These are some rough guidelines I have when rolling out a new feature to a product.

<aside> ℹ️ Note: The concept of a Release may be different depending on the technology stack and type of feature.

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• Release could mean when the first customer adopts the feature (but it could be "code complete" or in production well before that).
• Release could mean when the product goes from being released to a small number of users to being turned on for everyone.
• Release could mean when the feature is actually deployed.

The reason why it's important to establish a release checklist is that the work to improve the system and identify errors in a timely manner is - in my professional experience - ten times harder when product just shoulders the responsibility at the time of release and then tries to figure it out on the fly.

No company is perfect and no feature perfectly fits into the same cookie-cutter mold as every other feature released. However, the release checklist is still important to establish because it identifies where the feature is unique and what should remain as standardized as possible. Is this new feature difficult to support but we already have the monetization mechanism in place? Is the support standard, but the feature is going to need some special marketing to be successful? Fill out the release checklist and do it as early into the feature development as possible.

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Release-based documents are some of the things that I think can be made more efficient through working with an LLM to take the existing story and Opportunity document information and convert it to different mediums and formats.

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Checklist Questions

These should be answered while Onboarding with all possible/typical options, then used to tailor a true checklist for efficiency when releasing.

Release Mechanics

• How are features rolled out to users?
• Who does this work to roll out the features?

Support

• How are new enhancements supported? What is needed to support?
• Will the feature follow the existing application support process or a different one?

Marketing/Training

• Who is announcing the feature? How are they announcing it?
• What release notes need to be written? Where are they kept?