Workflow Detail: Manage
Baselines & Releases
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The purpose of this workflow detail is to to ensure that consistent sets of related or dependent artifacts can be identified as part of a "baseline" for various purposes such as the identification of release candidates, product versions, artifact maturity or completeness. |
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Description
The frequency and formality in which baselines are created are described in the CM Plan. The degree of formality is clearly much higher for a product being released to a customer than for executable releases within the internal project team. When the combined set of artifacts reach certain stages or levels of maturity, baselines are created to assist managing availability for release, reuse and so forth.
Related Information
This section provides links to additional information related to this workflow detail.
Timing
Typically this work starts in Elaboration, though it is most prevalent in the Construction and Transition phases. In some cases there may be value in baselining Inception artifacts, but this is not the general case. Multiple baselines may be created and managed within a single iteration and may happen at any stage during the iteration.
Optionality
As a general rule, this work is optional if an executable release does not need to be externally delivered outside the core development team.
How to Staff
This work is primarily driven by the Configuration Manager role, where the typical need is to be able to assemble a product for release. The released product requires a Bill of Materials (BOM) that serves as a complete checklist of what is to be delivered to the customer. The released product will inevitably require release notes and training material as described in the Deployment activities.
The Integrator role contributes to this work by ensuring that artifacts delivered from the developer workspaces are integrated such that they can be incorporated into a independently testable build. The person playing the Integrator role needs to be familiar with Project CM Policies and Test Practices.
Work Guidelines
See the Related Information section for additional guidance that will help you in performing this work.
