With final approval from the project owner, the product is sent into production and can be released to the end user. Any supplementary educational material, including change notifications, operating guides, and necessary training resources will need to be released at the same time. Be sure to tailor these resources not only to the end user, but also to any company-side support teams that may need to field user questions or assist in troubleshooting.
The deployment stage represents the culmination of the release management process, but the process doesn’t end at launch. Teams will need to follow up to access the release, identify any bottlenecks or hurdles, and improve the process for future products.
Be aware that businesses of various sizes will likely follow a very similar end-to-end process, with essentially the same steps. However, smaller organisations with fewer projects may find that their version of the release management process is much less complex when compared to larger businesses. As a company scales its releases to match its growth, and as teams and departments expand to include more people, release management expands as well, requiring more advanced support tools.