Release vs Project Management

[cybermom302003]

I am doing some research on how we might be able to use Release Management to organize our own SNOW releases. The information I have found so far says that Project Managment might be better route. Does anyone have experience on one or both of these applications that can offer some advice, pros, cons of one over the other? Any feedback would be appreciate. ~Amy

[Jerrod_Bennett]

While not a customer (I'm the developer of the project management application...please excuse any bias that comes across), I can point out the differences between the two to help you make a better decision:

Release management can be thought of as a simplified project management system. It's a 4 tier (Product, Release, Feature, and Release Task) stacking of documents designed to track any type of release that fits into its structure. There isn't much magic to it...it just tracks the documents at each level of the tree, with only the last level (Release Task) being actionable, meaning that only the Release Tasks can be assigned to users and groups, show up in people's 'My work' queues, run SLAs, etc. Release management works very well if your releases/projects fit into the 4 tier structure, and only the bottom layer tasks need to be assigned out to individuals. Release management is nice, because its simple and straightforward to implement.

Project management was designed similarly, but was built to be more flexible. First, you have a similar 'tree tier' structure (Projects, project tasks, and any number of child project task layers you want), only you're not limited to the 4 tier system from Release management. You can have 1 tier (just a project), 2 tiers (project with child project tasks), 3 tiers (project, child tasks each with child tasks), 100 tiers...you get the idea. The depth of the structure of each project is completely up to you. Second, every layer of the project is a task...meaning that EVERY document in the project (both projects and project takss) can be assigned, measured with SLAs and Metrics, take advantage of the assignment and approval rules, etc. Third, project management comes with various tools to help you manage a release/project: a handy timeline/gantt chart for easy viewing, advanced templating for easier project creation, automated project management (the project will actually start/stop the tasks automatically without you having to interact), risk and issue management, etc. Project management is best for customers that have a need to run more advanced project/releases that don't fit into the original 'Release management' mold. The downside to using project is that there is a slightly larger learning curve, as there's more functionality involved.

I wish you luck with your decision...

[terri_carrier]

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