S3: Release Management Plan

Notice: applying this to your agency.

The IT Project Resources are not meant to replace your agency’s internal project management practices or prescribe how you must operate. Instead, they offer concepts and tools that can strengthen delivery by providing a scalable framework for project level coordination. All project documentation should be maintained throughout each stage in alignment with agency policies and, where applicable, WaTech requirements and oversight expectations.

Release Management covers orchestrating when and how bundled changes move between development and test environments and deciding when those moves happen. Define how solution changes will be packaged, approved, deployed, and validated across environments. Establish release sequencing, governance, quality gates, and readiness criteria to ensure predictable, stable deployments and controlled transitions into production.

For Programs:

Develop a program‑level release strategy covering shared components, cross‑agency deployments, and integrated release cycles. Define release cadence, quality gates, approval workflows, and enterprise readiness criteria.

For Programs with Agency‑Led Sub‑Projects:

Require each agency to produce an agency‑specific release plan aligned to the program framework and consolidate these into a unified release roadmap.

For Projects:

Document project‑specific release activities, deployment steps, environment sequencing, and validation requirements. Identify roles, responsibilities, and technical dependencies. Establish release readiness checkpoints, rollback procedures, and escalation paths.

Key Activities:

  • Define release scope, sequencing, and environment requirements.
  • Identify roles, responsibilities, and deployment dependencies.
  • Document release packaging, versioning, and rollback procedures.
  • Validate environment readiness and correct configuration drift.
  • Establish quality gates, approval workflows, and readiness criteria.
  • Coordinate cross‑agency release impacts and communication needs.
  • Conduct post‑release validation and update baselines.

WaTech available template: Available July 2026