Change Management and Release Management are different but related functions within organizations. At a high level, Change activities relate to the process of requesting changes, assessing changes, authorizing changes and reviewing changes. Release activities include planning, designing, configuration, rollout planning, testing communication and deployment. The Release Management function provides the schedule and execution whilst the Change Approval Board authorizes the change to controlled environments.
IT Change Management is primarily concerned with transitioning new initiatives and procedural adjustments from development into operations. The objective of change management is to standardize methods and procedures for efficient and prompt handling of all changes in order to minimize the impact of change-related incidents upon service quality, and consequently improve the day-to-day operations of the organization.
IT Change Management is the process that governs and introduces changes to configuration items (CIs) within the configuration management database (CMDB) that are part of the organizations live production environment or other environments under change control. Typically IT Operations are accountable for operating and protecting production and staging environments through change control. This accountability often stops with production environments.
Release Management (RM) is primarily concerned with the flow of changes through various pre-production environments culminating in successfully deployment into the production IT environment in the least disruptive manner. It groups a series of changes into a collection known as a release, which is based on defined common characteristics of the changes. Release management makes the change management process more proactive and predictable and is essential to manage the volume of interdependent change within an organization.
Release management makes the change management process more proactive and predictable and is essential to manage the volume of interdependent change within an organization.
Pre-production environments like development, system testing, integration testing, performance testing and user acceptance testing, fall outside the formal change management controls of IT Operations. Given the velocity at which these environments change during build and test an appropriate balance needs to be found between agility, flexibility and control.
These pre-production environments are normally managed according to the approach selected by the Project Manager or Release Manager. Although Project Managers sometimes perform this function they are generally more concerned with high-level aspects of the project rather than the technical day-to-day aspects.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies rely heavily on technology and software applications to operate efficiently. This makes release management and change management critical disciplines for delivering and maintaining IT services
Though the terms sound similar, release management and change management refer to distinct processes with different objectives. Understanding the key differences is crucial for IT leaders and professionals.
In this comprehensive guide, we will compare release management vs change management across various parameters to develop clarity on these two concepts.
What is Release Management?
Release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a software build through different stages and environments until it is released into production
The goals of release management include
- Planning release schedules and scope
- Ensuring adequate testing before releases
- Managing changes and updates to releases
- Coordinating with different teams on release activities
- Deploying releases into production environments
- Documenting release details for stakeholders
Some key activities in release management:
- Assembling release components
- Testing readiness of release for deployment
- Building release packages
- Defining rollback procedures
- Training end-users on new releases
- Monitoring releases post-deployment
Overall, the focus is on safely developing, testing and rolling out a software release through its lifecycle until handoff to operations.
What is Change Management?
Change management refers to the process of controlling and approving changes made to a product or system. The primary goal is minimizing the impact of changes to IT services.
Some key activities in change management:
- Evaluating change requests
- Assessing impact of proposed changes
- Reviewing, approving or rejecting changes
- Scheduling approved changes into releases
- Testing changes before implementation
- Documenting details of changes
- Monitoring change implementation
The change management process aims to standardize methods and procedures around changes to ensure stability, availability and quality of IT services.
Key Differences Between Release Management and Change Management
| Parameter | Release Management | Change Management |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Deliver new releases | Control changes |
| Scope | Applies to full releases | Applies to individual changes |
| Frequency | Scheduled releases | Changes can be ongoing |
| Deployment | Deploys releases | Doesn’t directly deploy changes |
| Impact | Higher impact on operations | Lower impact on operations |
| Planning | Release planning critical | Change planning important |
| Testing | End-to-end testing | Testing focused on changes |
Looking at the table above, we can clearly see release management and change management have distinct purposes, scopes and approaches. Now let’s dive deeper into how they differ.
Release Management Involves Full Releases, Change Management Handles Individual Changes
Release management deals with preparing, building and rolling out a full release that may contain multiple features, fixes or enhancements bundled together. Change management looks at a singular proposed change to an existing system.
For example, an e-commerce company may group together a brand new checkout feature, UI enhancements and bug fixes into Release 2.0. This full release would go through the release management process.
On the other hand, if a developer needs to make an urgent 1-line config change to fix transaction errors, just this change would be subject to the change management process.
Change Management is Ongoing, Releases are More Scheduled
Changes can be requested at any time to address defects, problems or improvement needs. The change management process must support quick turnaround of changes.
Releases are more sequential and scheduled since they contain multiple changes bundled together. There is more coordination involved in planning and rolling out releases.
Releases Have Higher Impact on Operations
A new software release represents a major transition for operations teams. It means new features, interfaces, dependencies and more that they must support.
Individual changes have a relatively lower impact on operations. Of course, some complex changes may still affect operations, but not to the extent of a full release.
Release Planning is Crucial, Change Planning is Key
Comprehensive release planning is critical for release management. Planning involves defining the release timeline, features, testing, training, rollback plans, etc.
For a single change, the planning may be lighter but still important to assess the impact, timing, test approach, etc.
Releases Require Rigorous Testing, Changes Need Targeted Testing
New software releases need extensive testing across the entire system, old and new functionality, UI, integrations, etc. Thorough regression testing is key.
Changes should ideally be tested as well, but testing can be more focused on functionality related to the specific change rather than the full system.
ITIL Framework Best Practices
Many IT organizations implement release management and change management based on best practices within the ITIL framework:
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ITIL Release Management – Covers release planning, building, testing, deployment, support processes to deliver new functionality.
-
ITIL Change Management – Focuses on standardized methods and procedures for handling changes to IT services.
The ITIL framework provides well-defined processes, terminology, flows and integration points between change, release and other service management processes.
Organizational Change Management Perspective
“Change management” is also used in the context of organizational change management (OCM):
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Organizational Change – Structural, cultural, technological changes within an organization.
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Organizational Change Management – Systematic approaches to help organizations adapt to change, minimizing risk and disruption.
The focus here is on the human side of change – preparing stakeholders, addressing resistance, training employees, communicating changes, boosting adoption, etc.
Key Benefits of Release Management and Change Management
Benefits of release management
- Delivers new functionality to market faster
- Reduces business disruption from releases
- Improves release quality and stability
- Increases efficiency through standardization
- Better coordination between teams
Benefits of change management
- Minimizes business impact of changes
- Improves agility and responsiveness
- Reduces risk of failed changes
- Increases transparency around changes
- Better alignment between IT and business
Best Practices for Leveraging Release Management and Change Management
Here are some tips to leverage these two processes successfully:
- Maintain separate processes for handling releases vs changes
- Schedule releases after appropriate changes are bundled and tested
- Integrate release management and change management workflows
- Leverage ITIL best practices where they fit your needs
- Assign clear ownership for release and change processes
- Automate release and change ticketing, tracking, approval workflows
- Analyze release and change metrics to improve over time
Release management and change management play indispensable yet distinct roles in IT service management. Release management ushers valuable new functionality to users. Change management protects services by controlling changes.
Understanding the differences in objectives, scope, activities and impact is key to implementing robust IT governance. Both disciplines provide immense benefits when applied effectively across the IT landscape.
Change Management vs Release Management, Visually
The starkest differences between change management and release management stem from the fact that, while the former resides on the strategic level, the latter resides on the operational level. So, while change management is more of a gatekeeper, or an authorization process—since one of its goals is to protect the production environment—release management is more of a doer. In other words, it’s the implementation process, the one that gets things done.
The following table summarizes, in a visual way, the main differences between these two related processes.
Change ManagementRelease Management
Ensures the production environment is protected while assessing the release plan
Builds, tests, and deploys the changes
Consists of activities that happen before and after deployment
Consists of deploy activities
Consists of an authorization process
Consists of an implementation process
Not every change causes a release
A release can involve from one to several changes
Lives on the Strategic level
Lives on the Operational level
Adopts Post Implementation Review processes
Uses version control tools
Plutora provides a cloud based Release Management tool that enables you to plan, execute and coordinate releases across complex interdependent applications. Plutora also allows you to manage environments allocation to phases within a release, providing better visibility and control for efficient environment utilization.
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ITIL Change Management vs Release Management | Freshservice brings integrity, ensures minimum risk
What is the difference between release and change management?
Common changes that companies make include: While release and change management often complement each other, there are several key differences between these two management techniques. Review this list of differences to help you understand more about each concept: Change management focuses on quality control.
What is release management?
Release management is a discipline within software development dedicated to managing and releasing new software versions: It may also entail other responsibilities, such as communications with stakeholders and users. Release management is an IT function and is included within the ITIL framework. However, not all businesses follow this framework.
What is ITIL change management & release management?
ITIL Change management – “It is the quality control process that sets the stage ready by assessing, planning and getting the right approvals for deployment of one or multiple changes and this ensures minimal disruption to live environment”. ITIL Release management – “It takes care of the actual “doing” of deploying approved changes.
What are release management and change management strategies?
Many companies use release management and change management strategies to implement change or develop software products for their organization. Project managers, software developers and other leadership professionals develop these strategies to help them achieve company goals in alignment with sales or performance strategies.
