release-planning

SKILL.md

Release Planning

Table of Contents

Overview

When to Use

Quick Start

Reference Guides

Best Practices

Overview

Release planning ensures coordinated deployment of features to production with minimal risk, clear communication, and established rollback procedures.

When to Use

Planning major feature releases

Coordinating multi-system deployments

Managing database migrations

Rolling out infrastructure changes

Planning go-live strategies

Coordinating customer communication

Preparing for high-traffic periods

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

Release Plan:

Release: v2.5.0 - Customer Portal Redesign
Target Release Date: February 15, 2025
Status: Planning
Owner: Product Manager

---

## Executive Summary

This release delivers the redesigned customer portal with improved
UX, performance, and mobile experience. Includes database optimization
and infrastructure scaling.

Business Impact:
  - 25% improvement in user conversion
  - 40% faster load times
  - Mobile-first experience
  - Estimated $500K revenue impact

---

## Release Contents

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide
Contents

Release Checklist
Release Checklist

Versioning Strategy
Versioning Strategy

Rollout & Monitoring
Rollout & Monitoring

Best Practices

✅ DO

Plan releases with clear timeline and milestones

Communicate early and often with stakeholders

Test thoroughly in staging environment

Use phased rollout to reduce risk

Monitor metrics continuously during rollout

Have clear rollback procedure

Document all changes and decisions

Conduct post-release review

Include support team in planning

Plan releases during lower-traffic periods

❌ DON'T

Release without adequate testing

Deploy Friday afternoon

Release without monitoring in place

Skip UAT/acceptance testing

Release all major changes together

Deploy without rollback plan

Surprise customers with breaking changes

Release without support team readiness

Make unreviewed last-minute changes

Ignore performance or error metrics

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