Narrowing a Release Decision

Release Decision - What criteria should we use?

• End users - who are they, how global is the release?
• Upgrades v. updates - what are we gaining?
  • Security issues - are people vulnerable, is this critical?
  • Costs of not upgrading/patching?
• Product end-of-life/longevity?
• How much control do we have over the software release process?  MIT v. Vendor
• Downstream Effects and Implications of decision on various groups: Help Desk and DITR, Security, Pubs and Training.
  • Workload, resources, costs for each group.
• External dependencies on a product - laws, regulations, features, functionality
• Estimated Cost - people, equipment, licensing, support, on-time-cost of setup, cost of NOT doing it, cost of not getting involved (i.e. Mathmatica)?
• Alignment with IS&T priorities and mission
• Value v. Cost
• Availability of resources
• Scope of release - just documentation, software licensing, deployment vehicle?
  • What is the granularity of the decision?

Type of Decisions

• Small Scope (i.e. Acrobat Reader)
  • Single platform
  • Time to complete - 40 person hours or less
  • Decision can be made and managed mostly within SWRT Team
• Mediums Scope (i.e. VirusScan)
  • Project, multiple people
  • Multiple platforms involved -  1 month of calendar time
  • Resources from CSS
  • May have to use a few resources outside of SWRT
• Large Scope (i.e. TSM, Apple Mail, MS Office)
  • Large project with multiple people
  • Resources outside of CSS are critical
• Very Large Scope (i.e. Operating System)
  • IS&T as a department is involved 
    | Scope
    | Decision Maker
    | Examples
    | Time
    |

    Small	Platform Coordinator	Acrobat Reader	~40 hours
    Medium	SWRT Leader/Team	Virus Scan	~1 month
    Large	CSS Director	TSM, Filemaker Pro	1+ months
    Very Large	IS&T VP Staff	Operating System	2+ months