Every software release has the inherent risk of downtime. However, even minutes of system unavailability can cost your organization millions. The average cost of downtime has reached $5,600 per minute (with some enterprises facing losses of up to $1 million per hour). Still, many development teams navigate releases without a comprehensive checklist, risking not just downtime but also their reputation and customer trust.
Modern software releases can be complicated, and that means you’ll need more than just good intentions and skilled developers. Releasing software successfully requires a systematic approach that coordinates development teams, operations teams, and stakeholders while accounting for every teeny-tiny detail. This is where a well-structured release management checklist becomes non-negotiable.
Below, we'll walk through everything you need to create (and use) an effective release management checklist that minimizes downtime risks, specifically:
- How to create a release plan that aligns all stakeholders and sets clear success metrics
- Must-have steps for quality assurance—from unit testing to performance testing
- Strategies for implementing rollback plans and contingency measures
- Best practices for streamlining your release process through automation and DevOps integration
- Post-release validation steps that guarantee long-term application stability
Whether you're part of a small agile team or managing enterprise-scale deployments, this release management checklist will help you turn chaotic releases into predictable, reliable operations.
Why you need a release management checklist
This is a safe space. We can admit that many teams (maybe even yours) rely on outdated tribal knowledge and informal processes to manage releases. Once upon a time, that might have cut it. Now, with increased complexity and consumer expectations, you need an approach that’s far less risky.
Without a comprehensive release management checklist, teams face:
- Missed critical pre-deployment steps leading to preventable outages
- Poor coordination between development teams and operations teams
- Inconsistent communication with stakeholders about release timing and impact
- Inability to quickly identify and resolve issues when (not if) they arise
- Lengthy recovery times when rollbacks become necessary
- Incomplete testing cycles due to rushed or overlooked steps
These potential issues don't just impact your technical operations. They directly affect your bottom line through lost revenue, damaged customer trust, and decreased team productivity.
Fortunately, a test checklist can alleviate most of these problems to guarantee:
- Every successful release follows a consistent, proven process
- All stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities
- Critical safety checks are never skipped
- Communication flows smoothly between teams
- Quality assurance steps are thoroughly completed
- Rollback procedures are always ready
The need for modern release management checklists
Any checklist is a step in the right direction, but traditional checklists alone aren’t quite enough. Your modern release management approach needs to combine the reliability of structured processes with the flexibility of progressive delivery approaches.
The most reliable release management strategies incorporate feature management platforms (like LaunchDarkly) to add additional layers of control and safety. This approach allows your teams to:
- Decouple code deployments from feature releases, reducing deployment risk
- Implement progressive rollouts to catch issues before they affect all users
- Use feature flags as emergency switches to instantly disable problematic features
- Target releases to specific user segments for controlled testing
- Maintain deployment velocity while improving release safety
- Gather real-time feedback on feature performance before full rollouts
For example, rather than releasing a new feature to all users simultaneously (and risking system-wide issues), teams can use feature flags to gradually roll out changes to 1%, 5%, 20%, and finally 100% of users—catching any problems early when they're easier and less costly to fix.
Complete release management checklist
We've organized this checklist into distinct phases that mirror the software delivery lifecycle. Each phase builds upon the previous one, creating a systematic approach to releases that combines traditional best practices with modern feature management.
Treat this checklist as a living document. Customize it based on your product management or project management needs, technology stack, and organizational requirements.
Pre-release planning phase
This is where you align stakeholders, define success criteria, and establish the guardrails that will keep your release on track. Time spent here can prevent costly issues down the line.
1. Define release scope and objectives
- Document all features and changes included in the release
- Create clear user stories and acceptance criteria
- Identify dependencies between features
- Set specific success metrics for the release
- Define release timeline and key milestones
2. Risk assessment and mitigation
- Conduct impact analysis for all planned changes
- Identify potential failure points and system bottlenecks
- Create feature flags in LaunchDarkly for high-risk features
- Document rollback procedures for each major change
- Assess capacity requirements and scaling needs
3. Stakeholder alignment
- Identify all stakeholders impacted by the release
- Create communication plan for each stakeholder group
- Schedule necessary review and approval meetings
- Document sign-off requirements and responsibilities
- Establish escalation paths for critical issues
4. Resource planning
- Confirm availability of key team members during release window
- Schedule on-call support coverage
- Reserve necessary infrastructure resources
- Verify access permissions for all involved parties
- Prepare backup staffing and contingency plan
5. Feature management setup
- Configure feature flag environments for the release
- Set up feature flag targeting rules
- Define progressive rollout percentages
- Create flag triggers for automatic rollbacks
- Document feature flag dependencies
Development and testing phase
The development and testing phase is where your team builds and validates the changes planned for release. This phase focuses on double-checking code quality, system stability, and proper functionality before any changes reach production.
6. Code development and review
- Implement feature flags for all new features
- Complete code reviews for all changes
- Verify coding standards compliance
- Update technical documentation
- Review and update API documentation
7. Testing preparation
- Create test plans for all new features
- Update automated test suites
- Prepare test data and environments
- Configure monitoring for new features
8. Quality assurance
- Complete unit testing with acceptable coverage
- Perform integration testing across systems
- Execute performance testing under expected load
- Conduct security testing and vulnerability scans
- Run accessibility testing where applicable
9. Feature validation
- Test all feature flag configurations
- Verify progressive rollout functionality
- Test rollback procedures for each feature
- Validate monitoring and alerting
10. Environment verification
- Validate staging environment matches production
- Verify all third-party integrations
- Test backup and recovery procedures
- Confirm monitoring systems are properly configured
Release preparation phase
This phase bridges the gap between testing and actual deployment. It's your final opportunity to verify that everything is in place for a smooth release.
11. Release documentation
- Finalize detailed release notes
- Create user-facing documentation updates
- Document all configuration changes
- Update support team knowledge base
- Prepare internal release briefing
12. Deployment planning
- Create step-by-step deployment plan
- Schedule release window with all stakeholders
- Verify maintenance window communications
- Prepare release announcement communications
13. Rollback preparation
- Verify backup systems are current
- Test rollback procedures for all changes
- Configure feature flag kill switches
- Document recovery procedures
- Set up automated rollback triggers
14. Team readiness
- Brief all team members on their roles
- Verify on-call schedule coverage
- Test emergency communication channels
- Review incident response procedures
15. Pre-flight checks
- Verify all approvals are in place
- Confirm system health metrics
- Validate monitoring system readiness
- Review progressive delivery settings
Release execution phase
This is the actual deployment of your changes to production. Feature flags will help you control the release and roll back anything if complications arise.
16. Pre-deployment checks
- Verify production environment health
- Confirm all team members are available
- Review current system metrics
- Check for any active incidents
17. Deployment execution
- Begin progressive rollout via feature flags
- Monitor initial user segment impact
- Execute database changes if required
- Deploy code changes
18. Initial validation
- Check error rates and system metrics
- Verify feature flag states
- Test critical user experience paths
19. Progressive rollout
- Start with 1% user base via LaunchDarkly
- Monitor key performance indicators
- Gradually increase rollout percentage
- Check user feedback and error rates
- Verify system stability at each stage
20. Full release
- Complete rollout to all users
- Verify all features are working
- Send release notifications
- Update status pages
Post-release phase
This phase focuses on monitoring, validation, and collecting feedback to confirm the release's success and identify any needed adjustments.
21. Immediate monitoring
- Track error rates and performance metrics
- Monitor user feedback and support tickets
- Verify system stability
22. Validation and testing
- Execute post-deployment test suite
- Check data integrity
- Validate backup systems
- Review logging and monitoring data
23. User impact assessment
- Analyze user engagement metrics
- Check support ticket trends
- Monitor feature adoption rates
- Track performance against success metrics
24. Documentation and cleanup
- Update system documentation
- Archive new release notes and logs
- Clean up temporary resources
- Update runbooks if needed
- Document lessons learned
25. Release retrospective
- Schedule team retrospective meeting
- Review release metrics and KPIs
- Document what worked well
- Identify areas for improvement
- Update release checklist for future releases
Nail your software releases with LaunchDarkly
Using a release management checklist is an excellent way to ensure consistent, reliable software development and releases. However, your releases will only be as reliable as your processes—and that’s where LaunchDarkly can help. LaunchDarkly enables you to:
- Deploy code with confidence using progressive rollouts that limit risk exposure
- Maintain instant kill switches for immediate incident response
- Target specific user segments for controlled feature testing
- Gather real-time feedback on feature performance before full rollouts
- Streamline collaboration between development and operations teams
86% of LaunchDarkly customers recover from software incidents in a day or less, compared to 59% of non-customers. This isn't just about avoiding downtime—it's about fundamentally improving how you deliver software.
Ready to ship faster and with more confidence? Start your free trial of LaunchDarkly today and see how feature management can make your releases safer, faster, and more reliable.
