Guidelines: Important Decisions in Deployment
Topics
Decide How to Perform the
Workflow 
The following decisions should be made regarding the Deployment discipline's workflow:
- Decide how to perform the workflow by looking at the Deployment:
Workflow. Study the diagram with its guard
conditions and the guidelines. Decide which workflow details to perform
and in which order. The most significant decision you need to make is
what kind of deployment you will do:
- Custom install
- 'Shrink wrap' product offering
- Access to software over the internet
- Decide what parts of the Deployment workflow details to perform. The following are some parts that are more or less optional and can be introduced relatively independently from the rest.
|
Part of workflow |
Comments |
|---|---|
| Developing end-user materials | This includes Role: Technical Writer, Activity: Develop Support Materials, and Artifact: End-User Support Material. |
| Developing training materials | This includes Role: Course Developer, Activity: Develop Training Materials, and Artifact: Training Materials. |
| Beta testing | Only introduce Workflow Detail: Beta Test Product if you do beta testing. |
- Decide when, during the project lifecycle, to introduce each part of the workflow. Detailed information can be found Deployment: Workflow.
Document the decisions in the Development Case, under the headings Disciplines, Deployment, Workflow.
Decide How to Use Artifacts
Decide which artifacts to use and how to use each of them. The table below describes those artifacts you must have and those used in some cases. For more detailed information on how to tailor each artifact, and a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of that specific artifact, read the section titled "Tailoring" for each artifact.
For each artifact, decide how the artifact should be used: Must have, Should have, Could have or Won't have. For more details, see Guidelines: Classifying Artifacts.
| Artifact | Purpose |
Tailoring (Optional, Recommended) |
|---|---|---|
| Bill of Materials | Used to ensure that all parts of the product are available and accounted for. |
Optional. Not needed if a build is essentially the product. Often the Bill of Materials is the responsibility of a separate part of the organization, and is not part of the process followed by the software team. Recommended when the product contains a number of non-software elements, or when software is supplied from multiple sources. |
| Deployment Plan | Ensures that the product can be effectively transitioned to the user community. |
Recommended for most projects. However, it may be folded into a section of the Software Development Plan. A separate deployment plan may be needed when deployment activities are complex or time-consuming. |
|
The purpose of the process is to produce a product. (A deployment unit is associated with a single node in the overall network of computer systems or peripherals.) |
All projects produce a product. Many projects have a single deployment unit which is the product. |
|
| End-User Support Material | Needed to assist the end-user in learning, using, operating and maintaining the product. | Recommended |
| Installation Artifacts | Needed to enable someone to install the product. |
Recommended |
| Release Notes | Used to identify changes and known bugs in a version of a build or deployment unit that has been made available for use. | Recommended |
| Training Materials | Training materials assist the end-users of the product. | Recommended if end-users need to be trained. |
Tailor each artifact by performing the steps described in Activity: Develop Development Case, under the heading "Tailor Artifacts per Discipline".
