[IxDA Discuss] the release cycle

[Loredana Crisan]

Hi Dave,

We're building a cross-platform application that allows you to build  
a smart podcast playlist (self-updating) and listen to it either on  
our site, or over the voice channel of your mobile phone.
We build in weekly iterations, but find that even very small fixes,  
such as changes the size of our podcast thumbnails get pushed off for  
weeks because of a rigid QA release cycle.

What we're building is pretty new - to us and the public - so we need  
to be able to respond really fast to feedback from our users.  
Unfortunately right now we can't, and bug fixes get mixed up with new  
features, creating this "soup" of releasable items in QA land.

I've seen other start-up companies build things and release them the  
same day... so I wonder where the best (or just better) solution lies.

Loredana



On May 1, 2008, at 12:14 PM, Dave Meeker wrote:

> loredana,
>
> That's an interesting question. I think the answer is much harder than
> you'd think. It really depends on the approach a team takes towards a
> project, what the client goals are in terms of "getting to market",
> and what the specific project entails. I see a lot of teams working in
> a very iterative manner these days.... and doing so removes the
> waterfall/linear "design  -->develop-->test-->deploy" process,
> replacing it for something that is more circular, requiring
> involvement of all parties throughout the project.
>
> If you could give the list more info on what type of thing you are
> building, it might be helpful and allow folks to give you a better
> response.
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Loredana Crisan  
> <loredana at lexy.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>  This question is a little outside the scope of IxD but is closely
>>  related to one of our goals: getting our work in front of real  
>> people.
>>
>>  What I'm interested to know is - in the web world, how do your
>>  companies approach new releases?
>>  How much time is spent on QA, and how often do you release improved
>>  versions of your product - be it fixes, or new features?
>>  What's your release criteria?
>>
>>  I know this tends to be different for different types of  
>> companies...
>>  but would love to hear what works for you.
>>
>>  Loredana
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It
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