I've been dealing with software releases for years, in various manners. I have had to deal with thick clients, thin clients, internal releases to employees, software releases to business partner machines, web releases, and more. And while I've had many go smoothly, there are always these variables that can't be accounted for. We even had some issues with Database Weekly awhile back when a Friday release went bad and everyone in the UK was gone by the time I realized that a piece I needed was broken.
I was talking with someone that other day that was trying to coordinate a release of software to update their web site with the announcement of changes. It was amazing how hard it can actually be to get these relatively simple things coordinated.
Actually I think it usually comes down to different people handling different responsibilities and not wanting to allow the other person to make some particular change. That makes some sense since you don't necessarily want the technical person deploying code to make the decisions on which prose needs to appear. And if there are problems (and both situations have problems), I'm not sure you want a development or operations person re-writing text any more than you want the marketing or PR person rewriting code.
Coordinating efforts across departments is hard and I see companies fail to do it all the time. It doesn't seem to matter if they're large or small. Microsoft seems to have as many issues coordinating the actual release of the software from the development teams with the updates to MSDN and TechNet, and then getting some updates to the actual Microsoft.com website. And they have more resources and probably any of us!
I think it comes down to differing priorities that each department has. Often one group is pushing for the changes harder because they have some other event tied to the change, or maybe they just want to move on to another project. I know I've been looking for closure at times and it has made me push hard to get something done.
We need to have good communication with other groups, and that can be hard to do. Emails get lost, or we don't pay attention. We might not remember to check the intranet or wiki, project plans get revised so often that many people stop looking at the details and after the 10th meeting, some people are usually acting like my 7 year old. It's a lot of "yeah," "sure," and "I've got it" being bandied about while the person's attention is elsewhere.
I'm not sure there's a great solution for solving the issues, but my vote is to reduce the amount of meetings and updates for most people and only ask them for critical things, close to the time you need them. There isn't much that's more annoying than being told to "hurry up and wait."
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
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