Rolling out a new major release often requires all participating parties to work on a weekend. Of course this isn’t very desirable and not very popular with all involved.

Here are the top 3 things you should take care of to make it a good experience for  everybody.

Preparation

Preparation is crucial! You must keep the workload for the weekend to an absolute minimum by doing everything in advance that you can. Nobody wants to come to work for things he could’ve done during the week before.

Another things to prepare is to organise all required people to be there. Nothing would be more disappointing than going home with the mission not accomplished only because some guy wasn’t called to action who is the only one to perform a certain task.

Timing

Premature rollouts exist. If your preparation isn’t sufficient or you lack some required people you should reschedule. If your team doesn’t feel confident to be successful you should reschedule. If there are still some big unknowns you should reschedule.

I’ve seen bad timing often accompanied by high pressure and only rarely these rollouts have been successful.

Motivation

The people doing the extra work like to know that their doing is appreciated which is sadly often forgotten by project managers and clients. Even if you can not do anything to help it is a welcome sign of appreciation when you pop in to say hi to ask how it’s going and if you can help. Bring food and sweets. These guys are doing it for you.

Fortunately I am part of a working team. Project managers and developers all pulling together.

Releases

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