agile Enterprise Release Management V1.1

Simply releasing software does not suffice in business-critical highly integrated environments where ICT Service is more than just offering an App.

Enterprise Release Management (ERM) is an emerging multi-disciplinary governance framework for holistically managing enterprise change and transformation. While ERM has its roots in the software and IT management, it attempts to consider change impacts across the people, process and technology dimensions of the enterprise.

Just as traditional release management packages changes together for execution and delivery, so an enterprise release is a mechanism for integrating and managing multiple, independent programs and projects that impact the enterprise. ERM takes an end-to-end life cycle perspective addressing the (strategic) planning, execution and delivery of an organization’s entire change portfolio, even though in reality it is often confined to the latter integration, test and implementation stages of delivery.

While related to the familiar releases of a single project, or product, an enterprise release consolidates and integrates the deliverables of multiple projects (or more generally, change initiatives) that have to be time-boxed or synchronised so they can be tested and released as a whole. By stressing the need for a cohesive release architecture, ERM aims to supplement portfolio prioritization with greater design governance that serves to improve productivity and reduce change disruption by executing related features together.