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Product Release Process

Figure 32 shows the stages in the product release process.

Figure 32. Stages in the Product Release Process

The product release process includes the following stages:

• Stage 1. Product Marketing begins the release cycle by defining product features, entering those features in Siebel Field Service, determining the features to implement, and developing marketing requirements documents (MRDs).
• Stage 2. Engineering builds the features. Engineering defines the tasks required to implement the features, builds the features, and uses Siebel Field Service to track task completion.
• Stage 3. Quality Assurance (QA) defines test plans to test the new features, and uses Release Manager to track the test plan development. QA then tests the features by executing the test plans in various operating environments, and records the details of each test iteration.
• Stage 4. Technical Publications documents each feature in the appropriate publication and uses Release Manager to track document development status.

Stage 1 (Product Marketing), Stage 2 (Engineering), Stage 3 (Quality Assurance), and Stage 4 (Technical Publications) lead toward the final stage, Ship. In practice, these stages are not rigidly sequential. At any point in the release development cycle, activities for several of the stages can overlap when teams pursue goals simultaneously.