Software Release Manager: Highly Meticulous Job

The project OVES is expected to have significant code base. It may run into 2 million lines of source code. The code developed fresh for OVES would be a fraction of this. However lot of reuse was expected from existing products. Video Editor and Tools have existed for several years.

• Several releases have happened in the past. Each had their specific set of features, drivers etc.
• Across releases, several features had different functionality
• the features had different behavior depending upon the operating system and segment
• Also some customers wanted customization. The organization created ‘base platform’ and ‘customer project’ code base to keep these simpler. Also defined customization practices to streamline these
• Fixes to defects. Some of the defects which showed up in specific customer releases were traced to ‘base platform’ code. Fixing these would trigger testing of all the dependent projects.

The software versions were well controlled in clearcase. Now the organization is thinking about moving to SVN which is free of license cost, but has less functionality.

Overall, managing the release of software has become very complex. The program manager has started screaming again, to allocate a Release Manager.

This time, the top management decides that a senior member tool group be assigned as release manager. This way, they could stay within project budget. Tools being the most complex stuff from release management point of view, it would address most of the risks.

Any thoughts on the job of release manager? What should be the experience level ? The challenges faced as release manager? How is this role as long term career ?