing workflows weeks before deployment.
21. Will we measure release outcomes and stabilize rapidly?
Launches demand heightened vigilance immediately after. Quickly validate vital signals like:
- Key transactions completing successfully
- Traffic volumes within projected tolerances
- Service availability meeting SLAs
- Critical user journeys performing as designed
- Initial support requests consistent with expected topics
Rapidly mitigate any defects uncovered from real usage or performance degradations. Settling stability expeditiously maintains user confidence beyond initial impressions carrying into sustained adoption.
22. Have engineers built runbooks to aid incident response?
Despite meticulous preparations, some percentage of launches still confront hiccups from latent flaws or unexpected edge cases.
Equip on-call first responders with thorough runbooks expediting incident triage and resolution when urgent firefights erupt:
- Application overview with key components
- Technical and business escalation trees
- Common failure scenarios + recovery steps
- Debugging tips to extract root cause
- Quick reference for vital configurations/credentials
You get the picture. Save precious war room minutes by supplying responders with remediation cliffs notes beforehand!
23. How will we conduct a post-mortem driving continuous improvement?
In the pressure cooker of launches, pausing to reflect afterwards often loses priority. But these retrospectives channel invaluable lessons into Level Up‘ing team capabilities for subsequent release cycles.
Within a week or two post-deployment, gather relevant players across development, QA, Ops, Infosec, support etc. Maintain blameless culture encouraging candid maturity. Reconstruct scenarios requiring refinement, collect empirical evidence on what impeded flow.
Most helpfully, translate the insights into action items directly feeding into the next launch cycle for preventative self-improvement. Rinse and repeat!
24. Have we shown appreciation to our hardworking team?
Last but hardly the least, let your team know their contributions delivered material outcomes improving customers‘ lives.
Recent studies indicate nearly 60% of IT professionals never receive any recognition at work. Counter that demoralizing trend by celebrating releases big and small.
Send founders‘ notes, conduct team events, highlight peer-to-peer kudos channels, integrate rewards into your culture. It simultaneously recognizes past efforts completed AND reenergizes participants for the next challenge ahead.
Alright my friend, we covered a lot of ground here! I hope these field guide pointers help you elevate release discipline for your next mission. If it makes your deployments even 1% smoother, I will consider this deep dive worthwhile :-).
Now over to you – which of these pre-launch checks do you anticipate using for upcoming releases? Did we miss any other questions you regularly ask? I look forward to hearing your experiences assembling your own software launch rituals.
